Socialist Challenge No. 184, 12 February 1981
The scan: sc-n184-feb-12-1981.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
Challenge NO TO REAGAN'S NEUTRON BUMB
we shall probably want to use.
The new American administration wants to use the neutron-bomb, which will be in the form of an artillery shell, to SLUD Soviet LallKS Europe.
That it has decided to develop this weapon shows the shift -DC IS made by the US under Reagan towards strengthening of militarism and an escalation OT American intervention abroad.
sacked the American ambassador in E Salvador Robert White. Although White supported the dictatorial regime he is not considered suficiently "hard' against the rebels.
Each day, ten HerCules oares hOW bring massive arms supplies to the tottering regime in El Salvador. The number of ACcal military aevisers' is being stepped
Reagan is also considering proposals for the permanent stationing of large numbers of US troops In the Middle East, together with the permanent siting of the Rapid Deplovment HOrcE within striking distance of the Middle East and Iran.
Aided and abetted by Thatcher, Reagan is setting the West on a spiral
No US military
intervention in
EL Salvador PICKET THE US EMBASSY
Friday 20 February, 5.30-7.30pm Grosvenor Square, London W1
Organised by El Salvador Solidarity Campaign
of arms race escalation
Cruise, Trident and the neutron bomb are just the first examples of a new series of nuclear weapons being prepared.
The American inter venuon mn ci salvador is trial If the uteo states succeeos in stopping the revolution there, it will be encouraged to further acts of inLOL VOLUN
As the Reagan regime careers towards militarv agression and nuclear insallily. people everywhere are threatened. Popular
Hovemen in the third world face the threat of new Vietnams being prepared against them, and the people of Europe in particular face the drastic consequences of nuclear conflict.
That's why the task of building an anti-nuclear movement needs to go hand-in-hand with building solidarity with the struggle of the people of El Salvador. Their life-and-death battle with the reactionary jun-
and its American backers has world-wide repercussions.
enemy is one ane the same: the United States governmenT ane enthusiastic supporters in the Tory cabinet.
Socialist
JoBs
NOT BOMBS
SHIRLEY
WILLIAMS
Portrait of a social democrat. As Shirley Williams prepares to leave the Labour rarty
.Socialist Challenge
looks at her
nackerouna ano political history, p.2
POSITIVE
ACTION
Practical steps in
fighting racism and
sexism, pp 8-9
EL
SALVADOR Mike Chanan has just
come back from El Salvador. In Socialist cnouenee unas week ne looks at the lessons of the military offensive of the FMLN. See page 4. NEW CRISIS IN POLAND
As another Polish prime minister is sacked, and rural Solidarity is refused recognition, we ok arine raDiov developing workers
militancy, pll.
IN NEXT
WEEK'S
PAPER....
I special issue for the reorar demonstra tion, with 8 pages of material on the struggle arainst unemotoyment
.... plus a special
surprise feature
Page 2 scan of this page
Going.... going...gone...?
Editorial,
Socialist Challenge 328/9 Upper St, London N1 Editorial and distribution, tel. 01-359 8180/9.
Paisley and the
prisoners THE MEDIA have been unanimous in their condemnation of the Rev Dr lan Kyle Paisley and his imitation of Sir
Margaret Thatcher is even said to be annoyed at Paisley's cavorting around hillsides in the north of Ireland and his parading there of some 500 loyal sons of
crucisin Paisley from Socialist Challenge would appear rather small beer. Still, it needs to be pointed out just what exactly Paisley is up to.
In modelling himself so closely on Edward Carson's tactics in the 'Ulster crisis' of 1912, Paisley is doing as Carson did and threatening civil war. That is a serious business and it would be a mistake to dismiss Paisley's latest antics as no more than buffoonery.
Throughout this century the 'Loyalists' in the north of Ireland have threatened to use massive force unless they got their way, and throughout this century that mere threat has been sufficient to enable them to get their
Loyalists have had the unqualified support of the Tory Party when promising violence. The term 'Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right' was first coined, way back in the 1890s, by the most respectable of Tories, Randolph Chur-
How will the present Tories react to this latest action-replay of Churchill and Carson?
Despite their protests against Paisley it can be pointed out that the Thatcher government. as Witn tne previous already permits the existence of a mass, unofficial army of Loyalist volunteers.
This goes under the name of the Defence Association now openly admitting that its members have murdered and attempted to murder supporters of the Republican revolutionaries' was how Tyrie recently described the thugs under his command, and indeed they are.
If the Tories sanction the UDA they also
defend, promote, Defence Regiment, members, officially under the control of the British Army, naVe countless acts of Catholic population in both parts of Ireland.
If British politicians were sincere in their condemnation OT Paisley equally antagonistic towards the UDA and UDR. Specifically, they should call for the immediate disbanding and disarming of that regiment.
The threat that revolutionary' population of Ireland is likely to grow if the new hunger strike, announced last week by the Irish political prisoners, goes ahead. It is, of course, no reason for calling off that strike.
Britain might give in to Loyalist blackmail, but Republicans know that maintaining and strengthening their resistance to all aspects of British presence in Ireland - including the home-grown Loyalist variety - is their best defence accust source they come.
Similarly, ( for wondering hunger strike - assuming it does start on 1 March - is the most immediate mobilising focus.
It needs to be said that the support received in Britain for the hunger strikers last time was disappointing. But at least the failures of that campaign last lessons for the next round.
Those lessons will be discussed at the Troops Out Iviovement conference, scheduled for the weekend of 14-15 February.
Socialist Challenge will be discussing in a subsequent issue how best support for the prisoners can be won. In the meantime the justice of the prisoners claims for political status remains.
However difficult it might be, the promotion of those claims once more demands the attention of socialists in this country. Forthe moment, standing firmly with the prisoners is the best answer to Paisley.
Socialist Challenge 12 February 1981 Page 2
Accounts, a denunciation of one,
Ulster whose leadership is
'Counter Gause.
UDA boss Andy
and pay for the Ulster
many of whose
sPAn convicted of the LOTTONSIT against
they should be
such countergangs pose to the Catholic threats trom whichever
those in Britain who are what to do about Paisley, the
time offer valuable
By Tom Marlowe
— her seat on the national executive.
elected by a block vote'.
it nas been pointed out with some frequency lately that the Labour right's objection to the trade union block vole al the party's conference is or recent collage
When that vote went their wav no such VI Utests were heard from Shirley Williams and her friends.
That Williams should HOW Wildl sees as the undemocratic use of the block vote has an even deeper irony: it
that manipulated in a most scandalous manner, which helped her retain her seat on the executive al lne Labour Party conference in Blackpool last veal Blackmail
On the eve of the conference leading member of the delegation from the Transport and General Workers Union approached by leading from the Amalgamated Union Engineering Workers.
The AUEW leader told the GWu leader that unless the Transport Union's block vote
Was cast in favour of Shirley
SHIRLEY Williams has resigned the last postion of influence she held in the Labour Party
One of the reasons she gave for quitting on Monday was because 'it is unacceptable that the potential Prime Minister should be
Williams in the election AuEt oxid tires the executive the support Alex Kitson of the TGWU in the elec tion for the chairperson of the party.
That particular priece of blackmail worked with the TGWIT delegation feeling it had no alternative but to vote for Williams Of such backstage deals is Shirley Williams made. She never been part of the Labour Partv in the sense that most members are. She was born with a silver spoon in her mouth and the advantage of having two living-in servants to look after her every need.
She attended a girls' public school and then Oxford, and evacuated to the United States during the Second World War Her political career was advanced by the secretaryship she held of the Fabian Society where she attached herself to Tony Crosland who was then making a name for himself for 'revising' social democracy.
Williams others in her group claim to place themselves in the
- Labour Party-
Crosland tradition. Such
pleading was rejected by
rosanes wife, Susan,
who declared in a recent
letter to The Times: Nor
equality conspicuous
among the priorities
Labour right-
wingers, who wring their
Hallus unable to decide
whether they will or will
not abandon the Labour
Par What is impertinent,
however, as well as unat-
tractive, is appropriating
support were anathema to him.
'From his standpoint a few of these people years ago moved so tar to une right that they've disappeared from sight.
If Shirley Williams is not as much a disciple of Crosland as she likes to pretend, and if she is not averse to seeing the block vote used for her own Dersold advancement. what exactly does she stand for?
She has claimed her gulding principles are a commitment to the mixed economy'
fill other words capitalism, the EEC (in other
WOTO West European capitalism) and NATO (which translates as international capitalism). These, she says are threatened by the decisions taken at the 1980 Blackpool conference
Yet that conference she gave no hint ot leaving LDeN •Labout Party. On the contrary she declared at a fringe
meeting at Blackpool:
'We are going to fight to
save this and bi
JOU think we can
Will
But Shirley Williams never has been a fighter.
She has always had opportunities presented to her
Like the rest of the Labour right, her real objection to the present direction of the Labour Party is that for once the rank and file of the party Tony Crosland's name to. is starting to insist that the necessary qualifications for being in lne leadership of the party should be more than having friends in the right
enjoying a good media image.
Indeed, in many ways Shirley Williams is canon or lne meala
It is worth remembering that the promotion of her personality her supposedly vote. catching ability - has a
fragile relation reality. The one simple pertinent fact is that she lost her palllament in the last election on a higher than average swing to the Tories.
But then Shirley Williams is not exactly an expert tests of popular opinion. na number of pronouncements she has noted tha Labour's vote has declined steadily since 1951 and that accordingly 'strongly socialist' policies have no attraction to voters
The truth is that the decline in Labour's vote
has coincided with the dropping since the war of more and more strongly socialist' policies.
What evidence there is points to the conclusion that Shirley Williams, rather than the left of the party, who is more out of touch with public opinion. Acceptable
As a devout Catholic she opposes abortion but opinion polls have shown majority opinion in the country is strongly in support of a woman's ngal to choose
Her support for the EEC is, according to the latest poll, objected to by
majority.
Popular opinion is also Swise penna are cam paigns against nuclear
Shirley Williams is not so minded.
It now seems evitable that she will leave the Labour Party. Throughout her career she as can changing hier mind, but dithering and
even she can hardly pu
back from the brink thi time.
In leaving Labour, the party will be losing what has been described as 'the acceptable face of socialism'. Acceptable to whom? Well the description has appeared in the right-wing Daily Telegraph. In the comWally of SUCE friends, Shirley Williams is best judged
Page 3 scan of this page
By Geoff Bell THE Labour-controlled council in the London borough of Camden decided last week to impose sweeping cuts in the living standards of council tenants and workers.
The cuts were proposed after a government auditor had threatened
bankrupt the councillors and them from office.
Faced with the alternative oI fighting the auditor and becoming another Clay Cross, giving in to the demand from central government to slash public spending, the council capitulated. But not all the councillors agreed to meet the demands of the auditor.
La oceline oi uic council's Labour of last
Wednesday last week, councillors voted for defiance. After losing the vote, one of the ten, Phil Turner, said bitterly: "This is a night
a parrot.
Line council's pIUposals include raising council rents by £3.50 a week; freezing wages this year for more than 1,500 council manual workers and cutting 600 jobs in
counci building department.
The council will be faced with a fight when it
at Tory cuts
By Martin Tolman THOUSANDS of
people young demonstrated last week in Ine Tory bastion of Solihull, near Birmingham, against massive
cuts proposed by the Tory council.
The council had prothe
borough CULS of £5m. This
would have included the
sacking ot counci
workers, including 150
reaces. 33 social
workers and home-helps,
the closing of all nursery
schools, youth
centres, and five
branch libraries.
Students
A 20 per cent rate rise
was also proposed.
Rent
Strike in
Paisley
CONDITIONS on the Ferguslie Park estate
in Paisley are so bad that the tenants are on rent strike.
