Socialist Challenge No. 150, 5 June 1980
The scan: sc-n150-jun-05-1980.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive)
Uncorrected machine reading of the whole issue. This text was read by machine (Apple Vision OCR) from the scan and has not been corrected or cut into articles. Each page gives the headlines first, then the columns in order, so one article runs on into the next. Expect misread words. Use it to find things; quote from the scan.
Page 1 scan of this page
Socialist Challenge PAY THE NURSES!
PEANUTS! That's what Thatcher wants to give the nurses. While inflation is raging at 22 per cent, the Tories are offering nurses just 14 per cent - a wage cut of 8 percent.
This scrooge attitude shows just what Thatcher's priorities are. Since the Tories were elected just over a year ago, Thatcher's friends have received huge wage increases; the police, the army, the bosses-of public corporations, well-healed doctors - they're all in the money with the Tories.
But not so the nurses, teachers, and other public sector workers - they're on the rough end of Tory Britain.
Huge increases in taxes and prices have forced up the rate of inflation. But over the past year much of this has been grabbed back by pay increases.
Now the Tories are running scared. Their plans to make workers pay for the crisis are in trouble. So they intend to crack down on wages by making the public sector pay.
The first victims are the nurses and the Scottish teachers, who are already taking strike action. Next month it will be local government workers.
The nurses are on the brink of taking strike action. But many nurses are understandably reluctant to go that far. More than any other group of workers, the nurses need the solidarity of the rest of the labour movement.
In 1974 Yorkshire miners and other groups of workers went on strike to support the nurses. That's the kind of action that we need again. To support the nurses is not just to support a worthy cause, but to win the first battle on pay in the public sector many.
Kick
Out the
LorieS
- the first of
12.00
Socialist Challenge says:
No Cruise missiles!
Britain out of NATO! Demonstrate Saturday 22 June,
Assemble Belvedere Road, South Bank March to Hyde Park for 3pm rally.
Called by the Labour Party.
No.150 5 June1980 20p
Thatcher's
values
-14%
for them
the cops
I won't die for Thatcher * SIOP • CRUISE MISSILES
COMING SHORTLY: just the badge to wear and sell in thi build-up Sine June demo. 20p plus 10p p&p. OF make money for vour loca campaign/organisation ordering 20 Lor at a bulk discount rate of 15p pe Daure Dost "tree. All orders must be pre-paid to Hackne Socialist Education Group c/o PO Box 50, London N:
LAM.
Page 2 scan of this page
For unilateral nuclear disarmament
Workers pay for Thatchers victory
EDITORIAL
OUR POLICIES
C'apitalism is in crisis. The leaders of the Labour Party and the trade unions offer solutions that are in the interests not of the workers but of the capitalist class.
Socialist Challenge believes that the two vital tasks revolutionary socialists are:
• To build broad-based class struggle tendencies in opposition
class-collaborationism in the
These should be non-exclusive grouping together militants holding a wide range of political views.
• To begin to fight for the creation unified democratic revolutionary socialist organisation which can, through an application united front lactics, begin lo be seen as an alternative thousands workers engaged in struggles.
Such an organisation should be based on the understanding that:
The struggle for seeks in unite the fight of workers against the with that of other oppressed layers of society - women, black people. gays struggling liberation. This socialism can only be achiered by creating new organs of power and defeating with necessary means the power of the capitalist state.
Our socialism
•than what exists in Britain today. with full rights for political parties and currents that do not lake up arms against the socialist state. The Stalinist models
'socialism' the LSSR and Eastern Europe have discredited socialism in the eyes of millions of workers throughout the world. We are opposed to them and will offer full support to fighting for socialist democracy.
& ratists at Capidin The interests of workers and
on a world scale. Capitalism has not only created market. has created politics. Thus we fight for working class unit! scale. his units will in the long run be decisive in defeating both the imperialist regimes in the West and the brutal dictatorships they sustain in Lann America. and Asia.
In Britain it implies demanding the British troops from Ireland and letting the Irish people determine their own future.
The Communist parties in Furope are in crisis. the the pro-Moscow wings have any meaningful strategy for
werthrow of the capitalist state. ten resolutionary socialist parties are more necessary
before. Conditions today more avourahle than over the preceding three decades. But such
only be parties lan rejecting sectarianism and seeing internal democracy not as a luxury hut as a vital necessity. This means the right to organise factions and
If you agree with these principles
and want lo be involved
activities he Socialist Challenge upporters in your area, fill in the
form below and send it to us.
am inferested
information about activities in my
ЗГ(1 • Tunuld lihe additional literature
and enclose sop lo corer costs.
Velere if not applicable)
home.
deleirens
AT Labour's
creasing
David
COLTONEY character,
The US,
and ed.
of
socialisil Thatcher's
bosses
their By Tessa van Gelderen
all those
company's proposal.
Bob Seers,
world world
international
depots. They
Hackney.
Africa
of around the Greenwich area.
Neither
the
Never are
built hy
organisation was kept intact.
in
WOrKIOICE more dancies do not take place. the way and th
one-day conference Callaghan went out of his way to attack the in-
number of party members calling for nuclear disarmament by Britain.
Owen, Labour's former secretary, devoted his speech to an all-out attack on those who wanted Britain to get rid of its nuclear arsenal. Owen's speech was couched in cold-war terms; for him, and for the party's right wing, the West has to be armed against Soviet aggression'. But the reality of the world situation is very different from the picture painted by Owen.
The danger of nuclear war stems from the increasingly aggressive posture of the United States.
with the construction of its new 'Rapid Deployment Force', is reorganising its forces to be able to make a rapid strike at any of the world's 'hot spots' where America's interests are threaten-
The lead in the frightening escalation of the arms race is being taken by the United States. It is the US, not the Soviet Union, which has deployed
THE Tory press is waxing lyrical about Margaret
re-negotiating annual payments to the Common Market. Under
of this agreement Britain will pay something like £900m less to EEC funds over the next year. The controversy over payments to the Market stems from the increasing conflict between member states in a period of economic crisis. British capitalism eras forced to accept Coch, In order to get into the Common mọn Agricultural Policy in exchange for equal access to European markets for manufactured goods. But under the terms of the agricultural policy small, inefficient farmers are subsidised in
BOC Sackings Threat
NOT one person will go out the gate - that was the response of British Oxygen workers at Hackney depot to management's notice of 28 redundancies. on Wednesday of last week voted unanimously to reject the
prepared to discuss with management in any way until they withdrew the threat to close the acetylene department. A 'failure to agree' was noted and now the real battle begins.
British Oxygen claim that it is necessary to close the acetylene department for financial reasons. They produce all sorts of weird and wonderful figures to prove that Hackney depot is less 'cost-effective' than other (management's nice word for getting the push) throughout this all part of the Oxygen and that it would cost too much to update equipment at
The Hackney workers aren't really convinced by these arguments. There are already discussions taking place at a national level on BOC's "streamlining' plans — so why announce this closure separately? There is no shortage of customers at Hackney (who supply local needs and also
In fact, customers are being turned away every day at Hackney because there are not enough cylinders — the company won't invest in the depot. The acetylene would still be needed in the area, and it would have to come all the way from Cardiff; hardly a money-saving operation.
Hackney depot is is going to fight these proposals. Around Hackney, jobs are fast disappearing, first at Lesneys, now at Ford. They know that the defence of jobs must be a united fight; that is why the Hackney TGWU branch is supporting a mass lobby of this year's TUC Congress in Brighton demanding 'No to unemployment — for a 35-hour week now', 'Fight to kick out the Tories'.
The threat of redundancies also lurked behind the proposal to divide installation engineers between 'industrial' and 'medical'.
If that had been allowed to go through, undoubtedly with weaker union organisation, a number of them would have been given their cards.
Last week Southern Region depots affected by the engineers dispute, in particular Wembley and Greenwich, won arf important victory when management agreed to keep things as they were, and the workers'
Installation engineers had been suspended, other workers were locked out, and others refused to cross the picket line forcing the whole place to shut down. Management caved in and has even agreed to pay them at least two days' wages lost during the dispute.
This Sunday, 8 June, shop stewards from the southern region are meeting to discuss both the closure threat at Hackney and the installation engineers' dispute. It is almost certain that they will support the Hackney workers' fight and take it up nationally throughout the whole BOC
This would be a major first step towards ensuring that these redun-
Failure to stop the Hackney management's redundancy plans would not only mean a defeat for Hackney workers but it would allow management to impose its national 'streamlining' proposals with a vengeance.
Some of these proposals make interesting reading: it is normal for a company to dangle a carrot of redundancy pay to entice workers to go. but BOČ have gone a step further. They are proposing to give some of the money saved through sackings to those workers who would be doing the jobs of those made redundant — a one-off payment of £214 gross for selling your co-worker's job.
But Hackney workers will not be bought off. They intend to fighi all
James
US which is developing the spending untold millions of dollars foreign
against the Soviet Union
assistant in this
nuclear disarmament by Britain.
probably the majorit!,
Britain, but to America's interests then, that everyone except the West Germans. The site meeting
Transport Union district official, was not
general 'streamlining'
British pport them
Cruise and Pershing missiles in Europe. It is the
bomb and on the MX missile system. And it is the United States which has refused to ratify the Salt 2 agreement for arms reduction and which is generating the war frenzy
Margaret Thatcher is Carter's most willing
missile-rattling operation. Her government is the most jingoistic and militaristic for decades. But there is an irony in discussion of
A huge number of nuclear weapons in Britain,
controlled by United States. They are not for the 'defence' of
attack the Soviet Union are threatened. The United States controls ten of the RAF's largest airfields. Both the nuclear weapons at these airfields and the Cruise missiles to be sited in Britain will be under direct US control. Britain is becoming one of the chief outposts of American militarism; the US's
order to keep food prices at a reasonably even level throughout the market. Britain's efficient farming meant that British capitalism was effectively sub sidising small farmers in Italy and France.
In a period of relative affluence, the British Treasury might have considered this a price worth paying. But today, with a massive deficit on public spending, this has become a nonsense. Britain i one of the poorest nations in the EEC — in th same league as bankrupt Italy, not the same league as West Germany and France. It seemed absurd
Britain should be paying more than
But this conflict highlights one of the fun-
death on 14 May of Dai Coity Davies, aged 63, compensation secretary South Wales Socialist Challenge
thur Cook in the Ken Loach TV series its about the 1920s, Days of Hope.
1955 became secretary, death. security legislation (he recently helped organise a conference on the Tory measures), health both inside and outside the mining industry. fought hard for
who suffered from pneumoconiosis and other mining diseases; he was also the national Fightback, the workers organisation, chaired the Fightback conference.
The tremendous amount of work which he put in to the South Wales Health Cuts Committee is an indicaton of his great dedication to the fight for socialism. Sp mcctings, , 00 г.00
Union.
getting out of the Us war alliance
against nuclear weapons —
missiles and NATO as well.
The first steps
the a massive turnout for the nuclear demonstration in
*The
Park for a 3pm rally. has • sabotaged moves reason for hating Margaret Thatcher.