Tommy McNamara and
John
Ferguslie League of Action
Groups told
ocialist Challenge
council has neglected
for 30 years Over half houses suffer from
Council gives in
to auditor threat
tries to impose the cuts.
John Suddaby, secretary of the local NUPE branch, told Socialist Challenge: 'We will be considering a campaign OTACTON. dustrial action to force ine councu to reverse Is policy and stand up to the auditor. we will Ink this fight to the whole question of government policy.
Strike
John Suddaby said that among the options now being considered by leaders of the local unions and tenants was a rents and rates strike. John expects nis members to back such an ac-
and he added that LON. for NUPE's par! they would be considering industrial action, including
one-day Sall. strike on 4 March'.
was by Camden NUPE two vears ago wnien nas indirectly led to the auditor threatening to take the council to court.
Youth protest
This programme of
cuts would not only have played havoc with vir-
all council services: it would have hit youth disproportionately
hard. The sacking of 150 ¿calacas would have resulted severe restriction of the subject
for school well SuuucuLs. generally harming their educational prospects.
As a response,
meetings were organised
the SCROOIS wiet
students discussed the implications of these cuts and decide os action
There were a series
one involving students, culminating in a walk-out last Tuesday
coincide with
demonstration thousand local authority
WULACIS
That evening, several
Labour-controlled Kentrew council. which owns ine nouses tried two weeks ago to hold Tem ir sering , to ratify
increases 50 per oni. Dut nicellle Wa. stemonstrators from FLAG stopped aunored and the tenants association.
and John believe that if the rent rise is imolemente Inere wil de a 'dramatic escalation' in the numbers joining the strike.
i nev • that at least 65 per cent of inose in ine area are dependent on social
and that area has above avelast Shigic parents Carens e a sk a essenta repairs are not carried out.
John Suddaby
During the 'winter of discontent' Camden council made a local settement with its low-paid workers after an all-out strike This settement Camden NUPE.
agreed nationally and Clalllls the auditor, Pickwell, was •SO unreasonable in law'
Pickwell's warning about court action could have cost each councillor around £60,000.
But it would have been a year before the
against the counCasc cillors would have reached the courts a delay which, argue „ The local
Labour left, would nave given the council plenty of time lo organise resistance te the auditor. thousand people turned
demonstrate against meeting of Solihull coun- the LULS at
cil. Despite backing by
local authority unions, the majority the demonstrators were school student and young people.
Labour
At the council
meeting, six Tory coun-
cillors - horrified by the
response to the proposed
cuts put forward
plan involv-
alc lative
ing a 40 per cent rise and
Labour leader David
Threlkeld eventually
supported com-
promise, which was car-
ried, involving a 30 per
cent rate rise an
average of a f75 a year
for each household
and cuts amounting to
£2.9m.
compromise
not the end of the matter
to take place over the
cuts still on the agenda.
Despite the rate rise
solution suported
the Labour councillors,
the CUL struggle
Solihull is a remarkable
The mobilisation of
Ull.
hundreds of young peo-
ple brought about an ex-
the community against
the destruction ot local
services.
Solihull president o
the National Union i of
Teachers Jackie Law,
told Socialist Challenge:
"The support we received
fight was absolutely
Home News
John Suddaby sees the backing of the council as having national codeet of es. "The pre cedent of successful auditor threat will have been set if the council impose their cuts. If Camden is hit it could be any council next.
• THREE hundred people marched against ine culs in camaen on Saturday in a demonstration called by the campaign save the Camden Journal.
Journalists on the newspaper WelC told
closed since then they have been on official strike.
Although journalists on London local papers have voted against a second city-wide one-day strike, NUJ office branches are rising funds to maintain the strike.
The weekly Save the Journal newspaper, produced by the strikers and local supporters, has backed opponents of the Camden council cuts announced last week.
Support and donations to: Save the Journal Campai, London
Camder NW1. Tel 01-485 8207/8.
decisive in forcing the
Tories to Cucal We
have to keep this alliance
going to prevent further
attempts by the Tories to
destroy social welfare
and vices educational ser-
Despite the partial
Now JOIN
climb-down by the Tory council whole episode shows the pro blem of Labour councillors becoming involved in a rates versus cuts trade-off. At the council
meetin ; on Tuesday last
week the Labour grou
JOURNAL
Save the
COUNCIL CRUSHED
UNDER TORY HEEL
We're cock-a-hoopt
STOP THE CUTS. SAVE SUBS!
had essentially to decide between a 20 per cent, 30 per cent, or 40 per cent rates increase.
This shows that there is no local solution to the crisis of local authority financing. Only nationally co-ordinated ac-
Socialist Challenge
It's your march tool
Splash fout on premier Marley CAMDEN FESTIVAL
tion of the labour move.
ment and Labour local
authorities can take or
the government and
finance houses and force
through a no cuts.
rate rises' position in the
interests of working peo.
ple. 12 February 1981 Page 3
Page 4 scan of this page
It may have happened
uke Inks, and probably
did.
'Sit down, Mr
Clarke. Well you want
be Deputy
Secretary of State
Now just a few questions. We must make
sure that vou are the
right person for the
job. Clarke Junior, William 'You
Clarke
the difficult ones first
You do know that the State Department
charge of US relations with
the world?'
the Commies.' 'Well, Mr Clarke, not all countries are red, er, I mean with the Russkies.
Mr Clarke, who is the Prime THE US ambassador to
porary replacement is the Pentagon appointee
programme to El Salvador which included sending 'training teams' and a score of helicopter gunships.
the Reagan team to shore up the demoralised
THE first generalised offensive against the Duarte regime was a limited but important success. We shouldn't speak of a final offensive. That is the way the US and the junta describe it in order to claim that it was a failure.
The FMLN launched thousands of fighters against military installations in Six provincial tapitals; Chalatanango, Suchitoto, Zacatecoluca, Sensuntepeque, La Union and San Francisco Gotera.
They were able to occupy these major cities tor periods ot up to 72 hours, retrien from
and occupying. It was able to hold all the working class neighbourhoods in San Salvador itself at the beginning of the offensive.
Siege
They laid siege to the military airport in San Salvador. In Santa Ana, the sari on he selle or ne the garrison rebelled revolutionary forces and destroying most barracks. Three top officers defected, including fional Guard. officer the Na-
Majano, who was edged out of the junta, has gone into opposition without joining the revolutionary forces.
The rebellion and
Socialist Challenge 12 February 1981
A Job for
the Lad
Minister of Zimbabwe?
'Huh?
1 nen the Reagan aide said to Clarke, 'Look Willie
just sometki Mr Clarke,
Zimbabwe is a long way. away. Try What happening in the British Labour
Well, I've never heard of that are they commies?'
The Reagan aide said, Look Willie, like we taught you The Reagan side felt bet-
Results of the
offensive'
El Salvador was last week summarily sacked by Reagan. His tem-
Frederic L Chapin, who headed the military aid
This move reflects the desperate attempts by GUATE -
MALA
San Salvador
PAZIFIK
the defections to the revolution show that there is a more radical wing in the army than Majana and his supporters.
Large liberated zones have now been established in the provinces Santa Ana, Chalatenango Vincente and Morazan. Junta forces can only come into these by mounting military strike force. Because this often ends in significant casuallies Ior tnel, tney don't undertake it lightly.
I was caught in an enCoulllcu San Vicente province 40 miles east of San Salvador. About 400
fensive. This included the allily. the national guard and ORDEN he fascist militia. The
Page 4
ter when Clarke told his interviewer aid not have an opinion at this time
between Israel and Egypt, all was ncara Lo muller. beller wille, muen better.
The aid positively beamed when Clarke, replying to a question about how Europeans felt about having US soil, sald: would inappropriate to give my views at this time. Although
should xeco il short anu not but ou
first 'generalised
repressive military junta
National Liberation Front (FMLN).
the period of this offensive. HONDURAS SALVAD San Fr. Gortera Zacatecoluca army won't go out alone — it's too demoralised, it
backbone. Attack
A diversionary force of about 20 guerrillas held off the attack for an hour, suffering two light casualties In the mean time, force of 150 assembled in chalant and unhurried
showing that the way guerrillas perenced in dering wit. were
these episodes
The diversionary force retired Tine main force held the army for about LWO hours without casualties, and forced the
alilly cveltually to retreat.
It is clear from my experience in San Vicente that the FMLN has the near unanimous support
International.
too many words But Clarke proved, knowledge is not necessary не опсе sall lilal nearall abour com. petence' and who flunked out of law school living vies root that stupidity
After all Reagan did ap point this failed lawyer as a JUSLICE Supreme COurT of Catornia and now he is the US Deputy Secretary of State Arse-licking and red-baiting al c DesI cuannicanons or loos al une
Eyewitness in
El Salvador
of Jose Napoleon Duarte in the aftermath of the first phase of the 'generalised offensive' by the Farabundo Marti
MIKE CHANAN was in El Salvador during
He was with the guerillas, primarily in the El Vicente region of the country, filming for a television programme. He recounts his impressions for Socialist Challenge.
of the peasantry.
The main problem of the offensive was in the lowis wild te operanon of the mass organisations. Origınally, FMLN strategy was to use mass mobilisations LaKe over parts of the cities, militias defence groups and then with mill tal losses. It was never the objective to permanently occupy the towns. Funeral However the level of repression had considerably risen since las! summer when the army went in for cold blooded massacres as the funeral Archbishop Romero, making impossible the sort of mass mobilisations that had been planned It remarkable Was that despite the militarisation of the main industrial and some so rest e activity per cent of the work force in San Salvador general strike, paralysing 40 of the largest enter prises.
Military
Local government and bank employees also joined. Only 10-20 per the public transport operated that owned by military officers.
In the days prior to the general strike, union leaders had been arrested. Anyone miss-
The Insane Society
White House - - who needs brains and integrity?
ONE man's head was held under the assailant's arms whilst bullets were pumped into him. Another was clubbed before being shot.
These murders were witnessed and reported to the Westminster Coroner's Court by two men, Mr Abbas Fallahi
SALU
LIBRE
peasantry' ing work without adequate excuse (for example, no transport) was threatened with the sack and being handed over to the military authorities.
FMLN formed from a fusion of the military wings of four revolutionary organisations and the Communist Party.
The armed wing of the CP is fairly small, having joined the front early in 1980 after a self-criticism leading to its withdrawal from the jun-
The FMLN is committed to smashing the junta through mobilisatons, replacing capitalist
with stal orcasanon. based on the masses including the militias which it promotes.
. proposes the nationalisation of all major factories and enterprises and the monopolisation of foreign trade. The banks are already tionalised.
The public representatives of the revolutionary movement is the Revolutionary Democratic Front (FDR). This groups Lne mass organisations associated will une rivili as well a. the most important trade
and Mr Ali Akbar
Tabatabi
This was not a scene
from Ghaddafi's
revenge, but the inquest
on the deaths at the Ira-
nian Embassy siege last
ycal.
Such graphic detail
revorted ov witnesses. nare
ly biased towards the dead
• had been the men' hostages,
not going to deflect coroner,
Dr Paul Chapman. from hi:
patriotic duty to support the 'The FMLN has the near unanimous support of the
union organisations and the General Association of Salvadoran University Students.
The FDR includes representatives from the Revolutionar National Movement (MNR) which maintains ties with second international and Tne Peoples Christian Movement (MPSC) which arose out of splits from the Christian Democratic Party. The bourgeois representatives from the MNR and the MPSC accept the leadership of the struggle by the FMLN.
The Duarte junta would not survive will trig backing Already Honduran and Guatemalan operating inside boraer regions of Salvador.
In Santa Ana there is a 500-strong contingent of ex-Somoza National Guards stationed which regrouped in Honduras after fleeing from Nicaragua. There are 800 US 'advisors' operating in the country. taken a reach
taken from laulu. or a conversalol between two north Americans military activity of the junta's army on the mor-
SAS who had done the kill.
ing
He told the jury
'think anital
warned them the
..implications to this
kiling verdict 1 lit "true-
blue' Dr Chapman was a lit
tle put out that the jury had
taken 'quite so long 55
minuike to reachiner erapp
trigger-happ!