Dai Coity Davies
The labour movement in South Wales health authorities, writing reports and was shattered to learn of the sudden providing ideas, Dai was an inspira-
tion to many.
Miners. Many readers remember him for his portrayal of Ar- movement would only be defeated by
present
Dai spent his entire life in the min- of the Welsh and British TUCs to ing industry, firstly as an undergound organise the fight against redundanworker then as a full-time official. He cies in was elected to the Area Executive in refusal of the right wing of the NUM
compensation to aid the South Wales miners. He a post he held until his was. always Dai was an expert on social itiatives
as well as the field of Will
Miners' President,
compensation to be paid to miners stressing the leadership that he had
movement for so long. committee of Dai national health and recently
cerned about
Leaking at public the
'aircraft carrier' from which to attack the Soviet
Working people have no interest in a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. To disarm means getting rid of US bases, the Cruise missiles, American bombers, Polaris bases — the lot. And that means
- NATO. At Labour's conference Callaghan declared himself
but then who isn't? To fight the war danger means to be against the Cruise
towards re-establishing massive campaign against imperialist militarism
. LaDOll London on 22 June.
Socialist Challenge urges all its readers to get their trade union branches, Labour Party branches or other political organisations to send delegations.
assembles Belvedere Rd., South Bank, to march to Hyde damental features of captialist economic crisis — that each national capitalism will try to solve its problems at the expense of the others. It is this, rather than any political shortsightedness, which
towards monetary and political unity in West Europe and left the ardent Europeans like Jenkins and Heath high and dry.
It is the European working class that will pay the bill for letting the British Treasury off the hook. Part of the package deal is that food prices will go up by 5 per cent throughout the Market. Every European worker will now have a material
Photo: PAUL HIGHFIELD (Socialist Challenge)
He helped link the health cuts fight to"the steel and coal closures,
may and said recently that the labour
leaderships. WaN tremendously worried by the failure
South Wales, and
willing to support insuch as the south Wales Youth Unemployment March which would help to organise the fightback. Pavnter. veteran of the hunger marches and ex-South Wales paid a glowing adequate tribute to Dai at his packed funeral,
provided in the South Wales labour
was a .member of the Communist Party until he resigned six years ago, and had a great respect for the far left. But he was seriously con OuT divisions and fragmentation. The best tribute that
Try socialis
Page 3 scan of this page
PEACE JOBS
By Ray Varnes, Vice chairperson, London Divisional Council, NUPE THE annual conference of the National Union of Employees last week saw the consolidation of opposition to the do-little policies of the leadership.
The 1979 conference had been an extremely tame aftair. a reflection of the bloody nose which the most militant shop stewards had received
tne previous VILEI "winter of discontent'.
This year's conference revealed that militancy is alive major debates NUPE general secretary Alan Fisher was opposed by a substantial minonu, acspie ms iel llagc.
gains the adviminf h backedive,
delegates overwhelmingly
detence hoy supported a resolution defence workplace; and iey gave loud applause
to calls ior sale legal adornon, altnougl
resolution was taken on that LSEC
conference aISO Rank and File Code of Practice against the Employment Bill
These resolutions showed the impact on delegates of campaigns outside the
Heffer was clearly responding to the complaints o canneelI council leader Ted Knight other delegates that the National Executive Committee's conference statement Peace, Jobs Freedom gave 'no clear call to end this Tory Governmenl Derorc ILs natural period of office'
In fact Heffer admitted, in a
ide swipe at the media, 'far from
he NEC being too left, we are.: cused by most speakers including trade union leaders of being too moderate'.
And this was indeed the tone of the onegic. Speaker speaker — although often ritually endorsing the NEC statement went on to criticise its deficiencies: on disarmament, on race,
Ireland, and on the need to act now to get rid of the Tory Government.
Socialism
need an exta word
Socialism', said Ron
Monmouth CLP pointing
planorm banner Freedom'. 'South r calc Jous aill
steelworkers have been attacked by
ments...I won't stamp the streets
for a Labour government like the
one. we are oenne sold out
right now over redundancies at
and Port Talbot', did so a
steelworkers stood outside in the
lobbying for action to save
their jobs.
Callaghan's opening
was received quietly and politely on as.c amid demagogic
tacks LOne. Ie ae• LO
breathe life into the corpse of pay
policy and pleaded for the Tories to
ing those who believed that what
cannot be won in Parliament can be
secured by overthrowing the rule of
Rougher
But Dennis Healey and David
Owen got a rougher ride.
CHIE LO UIC LUsti Ull cries
"Out, Ohe wich-hunt nis
the against the
Atlail met
widespread derision.
HOMENEWS/LABOUR PARTY
Publie
combatitive
was most clearly demonstrated.
First, on economic policy. during the hard ting job LIC resolution schoolkeepers'
O HICKSVe
banks, insurance
backed forms of nucleai OUL LIC IOrS che s opposie nn of fisher ates opposition ecutive. sute
Party to adopt the endossee lue naiave ccononc saecw.
the rates
favour the
Peace, Jobs,Freedom...
BUT WHAT
ABOUT THE
SOCIALISM?
'WE must mobilise to bring this government down before its term of office is up', proclaimed Labour Party chairman Eric Heffer winding up the morning session of Labour's special one-day conference at Wembley last Saturday.
• Conference chair Lena Jaeger had. to call for order several times and dowi David Owens attach on the delegates TUMOUSY
• 101 Cruise missiles from Britain. only way to get "peace" with the Soviet nerolalc from a position of strength , claimed Owen. Theme crai therale s. S te kee ves of several delegates. Sue Hertford CLP attacked both Tory after and Labour governments for being from at the
wales
The
speech
at-
David O i attacked the NEC's ca Cruise
the fall guys for an and Orti. hese! island' Mike Davis of 1 South demanded from the NATO Wa acte
Hes oy
Mick Martin from ridiculed Owen's absurd an t.. way LO I-l.i swith arras was by pounds on buying more of them'.
union. But it was on the three central debates that the polarisation in the union
Confron- ICONOl and the cuts requires a response to the Tories' economic strategy. LaDUu
from JAMA strategy branch argued in favour DOOSLH public spending financed by the nationalisation of the
companies and finance Hoiso aue ua Lus boso-uve was vll feasible within the framework of an all-out fight leading to a general strike to kick to
minimum
This resolution won the support of a
against Fisher exauce La d HOTC realistic view was to fight for the Labour
Labour left's alterand for public spending to be financed by increases in demands
The vote was around 400 to 100 in
executive, but the Stole!
removàl
was to Union
It was Davis and Martin who also highlighted omission from the NEC statement.
Reeves pecte le srilancul solous oo position to Sovict intervention in Afghanistan' and respect for the rights of all peoples and nations to self determination, there was not a word about reland — агансану avaca a Шау occupied by Britain. Ireland "What is our policy on Ireland.
In fact wher OCCAS IEtelevision news was forced to admit
chatse for ance speake from ahe
Poor e hen ae called for an end to bene o the Labour Party's
Pot mii wilTorawal, anda ndi
military withdrawal, and for the reunification of Ireland.
Put the warmest reccotion of al was given to a woman councillor from Edinburgh explained that if the Tories allowed to last their full term then in four left to fight for'.
But despite the tion for of the day DICtee
moyal of Brit
Action
spending millions of mited trade Party action against the Tories was
Opposition crystallises
at NUPE conference
remarkable fact was that the idea of a
general strike was seriously debated and
not dismissed as a flight of fancy. orgayised
now
throughout the membership on
alternative left's
clearer picture of the opposition to
the policies pursued by the Fisher leader
shim emereone ososso wac
Delegates discussed a resolution from
Camden general branch and others, mov.
ca dy Jonn suddady, calng tor tue amon
fight for a fixed figure of an wasi this autumn,
with the demand for 35 hours. and a recall
conference if the claim was not achieved.
Despite being Shis resoluti was deca led opposed
Alan Fisher,
by only ,suo voles olt a snow or carus,
around half the delegates present were op-
posed to the executive's view that thes
were 'unrealistic"
likelihood of a wages standstill in the
public sector, the executive's opposition
to setting firm targets can be taken as a
another glaring party
"universal Worded bulla-up to tne conrercuce.
There was
are we even going to among delegates Curaca wars The
of the Tories
of the parts bi-partisan openly rejected If the Tories their full term
movement who passionately from mass i of and attacks on years there could be nothing
GOC TILAOI Tony Benn's summary at guarantee of being clected.
La speech wel to the Icit be argued
longer an option to Out alism останіс party All the ed bi fox and Labour drive them carliest opportunity.
to DIC CHOLIVC possibility of a bitter fight against new pay norms.
The final major debate, on rules revithe sion, dealt with economic secretarv should be elected for a lour-year period rather than appointed for an definite period by thé executive, as is thi
This debate was influenced by the long discussion the democracy in the Labour Party. went 4-1 in favour of the executive's position of appointing the general secretary and the on y delerates who were prepared to vote tor a more acmoctanc suucuut were those who saw the need for different policies and a different Ieadership.
Just as in the Labour Party. the fighi for democracy is not an abstract issue, but is intimately related to the fight for class struggle policies.
One conclusion that has to be drawn from the conference is that in the context of the economic crisis every demand for increased spending and better wages in the simply a talking shop used by the eenHe Na eRoto sua
manoeuvres against Callaghan and the right wing.
No amendments or alternatives to the NEC statement were allow en Anetie skienenaresyorca
that even Callaghan
clearly mood that fight against the Tories was needed now.
The left leadership's cosy scenario
doing their recruiting them while it captures contro
alternative programme needs to b ana ponsacs up copies of a 16
Vladimir Derer, are able to run Касс, until 1984 then the scale of the defeat that the labour ing
coulo have suffered unemployment, the Nals trade could well sow such deep divisions and demoralisation in the working
sive and angan from office at
Lo OoL a yc
For opposition
The head off the
crisis, I a motion that the general import
and the like
on militants will . The vote
ment is elected.
militant
Tories.
PEACE JOBS-FREEDOM
Major campaign
launched on Labour
Party democracy
IN an important move to organise mass support for the Isft's proposals to democratise the Labour Party, a 'Rank i ener lye to endosc al inha , and file Mobilising Committee' supported by 7 campaigning bodies in the Labour Party was launched at a packed lunchtime fringe meeting at the special one-day conference.
an effort to 'defend anc years Labour Party confereace planning a series of 1
te Tory Gares
Socialist Challenge
public sector is political.
There is no solution to the problems of public sector workers which doesn't begin
on the running of the whole economy. Simple wages , millanc,
to the cuts which doesn't propose how social expenditure is to be financed is a non-starter.