SAS, the doctor thought th
Tury shoule reach its verote 50-oddimbilteases to pump
50-odd bullets
'foreigner's' skull
Perhaps the next time the SAS go on a shoot-out
Another • jury is needed
or the required verdict, Dr
Chapman could play them a
tape of 'Land of Hope anc
Glory ning of Sunday 11 January.
Ever cursory analysis shows that these
were in the
streets with the aris
US 'advisors' have been killed including Olit positively identified as a certain Thoma. Bracken. Il l claimed that planes which carried out bomb
raids in Chaletenango the north of the country had US pilots
It is clear that US im perialism, either directly
r through its puppets i
Juatemala or Hondura: is prepared to invade to prot up this regime which 1980 alone claimed 13,000 lives
In an interview which
ConducTed with the main leader of the FMLN Salvador Cayetano Carpio, he renewed his appeal to the people of the world to 'Tie the hands of the im perialists' through massive protest actions. This is ihe least we can
Mike Chanan is working or film Briming en 30-minute solidarity minute report or me revol tionary struggle Salvador Copies of this
louill be made salvador
Salvador Solidarity Committee
Page 5 scan of this page
El Salvador and the Bomb
By Bob Pennington THE day Reagan had his presidential inauguration, two demonstrations met side the American Embassy in London. were against the US imperialists - one in support of the El Salvadoran national liberation struggle, the missiles in Britain.
This symbolic
dramatical v brought together what US policy is all about. The USA has a double-edged strategy. On the one hand it has its Rapid Deployment Force
which it can send its military trouble-
of shooters ared political upheaval where the ocal population trying to run its own affairs
On the other, it has alliances like NATO, and strategies such Which are Counterforce, nuclear-backed military alliances and strategies aimed keeping the Soviet Union in line.
Concerns
American imperialism has two main concerns. wants to make the world political-
capitalism, walticularly US capitalism.
This is why made military interventions Vietnam and the Dominican Republic, well as organising the overthrow of Mossadeq in Iran and Allende in Chile. Today sends military aid to the bloody regime in El Salvador.
Its hostility to the USSR and the countries of Eastern Europe has nothing to do with the
and anul-uciocialic bureaucratic Halule the governments of these wuuiilil.s
Sw nal infuriates the Americans about Russia
Castern Europe that they are countries wich no longer provide fields of investment for a
capitalism. Furthermore, despite their
¿calice. they represent to the peoples of the colonial world in parucular à liv ing proof that it is possiD C get without bosses and landlords. Carve up
Worse still for the Western capitalists, the Stalinist bureaucrats order to look after their OWIN Interests are often compelled to give support colonial revolutions which undermine US interests.
Ever since the end of World war Two, conflict between the col-
United States has moved
favourable the Aluc cals
At Potsdam and Yalta 1945 the Western Allies, and the USSR came to an agreement whereby the world Was carved into spheres of interest. Fortunately the peoples of the colonial world had other plans which pletely disrupted this scheme of the 'Great Powers'.
Both
other against Cruise -
lenge
In China the patriotic war against the Japanese spilled over into a revolutionary struggle against America's ally Chiang Kai Chek.
In Vietnam the
peorOSE their
in Korea the workers and peasants fought with the aid of the Chinese Peoples Republic to unify their country.
Throughout the third world the flames revolution flared America took on more
more the role world cop.
Right through the late '40s and '50s and in-
the early '60s the Western imperialists LOOK military action against the national liberation struggles.
Often, as in Greece, Ware able to pisa back Iran ana Malaya, LuC the Western working class talled to mobilise against the wars of their ruling classes.
Cuba
However the Cuban revolution began change things. In 1959 the American-backed dictator Batista thrown out and only 90 miles away from the American mainland new workers' state was established.
This was a crippling blow to the USA and a tremendous inspiration
all the liberation movements, especially in Latin America. Later the growin o a lilass antl war movement conmoulea to tne aereal or the US in Vietnam.
Given confidence by the victories of the revolutions, the people of Angola, Mozambi-
Zimbabwe, ZUC Grenada and Nicaragua have pushed forward tel own struggies.
America, debilitated by its defeat in Vietnam and shaken by Watergate, was unable to play the role of imperialism's cop.
These victories set the best guarantee of world peace. They weakened the Calllu of the imperialists and divided Ineir populations, making it difficult for the capitalist governments to ine wo meu owu WOrk ing class behind their war drive. They took the initiative out of the hands of the capitalist class.
Initiative
Now imperialism has to find a new way of regaining the intitative. Not only is it threatened
the colonial revolution, but as inflation and unemployment elague the metropolitan counhies il ls launted by lne fear of what its own working class might do
FTERMINATION
CAILHA VADOREA OUT PEOPLE
2102 STOP 2 American involvement in El Salvador
Under no circumstances can it allov the struggle in the colonia world to tuse with the struggles of its own workers. For the sake of its own survival it must smash the colonial revolution and defeat its owi avou movement
This is why CND is wrong when it writes
editorial: We will take nuclear disarma-
politics into the realm of
WIICIC belongs.' It is not common sense that will stop war. It is not appeals to reason and God that will avert the nuclear holocaust.
What will stop war is the advance of the col onial revolution. Vietnam made Angola and Nicaragua possible and stopped America's warmongers in their tracks. The extension of these revorunons, particularly
Stop the missiles
IN ELERLYRBOR
PICKET on 20 January of the US embassy in London against
into the metropolitan countries, is the best, in fact the only guarantee of peace.
That is why the workers in the advanced capitalișt countries have
jecting alliances with their own bosses and allying unense ves instead with the colonial revolution.
I won't
die for
Thatcher
STOP
CRUISE
MISSILES
Bulk orders 1 epostag orders (over 20) 15, each post free Cheques/postal orders to:
Hackney Socialist Education Group
US: HA
EL SAL
THE FD
WILL W
MERYENTIG
THE Reagan regime's suggestion that it may well go ahead with the neutron more than a threatening gesture. If NATO forces in West Europe were armed with the N-bomb it would greatly chances of nuclear war.
The weapon , or neutron bomb, would be a shell fired by an 8-inch artillery cannon. The nuclear ingredients are mixed in such a way that
and relatively less blast and heat
By exploding forces, the neutron bomb can be used to kill soldiers without causing the amount of blast damage associated with nuclear weapons.
Theoretically this type of bomb could be used to kill civilians in an enemy city, but it is mainly designed for use against tanks -crews without completely
WHAT'S missiles *9dthse on
the The
Tonowing
listed by CND If you
Nave tilm show
demonstration,
public meeiing
other anti nuclear
event. please send the
details to us and CNO
will handed Downline s t at 12.30pm by
Susannah York and CND general secretar
21 February: CND stu Gen conterence NOTIN London Poly, Holloway
London N7. One delegate each from a student
CND sluucill group.
28 February Ealins CND picket of local civ
defende banh: Bristol CND
movement ference: 'Job not Bombs •ponsored by bristol lrauc Council Tony Benn. Shepherds Old Market 10am-5pm. Films, worksh march creche.
Sheffield aucical disarmament demonstration and rally. Assemble 10.30/11.30am
N-bomb would bring war nearer
bomb project is
certain manutactured
increase the
One oblones
radiation nuclear explosion.
However N-bomb
there radiation pean war.
above enemy
offset by the normally superiority.
-N-bomb
'field killing their
destroy-
Anti-missile
Action Guide
Carlisle St. • Kalv in the l Oval Hall featuring Neil Kinnock Buckton ASLEF, Bruce Kent CND Iviaren Lavoul movement Manchester. Delegates will accepted from all bona fide trade union and Labour Parte organisanon IWO from each Labour Party branch trade union branch, trade Counci committee, at £3 a delegate
April:
(Bill 22.3318. Details tel. On Assemble Youth CND 11 April:
Conference in Birmingham 12 April: Trans-Pennine march Man stal lulg enestel Leeas on lo April econd stage in Brussel on Easter Saturda 18 April, where a demonsiration will take place outside NATO headquarters. will nuclear demonstrators fron several countries Intormation from:
Sebastian Halliday Pen Anti-Nuclear Co-ord nine nation Commite:
Laneside, Woodto He: bon Bridge, West York March acros the sky. Disarmament demonstrations across West Yorkshire, featuring flares Organised by Bradford END c/o Ruth HICWULK. very, 7 Albert Tce, Wyk radford BD12 91 18 April: Hillingdon ENDim Northood to from NAT(
Northolt (Air-
caster maston march There will events in all regional cenLICS May Day:
Tel 01-263 4954 Junt oCOlLIsI
from Faslane Polaris base the Clyde Glasgow June for and festival
ing the surrounding area.
This would enable forces using the N-bomb to advance fairly rapidly into the area attacked. It is not yet
that an N-bomb could be ••U• kill civilians in a city without damaging
• after all, to produce the radiation there still has to be a
the deployment of artillery shells would pro bably lead to their early use against Soviet tanks in the event of a Euro-
The Warsaw Pact countries have an enormous numerical superiority
personne and tanks. only partly
West's technological The temptation to rol back the Soviet tanks by use of the
would be very great Despite the fact that it is a 'battle-
weapon, the nuclear barrier would have been crossed by its use. Nuclear war would have begun
Socialist Challenge 12 February 1981 Page 5
Page 6 scan of this page
Work or full pay - slash the hours
By Patrick Sikorski Almost half the 10m full-time manual workers in Britain have now negotiated with their employers a working week of less than 40 hours.
According the TUC. progress towards reducing working hours has been brisk in the past
months, although Mouse acknowledges that some
Have yet lo be implemented.
Nearly CYCL trade
union conference during
1970s adopted policy for no loss of pay. 35-hour week with
In the Trades Union Congress called TOr 'a working week of 35 hours in all industries with a further target of a 32-hour, four-day week
Liverpool
15.4% Widnes May 2 13.8%
May 9
MPs to Join marchers stration on 21 February in
against Tory joblessness to date.
The march organisers
and demonstrations on the route.
concert for youth.
Socialist Challenge
without loss of earnings.'
Yet =. the 35-hour Week is becoming more widespread the figures are still rising, is there ally point in fighting for such a policy? How effective has the TUC campaign been? Overtime The slump has brought down the total number of hours of overtime worked from 13.5m 1975 9.19m last year, but ine amount oi swill as high as ever and overtime worker Is averages out at a full exLa ay a week In their drive for profits. the employers are
Salford 9.4% May 6
& Warrington
May 4 10.0%
Congleton 7.6%
May JOLVERHAMPT "Wolverhampton May 14 12.0%
West Bromwich May 16 10.5% FOLLOWING the enormous success of the demonstration in Liverpool last November and the prospects of another giant demon-
Glasgow, the march from Liverpooi to London called by the Liverpool Trades Council, and sponsored by the North West Region of the TUC, West Midlands Region of ÜCATT and the South East Region of the TUC promises to be the biggest demonstration of anger and unity
are calling for all workers to extena new anon breaks by one nour as the march passes through their area and also to set up factory gate meetings along with rallies
A monster demonstration is planned for when the march arrives in London on 29 May. The South East Region TUC have hired a footbali stadium in London for a rally and there will be a giant rock
12 February 1981 Page 6
TUC Week of Action,
4-11 April...
demanding increased
productivity through
CUTS IN staffing levels,
redundancies, and speed-
ups.
At the same time they
are ruthlessly restructur-
ing and rationalising the
manufacturing base
the country and using the
opportunity to introduce
new technology.
This will make per-
manent the resent
unemployment levels.
* Manchester
9.4%
Stockport scre
Macclesfield
May 8
Stoke-on-Trent
11 9.1% Stafford May 12 6.3%
Cannock May 13 11.8%
Walsall 15 11.84
Birmingham 18 11.1%
Meriden May 19 11.9%
Build the Liverpool-London
March for Jobs
really mobilised can 'Kick out the Tories'.
Ine maximum. number
councils, of
especially in the areas on or near the route
for the march.
delegated on the basis of policies such as
put the TUC leaders on the spot.
Star.
Home News
Unemployment line-up:
Glasgow, 21 February...
Heath, Wilson, Callaghan and Thatcher have all sung the same tune, claiming that only by boosting profits from this rationalisation process could NOre jobs, more investment, and nuture prosperity be assured.
An indication of why jobs have not been saved is offered by itself: or petitions, organisers.
Coventry Barnett, May 20 11.9% 061-308 4551.
Rugby
May 21 8.4%i
The march must be made a decisive show of the organised power of the working class which if
of trade union and Labour Party branches must send delegates on the march (the whole or part of the way) and/or sponsor a marcher. Just as important will be the
up through union branches, joint shop stewards committees, Labour parties and trades
Support/Reception Committees
Every town and factory on route and every stop must provide a display of solidarity and support. The only condition for delegation to such committees should be that they mobilise support
But socialists should be getting
35-hour week and worksharing with no loss of pay - which can give a lead in the fight for jobs and
Information from: Reprint box from Morning
'It has been , an essental part of TUC's campaign that reductions hours troduced in a way which increases efficiency and ensures a better use of resources over a shorter period of time through such methods rescheduling and reorganising patterns of WOlK 'Unions and managements in many al c working together to achieve this.
It is hardly surprising that while the index of weekly hours worked by each worker fell throughout manufacturing industry by 10 per 1969 and 1979 the actual output per
Peoples
march
jobs
MAY 81
LIVERPOOL LONDON
IF YOU can help, need more information or want posters, leaflets, badges, tee shirts, sponsor forms
get in touch with In the North-west North West TUC Ashton-Under-Lyne, Lancs, OL6 7YZ. Telephone
Or in Birmingham phone Carter on 021-643 4151, and in the South-east Jack Dromey on 01-574 1391.
Northampton
May 22 6.8% t
May 23 Hemel
Hempstead
May 26 4.3% Wembley May 28 5.9
employed went up by 22 per cent!'
The hours worked in all avclari lilculular turing industries is still a staggering 60.9 "nours a week!
But the introduction of new machines and the closing of ou all and factories has not been saving All ll has Gone Is to cut the wages bill for the bosses.
New technology has eliminated jobs and raised productivity by forc ing the remaining workforce to work harder, to produce even more than they did before their co workers were put on the dole.
In the present recession more is being pro
for
the march contact Colin 222 Stamford St,
Pete Bedford
5.5%
Letchworth May 24 6.4%
Luton May 25 7.5%
Wattord
May 27 4.3%
London * May 29
duced than the bosses can sell The steady
stream of job
now turning into a tidal wave, and as the Tories
the public sector this area can no longe. soak up the unemployed from privale maustry
The TUC went along with the arguments about new technology and the profits, hence its anxiety
to make sure that the introducuon of the 35-hour week increased
Slash
This is why the trade union leaders can offer nothing better to combat unemployment than calls for increased public expenditure of £6 billion. Since the Tories are anxious to slash public expenditure, such appeals are unlikely to succeed.
The is, of course, worried about Long as it goes along with unemployment, but Lne argument that profitability comes first, it can do little make suggestions to the
the economy.
There is only one way lo stop lne lones axing public spending and rais-
pense of jobs — mobilis-
labour nIOvement. Closures have to be met with occupations. That way the workplace can become a base from
organise solidarity.
The demand for work or full pay should become the rallying cry of the labour movement. Such a demand counters the logic of the Tories
the right-wing leaders of the TUC and Bosses
It is a demand that challenges the right of
can only be realised if firms accounts are onen ed up to the inspection of the workforce, and if the
egyipment and machich
firm. WICU threaten to close is taken over by the workers.
As long as the employers' right to make profit goes unchalleng ed, the wasteland of closures and cuts can only grow. Firms like Tate and Lyle in Liverpool will close its 'unprofitable' sugar refining plant, making over
Merseyside workers redundant and hitting the livelihoods of thousands of workers in the West Indies.
Lucrative
Tate and Lyle won't mind too much It can capitalise more lucrative ventures.
There is no way that this can be halted without fighting for such companies to be taken over so that their profits can be used to subsidise the less profitable plants like Merseyside.
All measures
fight to bring down the Tory government because no amount
reasoned
all persuade tara
Margaret Thatcher and company that people matter more than profit.
Page 7 scan of this page
Letters, sond your lotters to: Socialist Challenge, PO Box 50. London N1 2XP
Labour
Party —
your
position is
not clear
THINK that most socialists in the Labout Party would welcome the stand by your paper in pubncising ana supporting the demands for
within vul
You are quite right to say inal ine democracy in our party is crucial l we are lo pre• sent an alternative to the
However, the real struggle tOr democraci began and continues
the rank members arguing and voting for their ideas at endless branch meetings.
ing on when the objective of the IMG was to build a revolutionary party outside the Labour Party.
Your position at the time was that the Labour Party could not reformed and that the
was organise separately.
ine OUSILIUlI of socialists in the Labour
Sowing
illusions in
the Labour
Party
AS A member of the Socialist Workers Party does that mean this let. ter won't be printed?) and a supporter of genuine revolutionary unity, Tam worried about the
the IMG nue laken Dy towards the Labour Party.
Recent editions of Socialist Challenge have talked about the need to bulla a mass campaign ing Labour Party committed socialist policies! ( This is totally misleading in that it implies that the Labour Party capable of achieving socialism.
But socialism is not about the economy under the control of the bourgeois
VIEWING THE RELEASE OF THE
IRANIAN US HOSTAGES
I sit viewing TV clap-trap
about the released US prisoners
held hostage for some months in Persia -
boring announcers maunder on,
evidently not even knowing
which actual aircraft was flying
the freed Americans back home.
I listen and watch closely,
noting down the telly waffle.
"Let us be sure,
"this really is the hostage plane....
It is incredibly difficult
to say what's really going on."
IT'S NOT.
An ex-prisoner, 1 realise
how these people must have suffered;
yet this jamboree is sad, absurd.
Who are these captives?
(Which their plane?)
The fuss, pomposity, concern
Is hypocritical, ridiculous;
certainly it's not victorious.
What about the South East Asians?
Chileans under Pinochet?
South Koreans? Dominicans?
Victims of the CIA?
Party was and is that the Labour Party reflects some of the major reformist ideas in the labour
both LUW and in the past.
For this reason we see the place to argue against reformism and for socialism to be in the Labour Party itself. The battle for democracy is a major step on that road. We may yet be defeated, but nevertheless we would continue to try to win support for our ideas within the party.
Socialist Challenge's positon clear. you believe in forming a
Vulside the Labour Party we disagree but respect your posion
If you believe in joining the for
DaLlic democracy within the Wally. then at the moment you are standing as
the JUSCIVIS struggle
If you intend to join the party after the struggle for democracy has been won hoping to find an easier ground to preSCIL VOur politics. then you would be as welcome as the cavalry that arrived ten minutes after the battle.
D HUGHES, Bermondsey LPYS (personal capacity)
state, as the Labour left seek.
It requires the revolutionary overthrow of the state structures ciuamg parlament and their replacement by
system of workers' councils to control society (this is explained in The State and Revolution by a n Lenin ussian writer,
1 Lenin).
can be a necessary tactic
certain conditions - which do not exist at
Marxists should not lose sight of the need build revolutionary party_ lead the overthrow of the state.
Those IMG members who want to build such a party now should seriously consider splitting from their sectarian comrades and build the only real alternative the Socialist Workers Party.
GEOFF COLLIER, Hull "they keep repeating
itzpatricks let
(29 Jan). Denny raised three
1. Links between acts of
viole ned por banho.
Dellallles for
THE letters from
patrick and Judith Connor (29
Jan) on sexual violence contain
some dangerous lines of argu
ment.
To equate the question of handrawa from the e orto hanging 'Ripper'
link the penalties for rape to
SOme Conceol
patriarchy •are
misleading.
Hanging has
the last line of defence for the
British ruling class against the
oppressed, poor
certainly
protected women
murder, , nor anyone else.
Of 106 murderers
between 1949-56
Kalee
own family and 23 had killed
lovers or giritriends. Forty-nine
had definite records of insani-
ty.
Remember Derek Bentley,
a 19-vear-old mentalv retarded
epileptic, hanged because his
16-year-old accomplice shot a
policeman.
handed for a murder
commit.
Remember Ruth Ellis, hang-
ed for shooting her
lover. At the trial she
described as 'hysterically and
emotionally immature'
20th child of a family of 22.
transexual who killed
lover in a quarrel ... hanged.
The list is endless.
It's no accident that the lyn.
ching or judicial hanging of
NELCOME
BACK TO
FREEDOM Shah-oppressed, tortured Iranians? Resisters in El Salvador?
Has the voice of these thrashed people ever been so loudly heard? Written at dawn the day the US hostages in Iran were released •21.1.81.
Pat Arrowsmith
rapists.
On the first point: the links between pornography ana rape argued by certal sections of the women's overIn violence against womer does not stem primarily. it
of the ruling class'
Denny Fitz-
haven of sexual liberation. There that psychopathic with death penalty. press covelaue suem of equally
kill. always been
such apparently murders, such and the Starkweather,
film Badlands
never
from Hickock of In Cold Blood.
Vve hanged twenty-two of blind us to the
Wing is to
oppressed. expose the
/ Evans incoming
coses down
former tional erotic
was
male pupils stopped. her who fight in their detence trom courts.
To suggest
Pornography - mass
action not legislation
at all, from pornography It is a product of the op social relallon. which affect both men and women. in acasses society, and of the oppres under capitalism in particular.
A survey carried out a
Hanging -'last defense
blacks accused of rape was a popular sport in the deep south of the USA, that well known
strong evidence murderers
Sensational that given to John Lennon's killer is an inaucement tor a nooody te
The USA has many cases of
motiveless Charlie portrayed in the and Smith and
cannot let the honest desire to avenge 13 murdered women and to protect others
fact that to make any concession on hang
hand a weapon to the state which it will turn on the
We must stick to our guns
corruption of the police and demand that they take sexual violence seriously.
e sou remane tost an
Labour government porn chants and provides finances
educaalic literature; that state aid to women's refuges is stepped up: that sex education in schools is treated seriously ana ine violent soclalisation o
We should defend women
own selfby the now.
that trade
The Other Bookshop
Judith Arcana Our Mother's Daughters Women's Press, £2.95 Through a series of interviews with 120 women, Judith Arcana unfolds the complexities of the mother/daughter relationship.
M / F Nos 5 and 6 Double issue on sexuality, £2.95 This latest issue includes articles on pornography, rape, homosexuality and psychoanalysis.
Crispin Aubrey Who's Watching You Penguin, £1.50 In this book Aubrey, a defendant in the 'ABC' trial, shows how the security services are continually casting their net wider to include trade uniorusts. suuucies. host of other possible 'subversives'
All books available Bookshop, 328 Upper st Please add 15% to each title if ordering by DOSE
few years ago revealed that i policemen topped the list tor battering EW U autoritarlal brolessiolis.
In Franco's Spain there were very harsh law - which was unionists would 'rip up' anyone fighting for these demands, as does Judith Connor CONT plete paranoid nonsense. In my experience it's not hard to con vince them of the validity of these points.
To construct socialism peo. ple have to change - let's start
JOHN KREEGER, London anti-nuclear protestors and a
from The Other London: N1 2XP.