NUPE executive's document, "Prosnects for Britain'. Duts forward pro posals on how to solve the economic
repeating the Labour left's arguments for more public expenditure
controls, planning agreements,
Unless socialists argue for an overall political alternative, of the kind proposed in the ILEA schoolkeepers' resolution,
begin toe onl abour s Labour's strategy while the NUPE leadership wants to keep a low profile until a new Labour governDani opposition bedr oy ment a
opposition emerge in NUPE. effectively lead forward the fight for class struggle policies this opposition needs to be armed with socialist polcies and the means of struggle to put them into effect
a general strike to bring down the
ratie gains mon at last the lead up to this ced thoasaads of acade: Tony Bern, e, Frances Morrell, Reg Bob Wright. abour Victory, the Mobilis for Labomr Party Cadblications, Institute for miller, zad the Nationa es to affiliate hare bees
t thand carn defent both lae Tonin
:1960
Page 4 scan of this page
Ford bosses plan big job cuts
HOMENEWS
FORD UK can hardly be called 'unproductive' as car companies go year it made record profits of £387m. Despite this it has just announced that one in five jobs are to go in the foundry plant and in excess of 800 jobs are threatened in the engine Plant at Dagenham.
Despite high profits in Britain, Ford, as a multinational company, still investment in new machinery to keep abreast of the cut-throat competition in today's falling international car market.
The Erika, Ford's first world car, has meant millions of pounds have equipping River Rouge in Detroit. Two new plants are being built in Portugal and West Germany.
In America, Ford has lost $1,045 billion in the last nine months and hopes to recoup its losses by boosting its
But above all Ford wants to drive down manning (sic) levels in order to cut costs and gain the widest possible markets for its goods.
Trade union leaders in Ford, who have called for "protect' the British car industry, have fallen flat on their face.
In Dagenham, assembly plant stewards led a campaign against a reduction of overtime on the basis that Cortinas being built in Genk, Belgium, could be built in Britain. When Genk production ceased in May so did overtime in the Dagenham assembly plant!
Stan Williams, for Ford UK, has not minced his words about sackings in the foundry plant. clear alternatives: massive maintain production levels; reduction to minor operations; or total closure.
By Colin Talbot, POEU (Westminster Branch)
THE Post Office Engineering Union is run by a rightwing clique known as the Bloc. This was founded in 1948 as a fighting organisation of the right to combat a strong challenge from Communist Party and its supporters for control the union.
After defeating the CP, the Bloc consolidated its position by constitutiona changes which made it easier for its electoral machine to maintan il grip, and since 1948 it has met secretly determine should go on to the national executive council and to circulate anti-communist rumours and gossip.
In 1978 the Bloc was still firmly in control of the union apparatus, but its members were divorced from the feelings and moods of the rank and file and completely misestimated
week. Reg
Every engineer knew that the modernisation programme that was in the offing would mean a reduction in the number of jobs; they also knew that TONI Office Telecommunications was a highly profitable concern.
This awareness produced a determination to fight for the 35-hour which management and union leaders completely by surprise.
The campaign of industrial action, limited though it was, demonstrated the power of the engineers; so much so that the delegation of barkers and delegation of bankers stock-brokers to persuade the government to settle to avoid the growing paralysis of telecommunications.
The executive was not happy with this sort of action and did nothing to build it. In fact it appears that it never started negotiations for the demand of 35 hours, and the 37½
last needs massive
been spent те-
ycals аво
sales in Asia-Pacific
The on foreigr Cos to
work load.
director of manufacturing
He has three
reinvestment to the
of
who the strong sentiment behind the fight with the British trade union movement and was demand for a reduced working forced out by the miners strike of. 1974.
to help her.
hour deal that was finally accepted was based on a 'nil-cost' (speed-up) basis.
To make matters worse, the executive agreed to LOOK
bargaining over the implementation of the working week with the result that engineers are now working every concervable combination of 7½-hour days, 9-day fortnights, three weeks.
The real leadership in the dispute was a new generation of militants that has emerged in une branches. Together some long-standing activists they formed core organised the day-to-day running of the dispute, especially in even
Lic lllel cily altas.
The POEU has a unique
tain, with the new Bridgend engine plant coming and the loss of the North American market for Fiesta, engine plant will be left producing only one car engine, the Cortina. workers will not be enough to tide Ford UK
Supervisory and office staff unions have warned that Ford Detroit could reduce the role of Dagenham to 'assembly work and related marginal activities'. Paul Rootes, head of Ford UK, has refused to give guarantees of the future of the engine plant — a total workforce of 6,000 is at stake!
Only one meeting has been held to discuss. the future of the engine plant — that was two
The Ford Workers Group (the Combine), organisation of shop-floor militants, cluding Big Flame, Socialist Challenge and Socialist Worker supporters, is campaigning to protect jobs by calling for the available work to be shared with wages made up from the 80 per cent lay off agreement. combine wants talks between unions and management over their proposals for a supposedly shorter working week to end. The company wants to remove night production and introduce bell to bell working without shortening the hours worked at all.
This will do nothing to alleviate the effects of unemployment. Its aim is to increase the
Ford is a multinational company. Managers of each national company work together to play off Ford UK against workers in other European and American plants. Co-operation in the face of an international recession is vital. The European Ford Workers' Combine meets in June to build such co-operation.
TED Heath, Tory Prime Minister from 1970-74, lost the . this time around.
Margaret Thatcher, the present Tory Prime Minister, is waging a new battle to 'curb' union power — but with trade union leaders like Frank Chapple and Terry Duffy
The Tory press is also very much on her side and, with unemployment rising and five years of hard Labour' fresh in people's minds, militants in the trade unions are beginning to realise that the battle will be much harder
SULLIC unions. Its geographical branches actually 'work-places, local structured telephone areas. The POEU's stewards, branch reps, are linked into this structure in what is potentially very system of organisation. and 14 day The activists in the branches were able to show just what could be done through a variety of tactics that would have been impossible in with out strike action, management which was on the run. The executive's sell-out outragid the rank and file and convinced a layer of militants that the union had to be changed.
FORD PLANTS IN
EUROPE
Manufacturing or Assembly plants
formerty considered
ANISIN
LTH
ONS
BUZBY'S BROAD LEFT
Heath. industrial
correspond to the management-
equivalent. of shop
powerful telecommunications
monopoly;
democracy, dated delegates, other officers.
supporters members of
Spain
Organising in the Unions is a new column that will be looking at the kind of alliances that are needed in the unions today to ensure that Thatcher goes the way of Ted
Below, COLIN TALBOT, a member of the Post Office Engineering Union, describes the background to the formation of a new, united rank-and-file organisation in his union and describes some of the problems that will have to be tackled in transforming his union into an effective weapon against the Tories.
The Broad Left (BL) held Group. its founding conference in October 1978 and adopted a sixpoint programme. This included: free collective bargaining; 35-hour week with worksharing and no loss of pay; nationalisa tion of the private sector of the
industry, and defence of the Post Office
opening of the books; greater state investment journal, in telecommunications; union greeted with
including and elected of 5,000 -union
The political tendencies at the conference included leftwing Labour Party members, Broad
of the Militant, the Communist terence Party, Socialist Workers Party, and the International Marxist
France word, ween.
clear
more
group
being
Many non-aligned attended and genuine consensus was formed mass about the need for a united, active movement against the file. right in the union. BL
One of the first steps of the Broad Left was to 'go public' through the publication of a there.
Spark. This was enthusiasm activists — it has a circulation
- and alarm by the leadership. Supporters of the Bloc were forced to respond to the open policy of the
Left, and delegates arriving for the 1979 union con-
were handed leaflets from Mainstream — The Voice of the Silent Majority.. NUT.
MILES 300
KM 300 Germany
Ford
Silent was the operative
BL firmly established itself at the con. ference winning seven out of the 23 places on the executive. At the rules revision conference in November 1979 further gains were chalked up and the left pushed through some impor-
constitutional changes walch al least started democratise the union.
But there are still problems for the Broad Left. Despite Spark's promising reception, the BL has a long way to go to gain a mass base within the
and functioning groups are few and far betLoser
The BL does not have a
enough policy on number or important Issue facing the union and the process of clarification is made
difficult by the BL's tendency to work exclusively by consensus. While this spirit of give-and-take is vital lor a
that embraces shades of it paralyse decision making.
There are clear differences of opinion within the BL. Some are reluctant to see it go beyond
aett version of thi Bloc's election machine, based mainly on branch and regiona officers.
Others, including the SWP and Socialist Challenge supporters, are arguing for a consistent approach to building
left wing in the unior firmly rooted in the rank and
That means building up with open and democratic structures and above all BL groups which give a lead in their areas.
The potential is certainly
The 35-hour campaign showed that it takes workers to Keep Buzby on the air and that keeping him flying is vital to British capitalism. The POEU can carry on being a puppet ol the management or it can show that loveable old Buzby has got claws after all. * Next week Kathy Underwood writes on the history of the left in the main teachers union, the
Page 5 scan of this page
Steel jobs: 'Now is the time to fight'
THE WOUNDED DRAGON
WALES
'THE negotiations nothing short of a farce.
The union side should have walked out and refused to take part.
But the die was cast last year when the management offered the their trade union committees Llanwern and Port Talbot four op-
smile
softer option and took should nave said we don't accept any of your options'.
Although the workers Llanwern have accented redundan. by the relie i hans. the pot of
trade unions. The pot gold mey nave taken 1s only cepted to soften the blow.
The lack democracy Lanwern has been diabolical. We now have to division By Paul Highfield IT'S over 50 years discovered that Wales had a regional problem'. King Coal and the metal industries were rapidly declining and not being replaced by new industry. Unemployment was very high.
There have been attempts to remedy the situation.
Pontypridd was built in the 1930s with small light engineering factories and textiles.
But has anything really changed in those 50 years? Or have the needs of capitalism and government inaction created a totally distorted economy and a vulnerable working class?
could have no reason to be thankful for their almost total dependence on steel for employ-
Table 1
Employment in the Ebbw Vale
Employment Exchange Area -
June 1973
Primary sector of which BSC Construction Services Total 13,500 Source: Dept of Employment, BSC (Industries) Ltd.
Compared with a UK average of 3.5 in every 10 people working in all manufacturing, 5.5 in 10 working in services (health, education, local and centrai goverment, banking and insurance and so on), in Ebbw Vale in 1973 a staggering 6.5 in 10 workers worked directly for the British Steel Corporation and only 2 in 10 in services. Only I in 4 workers were women.
In this situation it was no surprise that male unemployment in Ebbw Vale rose by 209 per cent between March 1974 and March 1976 during the rundown of the steelworks. Now, three years after the closure of the heavy end of the steel works, 1500 steelworkers are still on the dole; and still only 3 in 10 work in services.
Ebbw Vale — with terrible health facilities, appalling housing, freight lines, but then they make a profit — at the moment) and poor roads — is not unique in Wales. The whole OI Glamorgan, West Glamorgan and Clywd are over-dependent on metal manufacturing and coal.
Bleeding
Powys and Dyfed are greatly dependent on agriculture (over 15 per cent of Powys' workers he ease. than 3 per cent). South dependent on services — Cardiff, for example, was deliberately built up as the financial, commercial, educational, administrative and so on centre of Wales. learn that 7 in every 10 people working in South Glamorgan work in these fields have to commute up to 40 miles a day from the Merthyr, Rhymney search of a job. those valleys long since.