Socialist Challenge
difficult to obtain - but violence acaus women wa. widespre ad
should campaign against pornography which portrays degrading and exploitativ ways. our uns is noi une same as banning it.
I don't believe that we should line up with the Lord Longtords of this world ir campaigning for legislation
- not because it means lining up with the right wing
because it is a response wich aoes ПО lake sexua oDoression as lIs staruns
Such legislation would make matters
mass campaigns against porn
are a oroauci . ol sexual op oression Womens movement has made con
on this with Reclaim Night
the
Our Bodies, Ourselves and
articles uality asserting women's Ignis and chanenging socla oppression
Sun, Mirror and The Star to proLES • agalist page 3 nude
excelen paganda that could eventually result
should popularise
women editor refused to listen to
featuring nude woman draped with Xmas tinse or
cove Inel magazine. They finally stripped him, draped him
tinsel and put him on the front comi
campaign politicisation against sexual oppression should also de mand Ine meola features articles and debates
instead of the
rampant on rape trials anc S0 0n
The third point concerns the type of punishment te t
ventaname une dealn pendi ty or longer prison sentence: is no substitute for the self organisation of women, and
sureneinens stale s repressive armoury.
It is no accident that an authoritarian like
leading antiabortionist, now pro-
along the lines of Hugidoll ine Whitehouse and Longford brigade
mean say, woman does decide to take : ranisto court we shouler t
particularly against the reactionary procedure whereby the onus is vl une wolllan to orove ne _innocence
But I don't believe we should support strengthen ing the state which already
dividual for the ugly distor tions of society that are a oppression, legitimised by
PAT MASTERS, London
Thank you!
The following letter
Cue Chee to completed 12-month subscription form:
'Just want to say that I'm really grateful for your paper helping me to understand the real struggle inside the Labour Party and in deed the real struggles in the world • as it's often very difficult to grasp a real understan ding of world events from the daily papers!
Keep up the good work.
CHARLOTTE MACKIE, London
12 February 1981 Page 7
Page 8 scan of this page
OVERCOMING A LIFETII
assert the rights of black workers. By Davy Jones
'EQUAL opportunities for black and ethnic minority workers' is the title of the negotiators' pack produced by London NUPE help members fight racism. It argues that 'words paper are all very well, but it will only be when we get positive action to implement them that we can change things.
The introduction to the pack explains: our union we need to recognise that unless we delena lne rignts or
and minority workers we will be helping the government to defeat the fight lor the low paid as a whole Fighting discrimination against them is one way of fighting for better conditions and opportunities for all manual workers.
'Formal law is not enough to change attitudes and formal equality is not enough to end discrimination. We Heed
called allow ethnic minorities to catch up with the experience of white employees, to overcome a lifetime of discrimination, and to change requirements recognise the positive perience of ethnic minority
Workplace
The pack outlines the steps necessary confront power of racism workplace. It argues for every employer to adopt policy of employers may see
emplovers lilay horrified by the accusation that they discriminate against
may not be aware of TaCa grounds. but they
discrimination. As a rule of thumb, if black workers are to be found in a few departments only, or only at levels of work, indirect discrimination is present.
Any equal opportunities policy, must ensure: "I hat no one who applies for a job, or is already. employed, discrimination on racial grounds; that terms and conditions at work or in job applicanons do nol pul workers al a disadvantage on racial
Socialist Challenge 12 February 1981
TWO events last week brought racism back into the centre of the news. The Joint Committee Against Racialism led a deputation to the Home Secretary, William Whitelaw, to protest against a sharp rise in racist attacks.
Less publicised was the decision of an industrial tribunal that a hospital's refusal to allow a Sikh girl to wear trousers rather than regulation uniform was racial discrimina-
Discussion on racism inside the labour movement is increasingly concentrating on the need for positive action - known in the
'affirmative action' - to
The National Union of Public Employees (NUPE) London division has launched a campaign for 'equal opportunities for all ethnic minorities at work. DAVY JONES looks at this and other labour movement campaigns for positive action for black and women
NUPE calls for positive
action for black workers
Socialist spoke to Raghib Ahsan, its T&GWU shop steward in Rover Solihull, about on the need for positive action.
'SINCE the early '50s people in Britain have become less, attitudes have given own way to racism and in many ethnic of tougher measures on the part of the state. "Today discriminated every turn, ment, housing, education, to CA-
the the
grounds; that all receive special training and encouragement to take advantage of equal opportunity at work A number of London coun cils have some form opportunities policy Camden Hackney, low and Wandsworth others.
For such policies to work a number practices cublovels faces need to change stuck with the idea of the 'best person for the job' there is seldom one best person LOT Different might not do the job less well,
Page 8
Challenge
combat more urgent. "This
preference to
more. not and 'One racist. Colonial
home-based visit their
origin. ed at a stewards'
life to
kover.
blacks are
against
employ- 'It
EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES
Black and Minority Ethnic Workers
A Pack for Negotiators
NATIONAL UNION OF PUBLIC EMPLOYEES (LONDON DIVISION)
employees
racial difference
criteria in jobs.
of equal
Lambeth
among check that
tunities adds:
of recruitmen against them by
all security forces . In reality
people ment with
culture, and so on. As the tion
capitalist crisis grows the Fighting
need for positive action to
racism becomes
not only
fighting for jobs for blacks
whites,
but also for positive action
on promouions, education, crete measures.
social services. example is the
right of blacks to have ex.
tended holidays in order to
of COULEICS When this was raismeeting even Ine mosi
militant stewards opposed
It on the grounds that this
concessions could not be class,
racist not the
recognise the special posi-
ensure the job,
In
many CommandIl!
all.
portunities
boy. positive aspects or
positive aspects have ches to become part of our selection
The NUPE pack argues for careful monitoring of job en- committees. try, training and promotion to
an equal oppor- critical poicy is working.
on records and ople re sat rea
information kept can be used
employers or handed over to the police and
It is therefore essential that the union negotiates an agree- workers
management on
of immigrants. for posiuve ac tion challenges the complacency of white workers who think that being antiracist is just being nice to individual blacks.
'It also means that the state has to take some con-
and in doing so has to acknowledge that racism does after all
'Positive Is a start to ending centuries of injustice against blacks. It will not defeat racism, but
will increase the com-
working particularly the blacks, and thus decrease
possibility dangerous divisions.'
lected, how. it is to be stored,
and who will have access to it.
The pack explains the need for
special training: "To win people
to the policy and make it work,
adequate training for get rid of disadvan-
tages for ethnic minorities and
to chanenge racisma
particular it outlines the
need for language training as
sections the ethnic speak
English as their first language
Pt Pakistani and 71 percot cent of
exambie
Pakistani WUllici SOCaK
English only slightly or not at
Finally to ensure equal opwithin the union
itself the pack argues for bran-
organise educational
campaigns among the member-
ship including schools and the
establishment of race advisory
Socialist Challenge some the
weaknesses of the NUPE cam-
paign, particuarly their failure
to argue tor clear quotas and
go supervised by toe minion.
supervised the union.
Nevertheless their campaign is
a welcome first step on the road
black - an example which
tivists should study carefully.
A WOMAN'S RIGHT TO WORK:
THE CASE FOR POSITIVE
ACTION A Woman's Right
to Work
The case for positive
action OUT NOW! New onel Other Bookshop
N1 orders over 20.
Positive a
workers t
by Jude The next Mai dominate on positi job segre men Women per cent ings. •The going women a low paid Resolu Women's olde line UCATT, al
surance a (BIFU) bot
positive a TO WOme At th sponsored , IMG pam: positive a from: The arqued ac 30, 20 49p S the law
Pay and S Acts had tle
Page 9 scan of this page
1E OF DISCRIMINATION
wright men's TUC
will be discussion tion to end on between
Non-manual
women. Supervisory arn only 75
unskuued nen's earnrcentage is TrOm
1980
because hettoised in
But the
from the Pay Act ers union, e Banking Innance Union tor changes employers
most achieve minatory soldes
legal ecent TUC
with voluntary nference on TUC officials
changes in tive bargaining'.
Again se the Equal
misplaced. ved very lit- iscrimination defending
tion for women
parable
Women's ed employment pattern 48% 1%
Skilled & semi-skilled 45%
Employment Gazette First,
and this argument WIOTC misses the point. The Equal
have grades achieved its stated aim but it did give a boost to the strug gle for equal pay and forced
the drop their blatantly discrinumber The TUC also argued that changes Inte Teren grades. agreements and the rights of 'free collec-
this argument is Legislation largels the rights of women workers is not com-
tion the nale
action. needs
the could
to the Industrial Relations Act which attack-
'free collective bargaining'. Positive action legislation is in the interests of all workers. The Industrial Rela tions Act attacked the rights ot all workers.
The bankers' union resolution explains the legal
Chat es plore mestre
employers obliged to goals
targets for drawing women InTO the workforce or into particular
Secondly. the disciosure of information laws would need changing as employers can withhold
information hiring and firing practices and the
women employed particular
The UCATT resolution goes further in arguing that employers snoula be obligi ed by law to fulfill goals and
women's employment. This would
hiring less 'well qualified' women to fill positive action The
quulas. problem with this system in the United States is that the unions themselves do
lIUL draw up or supervise these quota systems. It is left in une bosses control
Opponents of targets and quotas for positive ac
programmes refer to likely 'backlash' from trade unionists. But that argument could be used against challenging any past discrimination.
There is kely lo be d backlash against positive
To counter it there to be the west possible discussion to con. vince the labour movement that positive action is in the interests of the whole working class. The discussion at
wonerS l mis vegi be a useful start to that process.
By Ann Fiander 'Black people and women have
lilay been discriminated against, but isn't positive action merely discrimination in reverse and therefore equally unfair?' That is the question most otten raised within the labour movement when positive action is discussed.
First, the facts of discrimination 'against blacks and women overwhelming (as the tables printed with this article show). it vou
more chance being employed, and that employment is more likely managerial or voies contar professional, JOUS.
Privileges
The question for the labour movement whether wants to perpetuate these relative
of white male privueges workers against the Tustined aspirations women and black workers. If the answer 1s no. then positive action to draw up targets and quotas in every job is the best way to move towards non. discriminatory employment practices.
this unfair discrimination against men? Shouldn't the simple CHILCHOT for employment be the best person for the TUD. with everyone treated equally? The best way to
is to take an analogy. Marathon
The whole populatior a marathon race the population forced to carry a 50kg sack OT potatoes. Haltway through the race the organisers realise that those carrying the potatoes have been unfairly discriminated against. They remove the potatoes and declare everyone equal nom tal polal.
by then half the runners have won a huge duvallace
of the other runIt is cynical and abLICS surd to simply declare that both halves are now equal. Only by compensation for the discrimination they have suffered can half the runners stand any chance of winning the race. Equal
Equal opportunities legislation has
begun to remove the potatoes, now only through positive action can those who have suffered centuries of op pression and discrimination be expected to compete on 'equal' terms.
Ihe labour movemen should draw up positive
and for women's and Cuplas black employment and force the bosses to meet them. Such
campaign would
whole workers' move-
Date
Nov '73 Nov 74 Nov 75 Nov '76 White males West Indian and Bangladeshi men Indian men
White males West Indians Indians Pakistanis African Asians
From 1976 Department of Employment Gazette
Type of shift % of whites
Night shifts Day shifts/others Total on shifts from Smith's 'Racial Disadvantage in Britain'
1970 Men 67.4p 136.3 Women 42.5p Women as % of men 63.1
Source: New Earnings Survey 1970-79.
All ages women
Source: Department of Employment Gazette case in the United States In a famous over 'affirmative action' for blacks aget professors Cohen, and Scanlon defended
for it?
London N1 2XP.
IS IT UNFAIR?
Black unemployment rate Blacks as percentage of all unemployed 2.2 2.6 3.7 4.1 from Department of Employment Gazelle
Percentage of men employed in professional, white collar and
managerial jobs 40 per cent
8 per cent 20 per cent Percentage of men in unskilled and
semi-skilled work: 18 per cent 32 per cent 36 per cent 58 per cent 26 per cent
Shift working by black and white
workers % of blacks on shifts on shifts 19 5 12 15 31
Average gross hourly earnings, excluding overtime, employees
Waged 18 and over 1975 1977 1979 177.4 226.9 98.3 133.9 165.7
72.1 75.5 73.0
Women at work 1911 9.6% 1921 8.7% 1931 10.0% 1951 21.7% 1961 29.7% 1971 42.3% 1979 51.3%
Preferential employment minorities thus: 'Blacks were excluded because they were thought inferior and undesirable: thev were
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Do you think positive action is unfair?
Has your trade union branch discussed it? Do you know of experiences which show the need
If so, write and tell us at Socialist Challenge, PO Box 50,
really discriminated against because they were black, and it was an insult of the most fundamental kind;
under a preferential policy, white males are not being tolo
are inferior. the aim is simply to help women and minorities.
Remedy
And a Federal judge in the same case remarked: 'Like the infections of the human body which are cured by injections of the same poison, the affirmative action justified remedy to the toxin of discrimination.'
The fear of 'reverse discrimination' only arises because there is a genuine fear of job loss
the current situation of high unemployment. This fear of redundancy is a tool used by the ruling class to divide and weaken the whole workforce and to depress wages.
Fightback
Allowing women and blacks to be the first to go 'down the road' does not help the fight for jobs. It weakens the united tightback of al
men and women, white and black Nor should high unemplovment be used as an excuse to put off the fight for positive acGON
Rights
If the labour move ment could be convinced of the rights of black and women workers to their jobs this would strengthen the case for a militant, united fight by the whole labour movement for jobs for all. It would strengthen the case for policies which could provide jobs for all, such as the campaign for a 35-hour week no loss of pay, and for a useful public works. Priorities
Positive iae actionomen black women workers points to the need to create a new society with new
society where
against women
blacks outlawed, where the economy is organised to provide jobs not bombs, a society organised by the workers tor the workers: socialism.
Socialist Challenge 12 February 1981 Page 9
Page 10 scan of this page
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a 56l-1.4 6650, Lancs. Detail FRANK Stagg Commemoration the 5th anniversary of "Public in neith prisoners
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12 February 1981 Page 1 10
By Yvonne Taylor, Business Manager
won. The Glasgow group is unlikely again to contact so many militants.
IS oul supporters wrote in
tish groups are pulling out all the stops for the Glasgow march.
They have asked all
supporters to oing
agreed point (see map) to pick up extra papers and be assigned a sales pitch.
Ne want to use the National Sales Day to make a massive Impact on the Glasgow march. Our supporters round the country have indicated their plans for the sales day.
Pete Clifford from Manchester told
US 'There are three socca tens as well as coaches, going to Glasgow trom here
Help needed
for Bolivian
Trotskyists
By Brian Grogan
union movement. It has also
Bolivia Tin,
main export of the country, nas taken a nose alve word commoditv markers
This combines with the problems created national isolation of
HassIve crease in military spending
The International Monetary Fund
devaluation the Peso (from 23 to around 40
Ine demanded the dismissal 10,000
SeCLOr
The situation is so dire that government workers, which the
have received wages for over
Despite the repression, the CÓB (Central Trades UnION ederauon cared a successful 48-hour work
on and
anuary. Workers in many
forced lactures work al lie Doil.
Nonetheless some won and number factories mines. In the Huanuni mine ine workers achieved recognition the plant committee, detained workers and the DaCK Wazes LICy WELC UWCu
The repression of Ine no tica organisations has taken a heavy toll. For example the MIR, the most important component of the
Socialist Challenge News
'THIS demo is the best opportunity to blitz potential readers in Scotland with Socialist Challenge, and many new readers can be
Socialist Challenge have such a chance
Manchester Socialist Challenge supporters will be making a big effort to send teams of people sell the paper on all of them just as the Bir mingham
last year.
Coaches
Clive Turnbull from Sheffield explained that half our Sheffield Suborles would be selling papers on the coaches to the Glasgow march. Further south in London several areas are planning to send teams of on the special Seters train Socialist Inose Challenge who can't make it to SINCE the army coup last July the Bolivian junta has launched a massive campaign of repression against the left and the trade
promoted a brutal austerity policy against the masses.
BOLIVIA Unidad Democratic Popular eleciora which won a majority in the June elections last year, has villudil! WIDCU vul Last week oleacers or ine MIR were rounded up and killed.
The POR compale Bolivian hourth and one of the key groups of thi solvian len. conunues to function. its naper com ite appears now regular
every
circulates in 23 fac tories in the capital La Paz, as well as in lie mes wicIc they navt imporlan presence. A factory bulletin Combate Fabril circulates in factories in La Paz in 5.000 copies
desperately needs finances Anyone prepared to make a Lullalion Diease still DOCTORS vian on Neal, PO Box 50, BOR-
London
Glasgow are still planning tional LO Sales use the Na- Dav to
boost their sales local-
South Wales, Swansea supporters plan to leaflet a housing estate on the sales With sales on Sunday. and to follow up
Cardiff and Newport will have more supporters selling on their regular pitches in the shopping centres The same goes for the other half of our Shef. field supporters who plan to intensify sales at their regular pitch at the Fargate.
Is your group prepared for the National Sales Day? Don't forget when
West Regent Street
Blythswood Square
Assembly square for march
you're organising sales team to to° Glasgow sell localv. that what we want are new regular readers for the paper. Offer So make sure you tell buyers where they can find their next copy of the paper. Ask them to take out an introductory subscription • excellent value atEzto 10 copies!
Or ask the would like to take ad vantage
could even offer deliver their next copy yourself so make sure you have pen and
»I am only one and you can kill me.. ... but tomorrow I shall return in the form of millions like me.
AUEW halls K Assembly point
TOI Socialist Challenge
am seuers
paper ready to note down addresses We'll be producing new subscription leaflet for the march which will be sent out with next week's papers, so put in your order now together with your increased order for Socialist Challenge.
After the sales day. we' publishing details about how sup porters organised sales. Make sure you let us know how many papers and subscrip tions vou sold And ask your local photographer to record the event - we want to print as many pictures as possible in Socialist Challenge.
Page 11 scan of this page
Poland - forward to full workers power
3 Krakow
CZECHOSLOVAKIA:
Bielsko Biala
Miles 100'
Km 160
Workers'
democracy
in BielskoBiala
THE strike wave in bielsko-blala against corrupt local officials was an inspiring model of workers' democracy. The two nunered thousand workers involved in the dispute were kept fully informed of all strike information This is an abridged version of a resolution passed by the United Fourth International on 1 February. THE continuing rise of the Polish workers' militancy and summer has led to important changes in the political situation.
First, the radicalisation of the working class, especially the big enterprises and among young workers, has continued in the big strikes over the implementation of the Gdansk strike
More radical forms of action, like occupations of public buildings to obtain the dismissal of corrupt and incompetent party officials, have become more frequent.
Monopoly
This development of the workers' shows the incompatibility of massive workers' self-organisation with the bureaucracy's monopoly of political power. There are signs of
this incompatibility by larger the
scullulls working class.
Secondly, the Kania leadership of the bureaucracy has started SCIOUS sive against the workers. The Continually challenge the gains won bv the workers last summer and attack the most multant sectors
'anti-socialist elements'.
Attack
They hope demoralise the workers and through eliminating their radical leaders to
more general attack on the whole inaepenaent union movement.
Thirdly, the DrOCeSS of political differentiation within Solidarity has begun. After the original unity around immediate demanas lnere are growing differences within the
next steps.
more radical left wing has emerged among the local and
regional umon leaders, as well as a more openly collabora-
Preomys! through an ingenious communications
The entire negotiations with government officials were broadCOSt live throughout Tine province About eighty of the 110 factories on strike were
up the system and relayed everything by loudspeaker.
And by dialling the telphone system, staffed by Solidarity supporters, anyone could listen live to the negotiations.
Secretariat of the
self-organisation since last
tionist wing under the influence of the Catholic hierarchy.
Finally the tremendous
LISC WUKCES self-organisation and thirst
Socials! democracy has started to penelale deeply Into lne official Communist Par-
Powerful rank and file tendencies
have developed in a number of cities like and
not only or a reversal of party solicy but also for the total democratisation of the party.
These currents are looking to the party congress in March/April to answer their demands. Radical
At this stage no section or leading figure of the bureaucracy is likely to support these radical currents within the Communist Party or Solidarity. The Kremlin wants to assure at all costs that the party congress begins a process of 'normalisation' within the party.
A powerful coalition is being constructed to fight against the new in-
not move. ment. It consists of the Kania-led burcaucracy. the Catholic church hierarchy and a Stalinist wing mainly composed former 'official' members. Economy
They use two main a zulliculs against Solidarity: that the economv is in too bad a state allow any cullulle Colcessions. and that any further political concessions the workers will provoke
Kremlin intervention. Both these 'commonsense'
al bullicilla al c completely false.
Workers in a number of enterprises have produced facts and figures
General Moczar
to show that any loss in
production from moving
to a 40-hour week could
be more than offset by
International
Watch these two! THESE two men are jostling for position to replace Polish Stanislaw Kania.
member of the 'Partisan' group associated with authoritarian drives against party liberals. minister in 1971 and boosted the drive for trade with the West. the economy and was centrally involved in the economic commission with 'technocrats', incluing non-party reforms. Through this group he acquired a 'liberal' reputation.
popularity he had gained with lower ranking party officials for his opposition to Gierek's economic policies to gain rehabilitation in August 1980 when Gierek was purged.
Politburo member, he has increasingly taken a hard-line, pro-Russian stance to deal 'hopeless situation
time resistance leader very popular in the army. He achieved public notoriety in the late '60s when as minister of the interior he led the anti-Semitic Walesa celebrates another victory over the government
eliminating the bureau-
cratic waste and
mismanagement of the
economy.
Communist Party leader
In the '60s STEFAN OLSZOWSKI (right) was a
which was and anti-Semitic He became foreign
After 1976 he became secretary to the party on
members, pressing or economic
Sacked by Gierek in February 1980, he used the
Now secretary to the Central Committee and
with the
General MIECZYSLAW MOCZAR was a war-
When the bureaucrats deny these claims the workers demand the 'opening of the books'.
Politburo member Olszowski drives. He also crackdown on the student movement in 1968
the backing of Moscow as a potential strongman.
wing of the bureaucracy. The logic of this process IS TOI workers draw up an economic counter-plan bureaucrats. Assets
There has been marked change in the attitudes of the Western
classes to the Polish events. From initial support for the independent unions they are now more concerned about their own economic assets.
The Western banks are urging the Polish nuTe casa impose austerity on the Polish workers so thev can re tain some hope of recovering the $20 billion they are owed.
Most of the Communist parties through out the world have also lined behind the Kania bureaucracy. The Hungarian, Cuban, and Italian CPs have all unaldierse a large par of Solidarity 'antisocialist' and 'counter revolutionary, which vicoales the ground for military intervention by the Kremlin.
Everything which weakens the unity and solidarity of the Polish proletariat objectively aids the chances of Soviet intervention. Everything which strengthens the indepenGent movemen will act as a deterrent to such an invasion. Tanks
A policy of 'modera' will not stop Soviet rolling into the country any more
it did in Czecho. slovakia where Dubcek followed such a policy.
The only way to stop Soviet tanks is to convince the Kremlin
in the case military intervention every Polish factory would be a centre foi
passive resistance.