These figures jobs disintegration of many tightly-knit valley communities, bleeding to death in the most painful.
Hand in hand with industrial decay and high unemployment go a higher death rate, a housing stock that is the worst in Britain, low
Socialist Challenge
were agreeacagainst the present union officials who are responsible for what has happened.
To do this we have to have since economists The Treforest Industrial Estate near
yale, Employees No. rercentage 700 9,200 69 6,/4/ 65
600 3,000 22 100
and transport.
Table 2 no rail station (there are
Gwent, plus Mid Table 3 the British average is less
Glamorgan is over-
Hence it is not surprising. to
and many
and Rhondda valleys in The jobs disappeared from
Table 4 mask the slow
toilet)
Wales
5 June 1980 Page 5
THIS week, union leaders in Llanwern follow Port Talbot counter-parts in selling 3,800 in jobs. Only the Llanwern NUB is left to sign the BSC 'slimline' agreement, but this is only a formality.
Supporters of the Llanwern bulletin Steel Sheet are determined to oppose this sell-out and lay plans for future restistance. Beginning with a lobby of the special one-day Labour conference on 31 May, they will pull this opposition together at a meeting called
organisation. I'm not just talking OI organising on long term issues but the fight now. If we don't fight slimline, then we have lost the next spending on school buildings, books and so on, a far higher use of inadequate NHS facilities and a very great dependence on terrible public
Selected Causes of Death 1975 (Rates per 100,000 population)
Source: weish Since
Unfit houses per 1,000 population, 1976 Population Unfit houses ner e
3122
Proportion of dwellings with exclusive use of three basic amenities (hot water, fixed
Great Britain
Wales.
I'm not with Ford, Sony, tronics
had dozens of pits, Maerdy
248 • 165 Table 5
Total cost, produced BSC, Port Talbot
materialised)
BP Chemicals, Barry
bath, indoor Milford Haven Ford, Bridgend
Dow Corning, Barry Percentage 82.1 DuPort, Llanelli Alphasted, Newport
77.5 69:1 Total
for 4 June. From this meeting they hope to oppose slimline and job loss, and to campaign for national trade union and Labour Party action to save jobs in
Here RAY HILL, TASS representative on the Llanwern strike committee and secretary of the Monmouth Labour Party, tells Socialist Challenge why the 4 June meeting has been called.
battle on jobs before it starts.
Now is the time to fight. lave great faith in the minority. The pessimistic because I
The two big industrial estates at Bridgend, light engineering and elec lactories. Have creedo
overall to cope with this rapid decline.
again, workers have to travel many miles from
their valley ghettoes. The Rhondda, which once
now has only two left.and Ty-Mawr and Ty-Mawr
under threat of closure.
The f48 million chicken feed that the Tories
are giving us will only go to benent smal
capitalist enterprise, as the Tories seek to pro-
tect their support in Wales
There is new investment by the big com-
panies, but as Table 5 shows, that is for the
benefit of profits, not for jobs.
Industrial job creation in Wales,
1977-1980, big projects millions Permanent jobs
835
(projected, never actually
33
350 180
70 £1,506
mood can change quickly. The majority can be swung back the other
people are seen to be fighting back
have doubled steel production, workforce!
for only 2,500 jobs!
1982.
Many worse
The announced that Port rather than quickly.
Failure
support. with the
trol, as we've discovered
spending increases
new jobs
And Germany and Australia.
into the capitalists'
French steelworkers,
present problems make one bit of difference.
Strategy
into action without a violent push.
- 1,000 Wales Youth Campaign
Nil
200
2,500
-600 let this happen again. Nil unemployed, 850
1,900
and prepared to lead a battle.
A minority has to organise itself what I'm talking about is an alternative leadership • LIC DCOOK will look to us when their need is great and they need a lead That is what we are trying to do with the 4 June meeung Some of us have been trying to isolate the right inside the Labou Party — if vou like. we are organis ing a minority there too. Trade unions must become political well - tey are too snallow at the moment We must also thrash out the realignment of the left. There is too much fragmentation at the moment and the only ones wno will gain arc those who are getting fat off our COrOSCS.
We have to get together to -strengthen our organisation and preparation.
It is rather sick that only two years ago BSC was planning to spend a staggering f835m a Port Talbot steelworks - this huge sum would
but cut the
Ford was given a £70m donation to 'help' it set up its operation at Bridgend - not cheap
The latest round of job cuts in steel, accor ding to a Bangor University study, will push unemployment on Deeside up to well over 20 per cent, in Port Talbot to over 12 per cent, in Wales as a whole to a massive 150,000 plus b
This is assuming there are no furthe spending cuts and that the recession doesn't get
The Wales TUC and the Labour Party have done precisely nothing to fight for the policies • Wales needs, and have betrayed our interests. George Wright, general secretary of the Wales TUC, was being somewhat hypocritical when
: Talbot steelworkers have no right to sell the jobs of their community. Wright did precisely zero to give support to the steelworkers during the strike. Moreover, he's said time and again that we must accept a change and that some redundancies are inevitable. His strategy is to lose jobs slowly,
Port Talbot and Llanwern steel unions have now given in on the fight for jobs - they were left isolated without broad labour movement
The Labour Party has certainly not put up a fight. We are still suffering from the failure of those leaders to fight for real socialist policies
There are no magic solutions to the pro blems of Wales. But for a start we could figh for contre! over the economy, hand in hand
international workers'
Nationalisation is no use without workers' con-
A reduction in the working week to 35 hours, with no loss of pay, and massive public
on housing, health and education, would instantly create thousands of jobs. New. investment in steel, coal and other manufacturıng would then be for our benefit Welsh coal and steel should be subsidised, as in
The call for import controls plays straight
hands - it just doesn't tackle the question of who controls production. Until workers control production themselves BSC will continue to sack Welsh steelworkers, the French government will continue to sack
women textile workers will still get the sack, all to pay for capitalism's
import controls wil no
It's time that the TUC acted for our benefit and committed itself to the fight against job loss. It could win the support of rail, dock and steelworkers throughout Britain to this strug gle. But the TUC will have to be forced to fight
- past experience shows that it will not move
A conference to discuss how to fight for jobs in South Wales was suggested by the South
Against Unemployment. here is a crving need for such a conference to work out what strategy to adopt
One thing is certain: if the miners are left to fight pit closures on their own, just like the steelworkers they will lose. We can't afford to
Welsh youth, women, must: give notice George Wright, Len Murray, Bill Sirs and the rest that we simply will not allow it to happen again.
Page 6 scan of this page
LICENSEI
HOME NEWS
AMANDA Leon first met Blair Peach through Rank and File Teacher, a grouping of left-wing teachers in the NUT.
*Blair was active in the East London _teachers'. association, and was President of the associa-: tion in 1978,' Amanda says. 'He was also involved in anti-racist organisations in East London. He saw the need for unionists to link up with the wider issues that affected community in which he taught.'
Blair decided to join Socialist Workers Party in 1976 and he was a very active socialist
Amanda was with Blair on 23 April last year, the day National Front decided to spread its racist propaganda in prccommanny Asian communi ty in Southall. Blair, Amanda, and others were leaving comter-acmonstranon cauca Dy the Anti Nazi League when they were attacked by the police.
'If you kill me that's murder. If I kill you, it's simply a matter of preserving law and order.'
Special Constable to demonstrator at the Chartist rally on Kensington Common in 1848
"The group of demonstrators in which Blair had been standing was cordoned off at both ends. When the police removed their back cordon we decided to leave the demo and we turned up a side street called Beechcroft Avenue.
'As we were walking along this road the police charged from
first. charge policemen on foot with shields and truncheons. The se-
charge HANU Transit vans moving very fast through the demonstrators, followed by policemen on foot with shields and truncheons:
"Blair received his fatal injury when SPG men from the Transit vans got out at the corner of Orchard and Beecherott Avenues and started attacking demonstrators who were only trying to go home? *... the worst of all crimes is the furtherance of political or industrial aims by violence'
Sir Robert Mark, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, 1972-77
The inquest into acan, winch took place in a lilly room at Hammersmith coroners'
produced a verdict week of "death by misadventure'. Amanda explains how the jury in the inquest came to this conclusion.
'An inquest is not like an ordinary designed to establish the circumstances death rather than whether a person is gulity or innocent, identity of the person who killed
Socialist Challenge 5 June 1980 Page 6
trade
the
the
the
the
the riot The coroner has a great
deal of power in an inquest. police The lawyers are not allowed
to sum up but the coroner is. 'Juries at a coroners' court are selected by the Coroners Officer, who doesn't have to be, but usually is a police officer, seconded from the local police force.'
The jury in Blair Peach's inquest did not come from the Southall area. white. The coroner had access to information that was not available to Blair's lawyers. 'Both the police and the coroner had access to the Cass report, which took the police Blair's constructed dialogue
discrepancy in the evidence of the SPG. last After driving
carrying SPG Unit 1,
number '1' on the map.
of
the SPG driver, had another story
How Blair was murdered
pile. jury prevented from report, Amanda explains.
Yon, hempiled his list of
Burton, aute report. 'Had we known who the people mentioned in the WCIC might have decided to ask the coroner to call them. Instead, They were all unless we third party that someone had evident to Cass, we had no way of using their evidence.
LIn one case, where we did find out that someone had
What was PC Raymond White up
to in Southall?
ITV's London Programme last Friday re-
from the Blair Peach inquest. It revealed an interesting and unexplained
through the crowd, the van led by Inspector Alan Murray, parked on the corner of Beechcroft Avenue and Orchard Avenue - marked by the
This is exactly where Blair received the fatal Court that a men had been arrested and placed Coroners' in the back of the van. But PC Raymond White,
According to White the van had turned right at the hottom of beechcrof t Avenue into the cul-de-sac end of Orchard Avenue. White had no recollection of a prisoner being put in the
was also suaded the coroner seeing this
saying how
Dr Johr
reading
responsibility
lawyers
LICI knew through justified.
implications back of his van and he was unable to explain why every other officer claimed that the van was in Beechcroft Avenue.
White is the only SPG officer who has been
claimed, or did he get out of his van to strike a demonstrator on the corner of Beechcroft and Orchard avenues?
There is no doubt that the jury, despite the way their verdict was presented in the press, believed that Blair was killed by a member of the SPG.
The coroner told them that the killing of Blair Peach was lawful if he was struck by a policeman who reasonably believed him to be a rioter. such circumstances, declared, the jury would have to bring in a verdiet of death hy misadventure
had used occurring.
thrown. ing
given evident to Cass, we per-
to cal them and they gave evidence,
they had been assaulted by policemen who had hit them on the head.'
Burton's summary made in the no bones about the police's
for Blair Peach's death. But he steered
the police. the jury towards concluding
'Most of his summing up was devoted to explaining the
of a "death by misadyenture' verdict, paying only little attention to an open verdict and unlawful killing.
implied
even Was White sitting in his van as ho
ranks. the coroner
'He told the jury that they had to be satisfied that the police
"reasonable force"; that they believed a riot had been going on and that Blair Peach was one of the rioters.'
But Amanda points out that at no point in the inquest had it been established that a riot was
'There was a limited amount of evidence to suggest that a few objects had been
"What will be the matter of greatest concern to me (in the next 10 to 15 years) will be the covert and ultimately overt attempts to overthrow democracy, to subvert the authority of the state, and, in fact, to involve themselves in acts of sedition designed to destroy our parliamentary system and the democratic government in this country! James Anderton, Chief Constable of Greater Manchester, 16.10.79
'I was with Blair at the time he received his injuries and there definitely wasn't a riot going on, although the police were attack-
everybody in sight. The police's evidence at the inquest did not point towards a riot having occurred
*Except in two cases, the police insisted that they had hit no one and they all agreed that they had seen no other policeman hit anybody.'
Despite the outcome of the inquest, which clearly has not got to the bottom of the police's role
killing of Blair Peach, Amanda believes that the verdict will not have completely satisfied
The jury added two riders to its death by misadventure verdict. First that there should be more liaison between the dinary policy and the Special Patrol Group and that they should be more under the control of their officers. Secondly that no unlawful weapons should be kept in police stations.
'I think the police would have
as. This would have open verdict.
Amanda says.
could nOL be decided who killed Blair Peach. The day following the verdict evenewson expressed disquiet over the role of the police,
though many them thought the police may have been justified in employing the tactics which led to Blair's death.'
The Friends of Blair Peach are not daunted by the verdict of the inquest. Scotland Yard, the so-called upholders of the law, cannot be allowed to get away with harbouring murderers in its
Amanda says that the committee will be continuing to call for a public inquiry, while their
THE Metropo tainly not hea Peach. The 'd ture' verdict court has sati the police we killers while cerned is still
The revela the Sunday T Alan Murray, who resigned tion, confirm and the Soi went to great those in 6 Pa April were ma of truncheons
VALERIE ( Amanda Leon Blair Peach, and GEOFF plumbs the ( third force. lawyers look into the legal plications of the verdict. we also believe that the SI which an élite answerable to no one and ol out of control, should disbanded.'
There is still no answer Who killed Blair Peach?
Legal costs so far are likel exceed f15,000 and the cost running the campaign is high. Donations are urgently quired. Send them to: Friend. Blair Peach Committee, PO 1 353, London NWS.
..if industrial policy follows this course tl next instrument of th Cabinet will be the Special Patrol Group as the problems created by de industrialisation com to be presented to tr public in terms of la and order ... This policy will lead to an inevitable attack on our democratic freedoms.
Tony Benn, during the second reading of the Tories' Industry Bill, 6.11.79
Page 7 scan of this page
TO KILL
Close encounters with the third force
a Police has certhe last of Blair h by misadven-
the coroners' d no one, since dentified as the murderer connamed. ns continue. In is last weekend, SPG inspector r the investigawhat the cops Il magistrates ns to deny: that View Rd on 23 jo run a gauntlet
LTAS spoke to the Friends of
t the inquest,
SHERIDAN hs of Britain's THE shape of things to come? West Germany's riot police
WORDS are wi
The
Similarly the term
of their inhabitants.
have paid a
home be a measure massacre demonstrators reforms were
Strike
low.
Tons. Take the case of rabber bullets, the name of which suggests they are hardly more lethal than arshmallows — although the British Army in the North of Ireland uses them to maim and kill. sounds like a reasonable objective until you've same goes for 'public order', which witnessed the keepers of it in action in a black community, on a picket line, or when they've decided to keep demonstrators in line
'Special Patrol Group' does less than justice to the units set up as Britain's rot control squads, patterned on the third force para-military squads available to defend other Western democracies against the mass
The forgers of law and order in this country
and this helps to plain the role of attention to allocated to the police and how they are being tooled up for the Britain of the 1980s.
The British ruling class learnt early on that using the army to deal with civil disturbances at
— as opposed to the Empire - needed tc of last resort. The Peterloo of 1819, for example, when -20 demanding parliamentary gunned down by troops, still wrankles in working class memories
In the 20th century, the army has rarely been seen in action on the streets of Britain. Troops took over during the 1919 police strike, and they have played a scab role in several strikes since, including, of course, the 1926 General Strike. over power stations, wis re wore s, anid the take
power stations, water works, and the like and they are prepared for nation-wide deployment in the event of anything approximating to a general strike, their profile is kept deliberately
Yet between the automatic Tommy, presently battle hardened in Belfast and Derry to regard almost anyone with an Irish accent as a terrorist, and the Bobby who helps elderly people across the Thatcher's policies they no doubt need all the help they can get), a third force has been subtly mplanted in the constabulary shotgun im trucks with their windows draped in image wire wages ready to crack skulls on a demonstration is somehow foreign. It doesn't happen here, we're led to believe
In fact it does, indicate the strategy that is being employed to maintain the illusion of normality.
Shields
The shields used by police in what they deem to be riot situations, for example, are pleasantly transparent, so that they don't quite look like what they are. The reinforced helmets worn by the SPG are as effective as the steel variety, but only the double chinstrap and the clip-on visor externally distinguish it from the familiar blue dome. And after the experience of Lewisham, when several SPG Transit vans were burnt out, these carriers now have double glazing, plastic sheets behind the windows to ward off bricks and such like
Not that the camouflage will hold out for long; as the Police Review booklet 'Public Order and the Police' puts it: 'Riot shields, strengthened helmets, and goggles are only the beginning; the question of staves and firearms must soon be considered'. It goes on to quote one anonymous officer's solution to riots: spray them - spray them with machine guns. murder of Blair Peach has shown that with of ficial approval or otherwise, these 'elite units' have already equipped themselves with the instruments of murder.
call it that. regular officers.
Uprising
not to turn up for duty.
grafted into neighbourhood filth.
to go on?
Sworn out from repeated use.
rifle-bearing Harvard found that 5
Broad (and with Squads well-helmeted cops riding
military squads,
but the cosmetic differences
the cop-haters similar role,
with is the French caines de Sécurité.
gerating.
All you have to do is
of the SPG following the
In the
proceed with caution.'
It is now 15 years since SPG units were formed in the Metropolitan Police force, and there are now six units totalling 204 officers. Apart from Southall, their exploits have included the Red Lion Square anti-fascist demonstration in '74 where Kevin Gately was killed by the cops, and the Grunwick picket in September "77, where they weighed in with truncheons and boots, and saturation policing in Lambeth, which involved imposing a virtual curfew on black people.
In addition to the Metropolitan Police, a total of 23 regional forces now have SPG-type units, drawn from the uniformed branch and then especially equipped and trained and under an independent chain of command - if you can
But there is more to the 'third force' structure than meets the eye. Phil Kelly of State Research points to the plan for each of the 284 police divi. sions in England and Wales to have what are known as PSUs — police support units. These are made up of cops who receive similar training to the SPG, but remain part of their division as
In the black uprising in Bristol in April, only SPGs and PSUs were called on to put down the disturbance. Ordinary police officers were told
Then there is a further tier of anti-riot police which has just come to light - STUs, , shield trained units. A third of the Metropolitan Police force has so far received this training. Phil Kelly argues that Britain's third force is being carefully
the ranks of your friendly
In the Britain of declining living standards, normal service won't ever be resumed — this side of the revolution. And the models the police have
PC Bint, one of the witnesses at the Blair Peach inquest, told the coroners' court that he had Nazi regalia at home and a night stick given to him by an American cop. The latter had made a present of his long truncheon because it was
The United States, heartland of imperialism, has the distinction of the worst record of police violence in the West. Every year in the 1950s and '60s, more than two hundred citizens were killed by the police. A recent study by James Wilson of
per of blacks (representing 1m people) and 2 per cent of whites (4m people) claimed to have been unjustifiably beaten by police at least once.
Many US police forces now have para-
the prototype of which is the Los Angeles Special Weapons and Tactics unit (SWAT). The philosophy of these units was expressed by one SWAT instructor: 'Those people out there — the radicals, the revolutionaries, and
are damned good at using shotguns, bombs, or setting up ambushes, so we've got to be better at what we do."
West Germany's riot section is known as the Bereitschaftspolizei. You've probably seen them in action on the TV news lately, thumping anti-nuclear demonstrators over the head.
Italy's Guardi di Publicca Sicurezza plays a
although the ordinary cops who throw anarchists out of windows (see Dario Fo's Accidental Death of an Anarchist at the Wyndham Theatre, London) do a pretty good job
Top of the poll for brutal third-force policing
CRS, the Compagnies Republihe students who chanted 'CRS - SS' in May '68 were scarcely exag-
At least in France, the policemen's union has repeatedly criticised the government for using police repression as a substitute for political negotiation. In Britain, the only complaint by the Police Federation has been over the level of injuries sustained by cops during training sessions, and the need for more effective protection.
immortal words of Sir David McNee in his first annual report as Coramissioner of the Met: 'Libertarians should
Socialist Challengo 5 June 1980
Page 8 scan of this page
HERE COMES THE CAVALRY
US Nukes with a built-in fault
By Genff Bell REME EER. Barry Goldwater? He was the US prondential candidate in 1964 who wanted to drop nuclear bombs on North Vietnam.
Well, Barry Goldwater Ronald Reagan for being Reagan is now favourite to be the next president of America. Last week he was assured the nomination of the Republican George Bush, the ex-boss of the CIA, announced he was withdrawing from the race.
Here's more information about Ronald, or 'Dutch' as he is known to his friends.
When asked, he didn't know the the president of France; he favours the death pellaity, he thinks nuclear should be left to private enterprise; he has said that abortion is 'murder" and that he wants it banned 'completely; he is against school bussing for desegregation; and he demanded that the US 'intervene" to save the Shah in Iran. and Somoza in Nicaragua.
All of which suggests that if Reagan really believes what he says then he is a right-wing extremist.
Good
But now for the good news. Reagan is a well known liar. Journalist Simon Winchester has related this story: 'We (Reagan) told me how he s became a nennoei Party, how he had'undergone a metamorphosis from a small-town democrat into a freewheeling lassez-taire Conservative...
'He arrived at Southampton Docks in 1949, a fully paid up member of the Democratic Party. But. "a winter in Mr Attlee's England" convinced him of the "utter wrongheadedness" of socialist policies. a dreadful warning tokus all back home", he declared. A good stor kand, as it later turned our, quile unlruc.
The real story is thee Reagan remained a member of the Democratic Party until 1960; he told Winchester that tale because he thought it might get him some good publicity in Britain.
there Reagan's California, the size of the government grown 75 per cent in eight years (before he took •Hocel. During the ministration, there was virtually no growth at all.'
By Davy Jones THE mushroom cloud from the eruption of Mount St Helens in Washington state may not be the last to envelop the west coast of America if the NUS power industry business.