Tanks Coll achieve
cannot twelve minion workers to col laborate with a hated
For to
masterminded the vicious
He was ousted from the party leadership by Gierek in 1971. Now back in the Politburo, he has
For the moment he is supporting the Kania work harder without the most extreme terror, way beyond the scale of Hungary in '56 and Czechoslovakia in '68.
major confrontation between the two op-
is looming. The enemies of Solidarity are clear on their objectives and their strategy of deleating the workers. Unfortunately it is a major weakness of Solidarity that it is less
objectives cica and achieve LICH
Onslaught
The most important minimum measures to meet the onslaught of the conservative forces would be
• Nation-wide _unity of action of all the radical forces in Solidarity and the Communist Party prevent
Rally repression
Eight million workers
BuoL DC wor to uneloe that an injury to one is an injury to all, and that repression against any
member or dissident must be opposed.
• A national discusSOl political programme to prepare the LOTLCOTES party congress. Left forces should use this debate to map out concrete pro-
workers' control and self-
around which millions of can be mobilise peasants. workers and
Tendencies
Such discussion would inevitably lead to
discussion on the necessity for the right of tendencies inside the trade unions
The Fourth International has no reason underestimate tremendous power of the
Polish working class. the left wing ot the Polish workers move. ment unites it can carry forward the overwhelm. ing majority of the workers and peasants in a resolute resistance to the bureaucrats' counter-offensive.
Socialist Challenge 12 February 1981 Page 11
Page 12 scan of this page
The other Loyalists
H Block: new hunger strike starts soon
By Charlie Baird IN THE last two to three years the extreme Loyalists in Glasgow and the West Scotland have become increasingly organised.
Linked to their counter-
arts in the north of Ireland
Hese Lovause Have yel meet the sort of mass resistance fascists faced in the rest of Britain during the Anti Nazi League campaign in the
run yet support for eire
support for extreme growing alarming rate in Glasgow, and
nave publicly made organisational links with the fascist groups in England, the danger of their politics is that they are using one issue to bring to the surtace ill-concealed divisions in society.
Religion
There may be a tendency to dismiss the Loyalist threat as coming from 'a bunch of thugs' who have no support in
movement, and whose whole existence is based violence.
Such a dismissal would be an error and a mis-estimation of the strength on which the Scottish Loyalists can draw. Unless they are taken serious-
and strongly opposed -it could well be that a monster could BlOW up, religious bigotry.
This process has already begun, as the following examples show:
O LI April 19/y: the United Troops Out Movetient calls a demonstraton in Glasgow in protest at the presence of British troops in Ireland. In counter-demonstration between 800 and a thousand assorted supporcis or tre evangelical trotestant, Pastor Jack Glass, LUI US. Queen
• 15 March 1980: the National Front Calls demonstration in Glasgow. is banned under an from the Secretary of State for Scotland which prohibits all demonstrations and marches for one month.
The NF turns up anyway, sing 'God Save the Queen'
start to march. Approximately 50 of them are arrested and are subsequently fined average of £10.
• 20 April 1980: As part of a Scottish tour, Bernadette McAliskey is due to speak at a meeting Glasgow's Maryhill community centre.
Socialist Challenge
Kesh and Armagh hunger-striking once more. the sequence december deemen The meeting is broken betore it gets started. with the doors being smashed down by Loyalists.
• 16 August 1980: Scottish Loyalists hold demonstration to memorate the death of Lord Mountbatten. Around 400 turn up to watch the laving of a wreath. They face no opDUsILIUlI
These examples illustrate that the Loyalists are trying to build support in Glasgow and in so doing are attempting to gall some sort or respectablllty.
Meanwhile, the solidarity movement and the labour and socialist move. ment is unable to mobilise strong enougn torces to stop them and many stances is unwilling to even
try Why
are Loyalists Scotland able to rally sup port? To understand that it is uccessary lo look Dack to le time when the divide between vrance du rees was usI fostered.
Orangeism
In the 19th century hannened in Ireland effected society in Scotland to an even greater extent ta does today.
After the various famines, many Irish people were forced
emigrate in search vival. Some came to Glasgow
12 February 1981 Page 12'
Why we are going
From the Irish political prisoners in Long
'WE, the Republican political prisoners in the H Blocks of Long Kesh and Armagh prison, having waited patiently for seven weeks for evidence that the British government was prepared to resolve the prison crisis and having given them every available opportunity to do so, declare our intention of
'On 18 and 19 December the hunger strikes in the H Blocks and Armagh prison were ended.
'When this happened we were expecting that within a few days all protests could begin to be de-escalated and that the first hurdle, the blanket men receiving their own clothes, could be got over in
described by Atkins
'Obstacle after obstacle was placed in our way but we felt morally bound to explore every avenue before giving into exasperation and anger. The Glasgow loyalists harass troops out demonstration
up and the West of Scotland he maioritv of such immigrants came from the north urcialu. and there are no accurate statistics their com- reasonable to signiticant minority were Protestant; famine sufficiently pallisai. vent some of those driven to the verge of starvation being non-Catholic.
This Protestant minority brought a militant Orangeism which iney transplanted Io the growing industrial towns and mining villages in West Irish Scotland.
Catholics
in- The ideas of militant Protestantism, both Teneous and social appealed greatly anti-clericalism Presbyterian no such welcome was offered to the Catholic Irish with their "idol-worshiping' religion and Lien even economic subsistence.
jority of the Irish immigrants were Catholic. They what the area desperate for work.
Many had to support starving relatives back home, meant that they were willing to do anything to earn a few
Accordingly, the bosses in of sur- the coal industry used Irish labour
Ireland
back on hunger strike
men their own clothes. 19
into fouled cells,
to the toilet. industries although
assume that a
not being the local
Glasgow and Lanarkshire
Not propaganda used against
tne militant organisations June Tole tal was formed
bigotry is based. Riot its values, to the In
Scotland. But demonstrator
in a riot.
Orangeism, level OI
economic life From discrimination
which education background Such
why
as strike-
pettiness of the British administration was well demonstrated on 25 January when the prison governor acting under orders refused a number of
"These 20 men had taken part in successful wing-shifts from dirty to clean cells and had begun slopping out, then washed, shaved and had their hair cut before applying for their own clothes.
'It is a fact that ordinary prisoners in conforming blocks are generally wearing their own clothes unchallenged, and we were angered that the Brits were more intent upon humiliating us once again than on settling the prison crisis. Thus on 27 January, over 90 prisoners in the H Blocks smashed up the cells as an expression of their anger.
'However, in turn, ihe screws assaulted large numbers of men, moved them from the clean cells
and overnight denied them blankets and mattresses, drinking water, and access
breakers, and although in better times Irish labour was abindustries sec peas coll, ne as coal. Their divisions were already there.
Reports of fights, riots, the level
and demonstrations involving
the Catholic Irish are frequent Ireland. histories of War At the same time the kind and bigotry Catholics in Ireland was being fostered by lacology Protestant in Scotland. LICH Association in Scotland as their ear vas 1835. and religion and Loyalists
local politics came together in
that mix upon which sectariar
of
ventured onto the streets in a
That set the picture Joe un century down U! based on from tire and brimstone' ministers and
came the against Catholics in jobs, houses and the material
results ot the religious divide
the historical Scottish
Loyalism. Wastrengt clear is
strength Orangeism, _and lately of ex-
from these people since.
ding of the last hunger-strike gain for us?
which is far worse today than it ever was? 'We
Blocks and in Armagh jail.
of our cause. treme Loyalism, continues to grow, as it did even before the upsurge in Ireland in 1969.
material privileges are not obvious; there is not
of discrimination which exists in the north of
For an explanation it i important to stress the role of
way that Loyalists in the Six Coun
Wildl United Ireland will mean - a loss of
privilege and power in Glasgow fear a lessening 'social superiority will mean.
If there was not a war in Ireland this sociological situation might be studied as part
university anthropological course. But there is Labour Party and Ireland
THE series on the Labour Party's discussion
paper on Ireland will be resumed in next
week's Socialist Challenge.
The Labour Party has asked CLPs and af-
filiated unions to set up study groups and sub-
mit their views on this consultative paper.
This should be done as quickly as possible
as a deadline of March has
evidence to be sent to the Labour Party's na-
tional headquarters.
'Our last hunger-strikers were morally blackmailed by a number of people and politicians who called upon them to end the fast and allow the resolution of the protest. The hunger-strikes endea seven weeks ago and in the absence of any move. ment from the British we have not seen or heard
It needs to be asked openly of the Irish Bishops, of Cardinal O Fiaich and of politicians like John Hume, what did your recommending en-
'Where is the peace in the prisons which like a promise was held before dying men's eyes? And who but the Brits are responsible for our state
the blanket men, and we the women political prisoners in Armagh, have had enough of British deceit and of broken promises. Hungerstrikes to the death if necessary will begin commencing from I March 1981, the fifth anniversary of the withdrawal of political status in the H
'We are demanding to be treated as political prisoners which everyone recognises we are.
We call upon all those who supported us during the last hunger-strike to again rally to our cause and we call upon those who sat on the fence to now see the intransigence of the British and the justness
La war in Ireland, and Scottish soldiers are on the streets of anc And everyone takes sides. Ominous
It is also ominous that the level of organisation of the Loyalists 1s tar those who support the Irish struggle for freedom, and that the level of support for the Loyalists is increasing.
Around 30,000 people usually demonstrate Glasgow the Orange demonstration on 12 July bul simply marening once d year longer all the Lovalists do Attacks Al 1 made on pro-Irish marchers and bombs have been planted by Loyalists in Glasgow pubs frequented by proRepublicans.
The attitude of organised labour Is lo turn two blina eyes and label everyone who tries to bring up the question of Ireland as an extremist.
Labour
In Edinburgh on the other hand, where there is not such physical threat from Loyalists, Ireland been flas raised in the labour ment and significant sections ot it nave adoptea a troops
out o raise
the Issue of Ireland and to support in par ticular the withdrawal of Bri. tain from Ireland a legitimate exercise in the labour movement To try to avoid this, as has tended to happen in Glasgow is in effect to surrender to Loyalists and their insistence that "Ulster is British'.
The best way to challenge Loyalism in Scotland is to take Ireland into the trade union and labour movement, and get that movement to commit itself to challenge Britain's right to be in Ireland in other words, to call for the immediate withdrawal troops, and self determination for the Irish people been set for
Page 13 scan of this page
Britain's 'Little Moscows'
By Pete Rosner TRADE unionists view new technology with suspicion. They know that management uses
work practices, new machinery and time studies to increase profitability and this usually means job loss, de-skilled tasks and more intense pressure.
Most books wallet on technological change and the
work organised written for management. Architect or Bee is different. It is written workers'
tivist Mike Cooley.
Useful
Mike was involved in drawing up the Lucas Aerospace combine committee's alternative employment
ment's arms-related projects,
proposed Lue Lue manufacture of sociallyusetul products like kidney machines and the rail bus.
Cooley's
ycals technical experience and struggle in industry have gone into this collection writings. Examples are given of brutally precise time and motion studies. Shitt svstems. fatigue, job fragmentation THE term "Little Moscows' was applied to a whole number of centres of socialist resistance between the wars.
Stuart Macintyre concen-
on three such al cas which managed to maintain their radicalism after the defeat of the 1926 General Strike: the mining villages of Mardy in the Rhondda valley, Lumphinians Fifeshire, and the textile towns of the Vale of Leven which lies to the north of Glasgow.
Initially the term was used as part of a red scare by the press. Thus a few weeks after the general strike, the South Wales News came out with banner headlines: 'Little Moscow, Lawless Mardy. Red Region Terror. Thousands of Communists who christen their town "Little Moscow
The Daily Express got into ine act and sent a fearless reporter who managed
then escape from MarVISIT dy, where 'visitors from outside there go in fear of their lives'.
Smears
But behind the smears was a more interesting reality. In those areas a new layer voung working class leaders had emerged who had learned LIcH Dullies 11 Ul1 wal and the Russian Revolution.