Less than 50 miles from the gigantic volcanic eruption stands the largest * operang nucicar power plant In tne United States, with an output of 1,300 LuccawalLs,
After extensive campaigns against the Trojan nuclear plant, it was shut down for several because its control building did not meet earthquake standards.
combination eruption and a series of minor earthquakes further south in California has renewed fears of a major nuclear disaster in the area.
The whole west coast of North America is notorious for the interlinking SOUC ot which make it a dangerous earth• quake zone.
Famous
The nost famous is Andreas fault, which caused the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and which scientists predict will strike again in a major way before the end of this cen-
Under public pressure, HeT ORON Ae Ze be plant designs to allow for an earthquake factor. But no plant has yet been built to withstand the major shifting of ground beneath the reactor vessel ikely to result from an earth quake or a volcanic eruption. plants have bad to be canceiled or shut down when anti nuke campaigns
INTERNATIONAL
• hag criticised "trigger-happy'.
• Party when
name of
waste disposal of the Republican "I sav what was happening as
'In SALCICUL had ¡lally.
elght vears oi our aa-
nuclear
remains in
1978
of the volcanic geological faults
the San
some Other
REAGAN
RETURA
RESPECT FOR
AMERICA
The real figures are a growth of 130 per cent
in the previous eight years and 122 per cent during Reagan's eight-year term of office.
Reagan has claimed: 'I was elected governor by a million votes and re-elected by nearly as
In fact although elected by a majority of 993,739 he was re-elected by only 501,057.
There is nothing new in politicians lying through their teeth, but the difference with Reagan is that he does it so badly.
market place.?
er
in
SUCHANAK TREA
His contempt for facts was also shown when he annonced his energy policy: 'There is more oil in this country yet to be found than we have so far used. All we have to do to solve the energy crisis is for the government to get out of the energy industry and turn it loose in the
Even the oil companies said that Reagan was talking a load of rubbish, but that didn't worry him. He insists: 'For many years now we
have obliged the recognise the danger.
Ine Pacific, Gas Company applied in 1958 to build a 340 megawatt plant in Bodega Bay on a site just a tew thousand feet away from the San Andreas fault. Public opposition forced the company to withdraw from this location as well as from its Mendecino site, which is on the same fault line.
More recently, Pacific has completed the construction of two 1,000 megawatt units at Diablo Canyon.
The company's boast that these quake on the San Andreas fault some ulLs would 40 miles away was deflated when two further active faults San Miguelito — were found within a few miles of the site.
Earthquakes and volcanoes not the only reason for alarm at the US Energy Department is now examining the possibility of using rockets to dump nuclear waste in the C.IC of the galaxy around the sun. failure seem smaller than the existing problems with storage dumps.
Dump
The main such dump, at Hanford, Washington — a hundred miles from Mount St Helens, gallons of high level wastes which are so hot that they boil spontaneously and continuously. million gallons of waste have leaked from the dump since 1961, threatening the earth's water table. tion to the problems of nuclear waste disposal. He says should be given the job rather than the public utilities!
YULELD 1n an
Afghanistan.
nick of time and, save How much retoric? Certainly,
financial, Recession
options. But Reagan's policy social spending,
made to pay and pay again.
•cue ualan
And even more scarey. power to begin the world again.'
seriously, product of that militarism.
rebellions abroad and
Reagan to start the last shoot-out.
authorities to
and Electric Socialist
Challenge
says NO CRUISE withstand a massive MISSILES
Hosgri and
The American
outer or in orol The risks of rocket
NEW poster to Labour holds 80 million
Box 50, More than half a
Ronald Reagan has a simple solu-
private enterprise banners.
Socialist Challenge 5 June 1980
have been told there are no simple answers. Well, the truth is that there are simple answers.'
Therein lies Reagan's appeal; the reason he is leading the opinion polls. He has cultivated the image of the simple man, with simple, old. fashioned American values. This, it is believed. could prove a popular image with American
election year of crashed helicopters, Iranian upstarts, and Russians in
Ronald Reagan, like the cavalry in the last reel of one of his old movies, will arrive in the
White Anglo-Saxon
of this is just image and when he was governor of •California, Regan was not nearly as right-wing in office as he had promised he would be.
But the United States in 1980 is not the California of 1966; it is much more crisis ridden at home and abroad, and the fact that Reagan has behind him a vast array of backers from the
academic and defence establishments suggests that this time his words cannot be dismissed as so much election talk.
The economic recession does not leave the American ruling class with a large number of
- massive cuts in reduction of company taxa tion, especially that of the oil companies one of those options, summed up in the view that the American working class will have to be
In convincing the working class that such a sacrifice is necessary, Reagan's 'patriotism' is a convenient weapon. In return for wage cuts and cuts in welfare, Reagan promises the pride of
"We intend to be so strong that no countr will dare lift a finger against us,' he has said.
'We have it in our
Reagan needs to be taken seriously just as the growth of US militarism needs to be taken
and Reagan's rise in popularity is a
The American ruling class is faced with
economic slump at home. Many of the capitalists believe desperate measutes are necessary if their system is to survive. In that context it is not beyond Ronald
The sooner the workers throw out Carter, Reagan, and the rest of the American bosses, and shut down the whole nuclear industry, the safer it will be for humanity.
BRITAIN OUT OF NATO!
Socialist Challenge mobilise for the Party's 22 June demonstration against nuclear weapons. Available from Socialist Challenge PO •London .N1, or ring Alan on 01-359 8288.
Demonstration leaves Belvedere Road, London SE1 at 12 noon. All IMG branches and Socialist Challenge supporters should support with
Page 9 scan of this page
cops of killing a black. ABOUT 3,600 National Guard troops and an equal number of cops have occupied this city's black community.
Some sixteen almost all black, have killed.
About 300 have wounded, about 1,000 seen anece
The only confirmed death of a white in the area. rebellion is a cop who dropped dead of a heart attack. Six cops were reportedly wounded gunfire, none critically. white was dragged from his car, beaten, and then reportedly run over.
People in the area told a black reporter that the man's car was stopped after he and a passenger had fired at people.
Officials confirm thirteen deaths of blacks. They died at the hands of cops and racist killers in civilian garb who sped by the edges of black areas.
Cops killed two black men as suspected "looters'. gunnca cown a Halla Imal they asserted had tried to run over a cop.
Two cops snot a man who approached a National Guard checkpoint on a bicycle supposedly voiced his opinion of the occupiers. proached him and, they say, he lunged at one with a knife. They pumped a half dozen pistol and rifle shells into his body. Witnesses insist they saw no knife.
The Miami authorities ruled within twenty-four hours that the cops had acted department 'deadly guidelines. They were returned to the street.
INTERNATIONAL
The battle of Miami:
the real story
What really happened in Miami, Florida, from 17-21 May? The British press have tried to portray the black rebellion as a racist outbreak, with blacks intent on killing whites, and then killing each other in bizarre rituals. As usual, the media version is far from the truth. Harry Ring of the US socialist paper The Militant gives a graphic account of the Miami rebellion, sparked off by a court decision to acquit four white killed a man allegedly try aro A private security loot a food market. fourteen-year-old black was killed when a white-driven pickup sped by and the driver people, put two bullets in his head. been A thirty-four-year-old man died when another pickup went been by a group of blacks and fired have into the crowd.
Two other black men were seriously wounded when four . of the whites in a pickup raced by and fired at them.
Many people in the comuniby ty are convinced that these One shootings have been by out-ofuniform cops. Savagery The savagery of the police occupiers was indicated Sunday night when city cops assigned to guard a shopping center in the black community systematically vandalized fourteen cars parked there. They slashed tires and upholstery and smashed in painted looter and this ray wind-shields. Then they They the sides of the cars.
The rebellion Saturday 17 May after an all-white Tampa jury freed the cops who murdered McDuffie. The verdict came in at 2.36pm. Youth poured into
and At eight o'clock that night some 7,000 people gathered at the County Justice for a protest demonstration.
The outraged crowd carned placards that declared 'Justice in America is a Damn Lie' 'Where is Justice for the Black Man in America?'
Front the 'Justice' Building people marched to the nearby within Dade County Public force' l resear County cops who murdered McDuffie and many others.
tent on provoking the crowd.
Rose Ogden, Workers Party candidate for US Senate, says she saw several squad cars deliberately through the crowd. Later it was reported that a black girl had her foot run over by a squad car
WilleSse through 'like a bat out of hell'.
glass building.
peared
and attack dogs.
Rebellion
Fires sprawling black community for three nights. On Sunday night alone, officials major fires.
Residents police gunfire.
at white-owned
that the only black businesses that suffered were adjacent to white-owned ones.
Speak, covered half the city of Miami.
bus suspended.
three days.
Many shut down early so their black employees before the curfew.
began on federal - suddenly their tune about quarter of a Arthur who suffer grinding poverty in the midst of opulence.
to assert that he had marched during Building demonstrations of the '60s.
Justice
and denly discovered there is a shortage of justice, jobs, and bous. ing in the black community. He also confided Safety 'We've got Vietnam
there. may enough.'
Police in the area seemed in-
Socialist
drive One
said People smashed in the plate Brutality
window of the police
Squads of SWAT cops ap-
behind. They Washington on charged in with clubs, tear gas, ! went, on the air to assure,
serious
investigated.'
Miami's rebellion was on.
raged through the the
reported 42 ficials say. responded to
The fires were clearly aimed ment
businesses.
All of Miami was affected.
the curfew area community.
service was
Schools were shut down for
businesses had to advising
productive'.
Officials — local, state, and
changed Root this city's million blacks, ship the gaudiest
The governor went on TV
civil rights Afghanistan.'
Olympics, Mayor Maurice Ferre sud-
decided to to reporters: cops, hc Ten thousan 1..et BOI the ocho
At the Dade County Jail in nearby Florida City, prisoners relusca to work and stagca a protest after officials tried to deny them the right/to watch TV coverage of the rebellion.
displayed placard that read Let us support our people outside and improve our conditions inside.'
Attorney Genéral Benjamin Civiletti flew to Miami from
Monday. He 'All allegations involving civil rights and brutality will be
A federal grand jury was scheduled to convene on the 21 May. It will consider indicting
killer-cops under federal Civil Rights Act. Such a process will take weeks, of-
Meanwhile, they hope the promise of a possible indict-
will help cool things down. What they will then do about the killer-cops remains to be seen. The same is true, of pledges of new-found concern for the problems of the black
Major national figures of the civil rights movement also converged here. Former United Nations envoy Andrew Young was shouted down at the community rally when he started
the victims of cop brutality that 'violence is not
Southern Christian Leader-
Conference President, Joseph Lowery, got at some of the root of the matter when he
•President Carter should come to Miami. I think the crisis is in America, not in
Instead of worrying about Afghanistan and Iran and trying to boycott the
be addled, should be boycotting the Klan, racism, and unemployment.'
When the rulers of this area
chancrate the bilier they apparcatly 1 were going to
As of sos, it's
AROUND THE WORLD
France AN estimated 100,000 people joined an anti-nuclear protest in the Breton Atlantic coastal village of Plogoff on 25 May. Since last January Plogoff has been the scene of almost daily demonstrations. A 5,200 megawatt nuclear power station is being built there.
Seventeen nuclear power stations are now in operation in France and 35 others are in the planning or constractio stage. But the mass demonstration was a strong indication of the growing resistance in France to the official nuclea energy programme.
USA
DARIO. Fo and Franca Rame, the Italian actor-writers, were last week denied entry visas to the United States. Fo's Accidental Death of an Anarchist is currently being performed in London's West End.
The trip to the US by Fo and Rame was 'not opportune', according to the American Consul in Milan. The US im. migration authorities had originally approved their applications for visas, but this was countermanded by the State Department. Fo and Rame were due to appear in New York at the first festival of Italian theatre. Germany WITHIN the last two weeks the Soviet Union has completed the withdrawal of an armed division of about 10,000 soldiers and 350 tanks from East Germany.
Western intelligence officials withdrawal at a press conference in Berlin on Saturday.
The next day Jimmy Carter said in an interview on American television that he would never propose any reduction of US troops strength in Europe.
Said Carter: 'We've got about 300,000 American service people in Europe... would not advocate the cutting of those troops at all.'
USA
A personal diary kept by President Harry S Truman during World War II has just been discovered in Indiana. Notable are remarks Truman made about the atomic bomb dropped on Japan.
In one diary entry, Truman seemed to think the bomb was the fulfilment of some biblical prophecy. He wrote: 'We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the fire destruction prophesied im the Euphrates Valley era, after Noah and his fabulons ark.'
In another entry Truman declared: 'Even if the Japs are savages, ruthless, merciless and fanatic, we as the leader of the world for the common welfare cannot drop this terrible bomb on the old capital (Kyoto) or the new (Tokyo)?
So instead he dropped it on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Al least 160,000 people died in the two explosions.
Germany IN A report issued last week, Amnesty International attack. ed the treatment of 'terrorists' in West German prisons.
The human rights organisation said that many of the prisoners were held in solitary or near-solitary confincancel or under close observation in special 'silent wings'.
In 'silent wings' lights are on constantly and almost al noise is blotted out. The West German government declared that it 'rejected' Amnesty's criticism.
China
THE Youth Federation of the People's Republic of Chin hip to couple me meet tongation Bie. a
the eight member resteurant, a dairy farm, a Gloucester printing facaory, e brewery, a North Sea oil rig and Books the chemists
Oh yes, Koal Marx's grave in Highgate cer visited. Accompenying these young 'red guands' througho the manderings were their hosts - the Federation of C native Stadores
This was the view of who announced the delegation
sery was eb
Page 10 scan of this page
8un-10
Jo
элу a8A8das addo
DOTARO- mN
PIO syndad apaspy seM и Vaay Sued pasodap sEM ouM ¡appsaid
Had SI SUO
SHÁTI
э47
aY[fS
MAS WN0r Mg
шлеат
01 pazi8e PN SIL
UMO
алам pue
имор prey
элед wueade
TITAAOFTP
da de
JONE
0(ew aur Io. HOIswab
-eap aa Jac.
Apuanbosqns
АПРОІР ФРА « ПЕНС ОП ПІО 114 086[ an g asa{y {eec
-083 Soddo
po
ah sd a! uog
10] S910A SORW
saray 21744
¡tapsard
JO SuOSSaT
a47 j0 SOSaT
.. IS a418 ÷
Э47 yons
madona CIANIOA
эрел
„one o „on cen 1dua1 CHO DR seare
алет
n1 ЗRTMO da
endep Aue IO uosteM Apnr Ag
S)98u aup sem
Dl: i
SỊLL
Not aBed
E)LAA 088H 0[ •
jo saopaas sapo
SEM э10л S,21IS BE4J ну Эдехаля BuT - past aq prons
PA CIM TOO APTSHOIS SVA 07 7484 t roue
ОМ РІМ ЗАМРІН ФА І КОКНОО vô b ve se
pInos
la porsas Jal TRAA CN CAT
pInoM элец qúe da
Am n0
vnd qốr svqn qố
SILL
aajja
NOTE nuay 01 .
TOW 1
91[ { yAROS
osOn DuD
TAAA ANPIE
000'9*
c v ș
anpun Andap a..
[[as]!
edınbary
Idd
043 ¡uopsu BUORI
ISOW
pue
sanane
su ul Jau l pue
pue sts!! •SayBw ([
Seypny арпри!
!!00
— sanda "Karol иламифт
-dn 8zE
•uo1z
x dà dc dx v
SBA 184) •Andep se aape en !
waypnos
a18/S nnd c
OI SBA ЭJOA 111:
•Ared
0861 9KI
TOOHOS
(vnn d
IOM uopuol
PInq sdea d uaa e poos
anand s8ugaэw (I
Buy z
(E 0100 qb9n e í эд
нувш seydaa SBAA
Up[noэ хом apsan STUB)!!!!
ASOEL
Sundsanp r d vsqua
„qda fo копро
ATA STA Traas spa deord" J0] Buons
а Форалэр (UMO])''• vns vn d (
..........
алеа
Page 11 scan of this page
LETTERS
WHAT'S LEFT
RATES for ads to a IR waul s Lall su CHARTER STOP THE ROT KICK OUT THE RIGHT Conference for Rank and File Engineering Workers Holborn Library Hall, London Saturday 28 June 11am4.30pm Credentials from Jack Robertson, 265a Seven Sisters Rd, Finsbury Park, London N4 GET DELEGATED! • IMG NOTICES
The Tory Press &
How to Fight It Post rat i bet ch the this Socialist Challenge
behind media's assault on the TUC's Day or action. working class can fight for its own voice to be heard
Single p&p), bulk orders 8p a copy pror paid, sale or return) socialist Upper St, London N1.
Rush your order now!
B'ham centre
AUEW Traction. Sat 21 June. Note change of RACTION LEAKERSHIPS agerate. Sun
mal mere nariona centre; secretariat, Sat 28 June, 11am to 3pm, nationa
tre; national fraction, Sat 13 Sept, 1 lam till SCEVENTS Socialism in the Eighties Tour Speakers invited from Labour arty, communist rarty, and ocialist Workers Party 6 June Liverpool Phil Hearse (IMG)
10. June East Landon Phil Hearse (IMG), Ernie Roberts
Ms) amon Tendeter Party)
School, Northwold Rd, E5. 7.30pm
ciceste Stephen Marks (IMG) 16 June Valerie Coultas (IMG), Stuar Briston Toam Hall 7.30pm Holland (Labour 17 June Wolverhampton Steve Potter (IMG)
20 June Cardiff Tariq Ali (IMG)
01-359 8180 with detaiis of Phone Socialist Challen venue and other speakers if not included in this list John May RED DRY OUT
Or Socialist Challe Last ye alised 925
• he hope ince and double his target this Park oh. tasted on 31 May. Rush sponsors Swindon, Wilto
Socialist Challenge Bar-b-cue Dancing, games, music 8pm, Saturday 7 June 5 St Mary's Rd, London NW10
21 (75p unwaged)
norses, cannoce LONDON SC You bave any Plothes, boods.
31095 you no one relines,
Humble sale, Sat 14 June. Essex
HKS comrade
safe
TWO weeks ago an article appeared in Socialist Challenge under my name which stated that a comrade of the HKS (Iranian section of the Fourth International) had been executed after attacks by Khomeini's revolutionary guards on the University of Ahwaz.
Since then checks with com rades in Iran have revealed that one of the people executed in
that of a member of the HKS.
Two people were executed in Ahwaz after the attacks on the university but neither were HKS members.
I would like to apologise for any confusion caused by this error.
FIROOZ SHOOSHTARI, London
NELSON
MANDELA
AS PART of the 'Free Nelso
Campaign', Jaunched recently by the Anti-Apartheid Movement, we have produced a new badge (see above)
unis campan been developed following the massive response to the call for the release o1 Mandela launcnea by the -Sunday Post newspaper after Robert Mugabe's election victory in Zimbabwe.
We also have available leaflets, posters, stickers, and post cards, as well as a Nelson Mandela Declaration for endorsement by organisations and in•violas we are banning a picket outside South Africa House on 11 June from 1-2pm.
In tae gut or tne much ap Fri 27 preciated support you have shown for the aims of our Movement
the call for the release of Mandela and all political prisoners in South ATTICA we are wriling to ask you to kindly publicise the attached badge (price 20p, AAM nanote treet! London W1), as well as our forth. coming event as outlined above, as part of the launching of the Nelson Mandela Campaign by the Anti-Apartheid Movement. MIKE TERRY, Anti Apartheid Movement
USA and
USSR: take no
sides?
WHILE agreeing wholeheartedly with your paper's call for a mass movereit un uns colnery ano 1n the imperialist West against war and against the deployment of the ruse aid resume mussues m Europe, I have to take issue with some of your arguments, and particularly with Sylvia Bliss (22 May).
Can it be argued that if imperialism were to be overthrown tomorrow, me soviet Union and the other Warsaw Pact bureaucracies about dismantling the repressive apparatuses of the • described unbelievably by Sylvia
'gains' of the Russian Revolution?
Surely it is more probable tilal, in tne event or widespread revolutionary upsurges in the capitalist West, the Soviet Union he intends the level of its preparedness to use wowu be more nkely to step up the Red Army to thwart any parallel developments of the political revolution in Eastern North Europe.
ne cover oceanor ol Afghanistan flies in the face of the spheres or intluence argument consistently pushed by
World War Two, and given the ammunition this has given the west to up tne stakes so dramatically, tion of "solidarity with the Soviet Union In a niguy Invidious post-
tion would argue that it also
paces a maor cuesuon over uc concept 'workers' state", for we are forced to ask ourselves what
workers' state, however degenerated or deformed, could existence on the unprovoked violation of the rights to self-determination of a neighbouring (capitalist) country!
In addition, the oft-repeated assertion that DronEs not tie as far as the Soviet Union is concerned. OK, is a planica cconomy, mal doc not prevent the Stalinist apparatus from the overt exploitation of overseas markets to feather its own nest.
In view of this, it would seem thatsoenis nave no arenave but to argue for disarmament from a neutralist position. Neutransun In unis sense docs nol mean class neutralism, but implies the refusal to take
context I would suggest that we build the peace campaign. on the basis provided by E P Thompson's pamphlet, Protest and Survive.
JOHN WICKES Secretary, Cabot Labour Party, Bristol West CLP (in a personal capacity)
For or against
the workers'
states?
SO Martin Shaw, the patron saint of regroupment (22, May), has minally acciaea to puolicly ae-
Challenge's 'accommodation to
day William Morris or Proudhon, he fulminates against oppression. tyranny, and nuclear proliferation
world over. But unfortunatev Martin has been watching toc much 'News at Ten' and bows his head to Thatcher's vulgar antiDOVICUISI
Marxism was about was understanding the dynamics of •herent systems or brouchon. From this basis we are supposed to give the right answers to big historic questions; for example for or against the re-absorption of all capitalst slalcs Dack mlo
Today history poses this problem defensively, and giving the right answer is a pre-condition for the future destruction of the soviet ourcaucrac tion of healthy workers' states.
But if Martin is right, and the •fitteen revo umons lois century have simply resulted in another form of capitalism,
pianism pure and simple and millions have died for a chimera.
Alter all. n aler ov vears ol wars and revolutions there is not even one mutated anti-capitalist stale anywnere in the world, wnal hope is there? : Red Ármies - Logically, the working class must be congenitallv incanable of becoming the new ruling class, and to keep exhorting it to historic tasks it cannot achieve. as Martin seems to do, must surely be criminally irresponsible.
focus for an anti-imperialist campaign, well, troops left Humber ports on a NA IU reintorcement exercise. They are going again in September. Hull CND could really start here.
NOEL HIBBERT, Hull Correction SEVERAL weeks ago we publish-
on the proposal for a West Bank state for the Palestinians. Inadvertently, he was described a: being a supporter of the British Zionist Organisation. In fact he is a member of the British Anti-
Palestinian Solidarity.
NUCLEAR WAR!
the SWP
, I would question
DURING the steel strike, manne orne dane
so the Soviet Union
Anel us win sondarity and
targets we were picketing.
sides between East London,
ca ror nearly tree weeks for Socialist Worker. Othe
trenn perore
local are manora level
at least Warrington, BE and unc cred
• Stuit
with Last month 25,000 UK
with
I THINK I'LL HEAD (FOR THE OPEN SPACES! Steelworkers:
Corby why we left
in Divisions 1,
despatched to thousands of steelworkers had to picket outside their own areas Very often it was only due to the national networks of the Socialist Workers Party and the International Marxist Group that we were found accommodation, contacts in workplaces, unions to finance, and assistance with the
We personally will never • forget the friendship and gener: osity shown to us in areas such as
where we were bas
While at Skegness we decided to join the SWP to combat this capitalist system. However over that weekend we were invited to Tony Cliff, which was to be taped
Scunthorpe also attended, but unfortunately we had never met
The theme of the discussion was the lack of organisation at
. We said this was wrong. Within a week of the strike starting, joint strike committees had been organised in
Rotherham, Stocksbridge, Scunthorpe, Port sold us out.
FESTIVAL OF FOLK
Bob Davenport & Webbs Wonders Leon Rosselson Saffron Summerfield Dick Gaughan
JAZZ CONCERT
Humphrey Lyttelton Big Chief with Dick Heckstall Smith Modern jazz from Poland
MORNING STAR
Talbot, Lianwern, Shotton and
By the second week, divisional • strike committees had been set up
3 and 7. A national network started to emerge whereby flying pickets could be
all areas.
In the opinion of many militants. the main nroblem we faced was one of leadership, not Just organisation. ror exampie warnaton. Komerom and Stocksbridge gave no dispensations; but Port Talbot Scunthorpe, and the Midlands, where there wasn't the same determination, spent weeks giving dispensation after dispensation.
It was this need for leadership, nationally and locally, based on
committees, that made a national strike committee necessary
an easy task. On 25 February, the first meeting of the unofficia
place, attended by 17 delegates This built up through the weekly meetings to 80 delegates attending in the last week of the strike
At the first national meeting we decided to invite the divisional and national officials of all the unions in steel, so that they could be nea accommade to me suuke committees for their actions.
Perhaps if Real Steel News had Concculalca Is CIlOrES on building the national strike com-
we could have had a greater impact on Bill Sirs and the 14 executive council members who
ALEXANDRA PALACE 11AM 11PM
BEAT THE TORY BLUES SEVEN HOUR OPEN-AIR GIG The Au Pairs Essential Logic
The Slits
KOlS: AdUls L2.00 (L2.80 on cay) includes one youth under to; Ur
BEATTHE BLUES SUNDAY 15 JUNE
THEATRE
against sexism.
FILMS Day long including
puppet theatre, TRADE UNION CITY
trade union movement.
50
YEARS
On returning from Skegness, we found that our views had been censored from the discussion publissca in socialist worker We have come to the conclusion that, due to the difference oetwcen waarwe exterenced cur ing the strike and what the SWP leadership considers to have hap-. we cannot coman ma Lit SWP. We can't join anything without having complete faith in the way it deals with the memberShe leave with a great deal of members, and will always be prepared to work with them in any way li lie are We have decided to join the IMG for many of the same also because the IMG recognised from the beginning the need for leadership from a national strike committee, and sought to build it.
We share a common view of the strike Joining the IMG is also join. ing an international party, the Fourth International. This was brougat nome to us during the strike, when it was clear that steel workers in rrance, Belgium Germany, Japan and the United States, are all facing the same problems, and the same enemy This is why international links were built during the strike, with visits since COLIN HERD, ISTC Convenor, Warrington STEVE TRELOAR, HDEU Rotherham
John Cooper Clarke
The Raincoats The Pop Group With the political comedy-cabaret of Threepenny theatre plus Theatre
programme of films 'Comming home', with Jane Fonda, and Horace Ove's 'Pressure KIDS FESTIVAL & CRECHE with inflatables, films, punch & judy,
with stands and displays from the
the tory
blues
Socialist Challenge 5 June 1980 Page 11
Page 12 scan of this page
Socialist Challenge BURN BABY, BURN
ISRAELIS
OUT OF
WEST
BANK
ULTRA-right Jewish gangs have extended their attacks on the Arab population of the West Bank.
On Monday, bombs planted in the cars of two prominent Palestinians seriously mutilated Karim Khalef, the mayor of Ramallah, and Bassam Sharak, mayor of Nalus. An Israeli-made hand grenade hurled at shoppers in Hebron seriously injured several Arabs. ¡
These attacks come at a time of heightening tension on the West Bank, which has been occupied by Israel since the war in June 1967. Since then the Zionists have pressed ahead with their aim of establishing Jewish. settlements in the occupied area and of forcibly taking over Arab land.
To date, 15,000 colonists have established 92. settlements on the West Bank and almost a third of its 2,200 square miles have been expropriated by the Israeli
This expansionist policy has met with fierce resistance from the local Arab population. Street demonstrations, strikes, and boycotts have been a regular feature of this campaign.
The Israeli government's response has been one of brutal repression, including the imposition of massive fines, forced evacuation, random detention, torțure, the shooting of unarmed demonstrators, and the demolition of Arab homes and stores.
Not satisfied with the progress made by the Israeli authorities, ultra-right groups like Rabbi Kahane's Kach movement, which is associated with the nationalists' movement, Gush Emunim, have taken to the streets. • Rampage
Their proclaimed aim is simple — to drive the 950,000 Palestinian Arabs out of the West Bank and to reclaim for Israel the areas of Judea and Samaria referred to as 'Bibilical Israel'.
Members of existing settlements on the West Bank have taken to organising armed mobs who rampage through Arab towns in the area. It was an attack of this kind in Ramallah in April which led to the latest upsurge in the struggle.
Six young Jews in Hebron were shot on 2 May while they were '...walking to Sabbath prayers in Hebron', according to the Sunday Times. In fact there are no synagogues in Hebron and it has since been established that among the group was Eli Hazeey, a supporter of Kach and a former United States army sniper in Vietnam. He tells his friends the 'only good Arab is a dead one'.
The violent rampages of these gangs is only an extension of the violence of the Israeli state itself. Israeli troops stationed on the West Bank have failed to intervene when notified of these attacks. Two soldiers were recently detained in Jerusalem when it was discovered that they had amassed a private cache of arms.
Muhammed Milhelm, the mayor of Halhoul who was arbitrarily expelled from the West Bank after the 2 May events, says that the Israeli extremists 'have all the sympathy and support of the Israeli government':
Socialists have to support the just struggle of the Palestinian masses against the forceful occupation of their homelands. We should demand the immediate revocation of the expulsions of the mayor of Halhoul and the mayor and Qade of Hebron.
Protest messages and demands for their right to return to their homes should be sent to Mr Menachem Begin, Prime Minister, Tel-Aviv, Israel. Copies to the National Association of Palestinian Groups, c/o 5 Caledonian Road, London N1.
Detered with the Post Office al
per St, London N1. Printed ba e
ultraWHITE racist South Africa was on fire over the weekend. Bombs planted by guerillas of the African National Congress blew up three top-secret oil plants in different parts of the country.
Millions of gallons of petrol, chemicals were destoyed in fires which raged throughout Monday.
Two of the explosions were at SASOL plants south-west of Johannesburg; the other bomb went off in the centre of an oil complex at Secunda, east of Johannesburg. At least £5m worth of damage was caused.
Elsewhere in South Africa the struggle against the apartheid regime has taken other forms. 'coloured' school and university students are involved in the six week campaign against the racist education system.
Schools are being boycotted and youth are taking to the streets • in protest. In the schools which remain open, white cops and soldiers have been drafted in as 'teachers'
Education in South Africa is a brutal example of the racist nature of the apartheid regime. The Rand Daily Mail has published figures showing that during the last school year the government
NF threatens Tameside Irish conference By Chris Murray THE National Front is planning to break up a conference on Ireland called by Tameside Trades Council for this Saturday.
It is understood that the fascists are planning to stage a demonstration agalust the conference and then send in a tenperson 'hit squad', made up of ex-British Army soldiers, to wreck the event.
The organisers of the conference have also had to face the
est Ltd, for Socialist Challengo, 32819
don E2.
White South Africa
student.
aviation fuel and
they can no longer Some of their friends At least 100,000 black and tried to help them.
baby, burn!
threats of the TUC.
spent S677 for each white youth's education at school, $227 for each "coloured' (mixed race) student, and $66 for each black
In schools for whites there is, on average, one teacher for 23 students; each teacher in coloured schools has 50 students.
Another difference is that whites are required to attend school, which thereby ensures that they receive a full education, but for coloured and black youth attendance is voluntary. Non-whites also pay for their own books and other school items.
But the racists in the South African regime are now finding that
get away with such blatant discrimination. — like Britain's Tory government - have
On Monday the Tories again refused to publish the names of the British-owned firms Operating in South Africa which pay below poverty-line wages. Such co-operation will do little in the long run to save either these companies or the racist regime with which they work hand and glove with.
The fires of freedom are now burning in South Africa with increasing heat. As black militants in the USA once put it — burn,
Nearly three months ago Tameside was removed from Congress House's list of recognised trades councils because of its intention to hold the conference on Ireland.
The TUC objected to some of the speakers invited and to some of the publicity material distributed to publicise the event.
But Tameside has pressed ahead with the conference, which will be held at Manchester Poly Students' Union. The new threat from the fascists makes it more urgent than ever that the conference is well attended — not just by people interested in Ireland but by trade union activists and the anti-fascist movement.
It will start at 10.30am on 7 June. A demonstration to defend the conference from the fascists will assemble at noon, Manchester Poly Students' Union, Cavendish House, All Saints, Manchester.
← Socialist Challenge No. 149, 29 May 1980Socialist Challenge No. 151, 12 June 1980 →