In the Little Moscows the young Communist Party was able to gain mass support and
lead the struggle of working class communities.
early (wennes were
dominated by struggles. Dul l me wake or lne
defeat of '26, it was the fight
victimisations, and above all against the crippling effects of mass unemployment that become important.
Jane Little Moscows did
not differ from the surroun-
social composition;
fought back because the com-
munities possessed strong CP
and loss of skill. The worker has indeed become an appendage to the machine.
New technology is used by management not
increase its control
wale boredom das come
be expected on design is felt to be one of the last areas of skill and interest Even here Computer Aided Design systems (CAD) stress, routinisation and loss • CredLIvILy
In 1973 designers in the AUEW at a large Birmingham claimed 'parity ment with the equipment' une had better conditions than the worKers. LOUK three dustrial stoppages of workers to win their demand.
Cooley argues that trade unions must pay attention to the work process itself; the that ano and are only abused
should Cab talll to of
units, with gifted leaders like Arthur Horner in Mardy and the Moffat brothers in Lumphinians.
In Mardy this leadership formed SUNKE
with representatives from the miners' unemployed ment, the women's guilds, the
working men's institute and
the left political parties.
The NUWM was formally represented 1n the
avoid divide
employed and they outraged
Wales Miners rederation ex-
pelled Mardy lodge.
Are science and
technology neutral?
doned.
Science
under capitalism are geared to the needs of the svstem. and.
to in- says Cooley,
fundamenta change must in over the clude revolt
system's technology and work processes. the This must be with the development of an alternative places humans at the centre of the work process, interacting with the machine to enhance skills and creativity:
technical Safe
factory Examples of such alter-
native 'human-centred' techCAD nologies the book, such as maches
which enable workers on oil for the pipelines • Call Y
highly safe distance. much more Wilh these Ideas
issues a
science
with the outdated notion that
niculla.
by all science and technology is be aban- inevitably progressive. Little Moscows 'where visitors from outside went in fear of their lives
role ti-Empire tions In workers set up to protect pickets.
among the CP set up choirs, bands, and HOVE sports teams.
CP and left Labour, controllparish therefore relief
loage
between also ran
board which South children, the Old Folks Treat Committee, Children's Gala Commit-
Under Review
and technology sophisticated
Many strategy for dous potential.
against the dramatically
munication. combined police technology that Onl.
work
against
throughout devices socialism? maunte alle telechiric their vul skilled work from
Cooley ment. The
challenge to the left arallis! the
claims has stuck
Hullalc
RVE
Women playea a leading tee and
big Association.
Lumphinians SOUSEST was area,
To avoid demoralisation
unemployed the
The left, an alliance of the
Vy Cas
council with the words: administered the was right. generously. They MacIntyre
the local education fascinating
fed the school role of women.
and even took over
progress cosmuni
But existing technology is double-sided. Computers and
communications systems have a tremen-
In a socialist society they could be used to
increase access to information and mass com
This is directly opposite to their present use
computers, surveillance techniques and so
The book tends to ignore the negative aspects of skilled
with workers guarding tel skis jealously, not jus
management but against fellow workers. Surely the widest possible opportunitv to learn new skills Is a desirable development under
The desire to hang onto a skill may also be partly due to wouldn't the lack of access to new skills and the threat of unemploy-
author welder of ed bodies transfering skills to a democratic robot device ov getting it lo
the welding movements. But in a planned
STRUSCLE
STAR hard ex-servicemens volence Com- volved magistrates in the picket line held a one ol wholl was Dal-
ticularly famous for reliance
than legal
prinches a girl charged with
stealing coal admitted that it
warm young
brother. he dismissed the case
'What ye did
contributes a chapter the There was no
generalised advance but some
Communists sood Morons
Under socialism new technology could dramatically increase mass communication economy, welders would be happy to transfer their skills to such devices because this
mean LINC doleopportunities would exist to
• skills And these decisions would be determin-
by the conscious choice producers and consumers.
Despite Lest resCIva tions, this is a welcome book.
Andrew Jenkins reviews
Little Moscows by Stuart
Macintyre
against domestic Women were inin politics and the and Mardy CP public meeting for Stella Browne to lecture on Cortialcollul
taste of the change is given when a right-wing union
leader spoke in Lumphinians in 1926. He was asked what h thought of the scab: wouldn't call him a man; why not call nim a woman Communist demand-
and pandemonium raged for 15 minutes until he apologised
Eventually
It is a unique and valuable contribution to Marxist theory on a topic largely neglected by the left.
It takes the discussion on technolog from the
'anti-science calls movement and into the cauldron of revolutionary strategy. Hopefully will spark off the much needed debate. island socialism cannot survive indefinitely in a sea of capitalism. Locally employers victimised the CP members and sacked them
There was conUHIC tinual harassment and arrest by the police
The Communists won their leadership within the UNIORS and then rewon it
the unemployed by their parish campaigns to in
relief. But the state Cicast could fight back
In the Vale of Leven the
the councillors to retreat. The 1930 government
luca reorganisation made relief a county council responsibility thereby eroding the power of the local activists
This mirrored the similar move of 1839 when control of the police was taken from the locality to stop working class radicals exerting an influence.
Sectarian
further feature that made the CP lose the in itiative was the disastrous 'left' turn of the Comintern's "Third Period'. Following this line the CP engineered 'red unions' separate from the other unions and adopted
sectarian approach to the Labour party
The decline of the Little their incorMoscows led to poration into the Labour strongholds, with all that that implies — apathetic loyalty a the polling booth while the Labour Party machine rusts or is corrupted
of the Little Me overall relationship or
overall relationship class forces and the unscathed domination of the bourgeois state. But they showed that Leninists are well aware that politics do not exist just at the point of production
Revolutionary politics car be expressed within the com munity; what was required to
this, and Beyond
Fragments supporters
consider this, was a sufficies:-
large and
3030 =
Page 14 scan of this page
Stay pregnant, or
go to jail
Leonora Lloyd takes a look at the international struggle for abortion rights. Spain OVER four hundred women in the Spanish town of Seville have been charged with criminal offences because their names appeared in a file the family planning clinic.
The file, together with medical Could ment, was removed from the clinic during a police raid last October. The staff at the clinic .are being prosecuted for carrying out abortions, which
totally illegal Spain.
The clinic workers have advised
if they consider one has ine rignt to interrogate them about what they • • with their OWli bodies, they should refuse to give any information to the police.
They are asking for letters and telegrams protesting against the raid ana tne subsequent closure of the clinic, and opposing any legal action being taken, Juzgado instrucCOn No6 Caso 3640/80, Prado de San Sebastian, Seville, Spain. Letters should also call for the legalization of abortion.
Holland
IN Holland, an abortion hill has nassed through the first chamber of the
barnament and will shortly go to the second chamber where It is certain to pass. If it becomes law would remain a criminal Abortion forum planned By Ann Potter ON 21 February the National Abortion Cam-
holding women's forum on abortion, which will discuss issues arising from NAC's activities in the past and how we now take the campaign forward.
It will discuss the relationship of NAC to parliament, abortion as part of the revolutionary programme, and young women, and
All oiner questions women. are welcome to this interesting and useful discussion.
Socialist Challenge 12 February 1981 Page 14
offence and a woman's doctor would be able to refuse permission for an
five day waiting, period for reflection would be required,
will muke the country's facilities outof-bounds for the many Toreron women whoa present take advantage of Holland's liberal practice. complicated system of licensing for clinics will increase the
Dutch abortion campaigners will continue to fight this, bill when becomes law. Messages of solidarity can be sent
Landelijk Sekretariaat Wij, Vrouwen Eisen, Postbus
2302 BC Leiden Holland.
France
AN abortion trial is now taking place in France, where eight Parisian doctors, accused of charging up to £1,500 for abortions and doing late abortions, are in court
Junet clinic. the Pergola. has been closed since 1979. but when ir use it was so overcrowded that women had to queue and camp beds were used.
Under current French law, confirmed last year, abortions are only legal in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy, while bureacuratic delays and deliberate obstructions make it impossible for most women to obtain an abortion. Hence the success of such clinics as the Pergola and the continued trips to Britain and Holland.
The International Contraception, Abor-
Zanu Sterilisation Campaign Women
will be highlighting these and other issues on its second International Day of Action on 16 May.
ICASC, to which the National Abortion Campaign 1n iliated, is co-ordinating information and solidarity actions OIl abortion world-wide.
The Politics of
Abortion
A day-long forum on:
A woman's right
to choose
Sat 21 February,
10-5pm Starcross School, Rising Hill Ste
Women only
OFFICERS of the National Union of Teachers suspended eight members of the union for supporting the Lambeth workers' call for strike action on 4 February.
Those suspended include Dick North, national ecutive member and Lambeth officer; Dave Picton, treasurer of the Inner London Teachers Association (ILTA), and nard Regan, secretary of the East London Teachers Association.
All three are the current standing in opposition to can-
who support the right-
ving NUT leadership
icers of the Lambeth teachers association have also suspended. Of the eight, belong to the Teachers Alliance and belong to Rank and Teacher.
lies behind suspension is the fear of the NUT their supporters would have an impact within the tionally. The main candidate on their side is Bob Richardson, presently secretary of ILTA. He is also the chairperson of the union's national action mittee and the architect ot the union's anti-cuts strategy.
The 'Guidelines committee has produced are based on the assertion that the membership is not prepared to "ight.
-Home News
have
council
CA"
Ber-
candidates in
Dick North Five of- When Eileen sacked in been Easter it was six committee which Socialist gain her reinstatement, while it co-operated
the council's decision to sack her.
Both the defeat of tingham and
union have expressed their confidence' ecutive over the the case.
coma major
that his annual conterence.
eight
Women unite
to reclaim
the night
DEMONSTRATE
SATURDAY
21st FEBRUARY
ASSEMBLE 6.30 p.m.
TEMPLE UNDERGROUND
LONDON WC2
Eight teacher militants
suspended by the NUT
members
Tony Benn,
dropping charges. port
militants suspended
of and president Crosby was Nottingham last Richardson's before a reTusee lo call for all-out strike action to Picton
the industrial tribunal which backed the Tory Couch Not.
Nottingham teachers associations
'lack of the NUT handling of by leading teachers
A defeat for Richardson in the London elections would be
set-back for the NUT leadership, coming as it would on the eve of the union's Easter
which will the debate the anti-cuts strategy to be pursued in the mispendar House
suspended don WC1.
Cone CEne joint defence campaign which has already won the backing of
, Ted Knight and the Lambeth Labour MPs
The Oval branch of Vauxhall Labour Party has called for the
of the disciplinary A campaign of supis needed the trade unions and the Labour Party to defend the eight.
As well as being teacher many of Inose are active within the broad labour movement. Vanessa Wiseman, one of the Lambeth officers, is president
Lambeth Trades Council,
Bernard Regan is vice. of Tower Hamlets Trades Council
The eight are due to appear
•sciolinary hearing in a fortnight. If North
and Regar win In the ILTA election it is likely that the right will try to prevent them from taking office.
This is an important fight for evervone in the labour lOVe ment because it shows how far the right wing is prepared to go in order to head off action ade being aided this case they
Communist Party
Messages of support and donations are needed urgently and should be sent to: Defence Committee, c/o 12 Albion Drive, London E8; and to
officers of the National Union of Teachers, Hamilton
Mabledon Place, Lon-
Post
workers'
victory By Niall Power, Manchester UCW MANCHESTER postal workers have won an important staffing dispute after a week-long strike halting all mail in the Manchester area. The management tried to by-pass the local
necollators true Michael Edwardes' style.
A mass meeting of 2,000 postal workers in the Free Trade Hall last Monday voted return to work after
that the assurances dispute would be negotiated through the
workers greeted union officia Maurice Styles with derision after he threatened that they would be 'out on theil
if they rejected the settlement he hac negotiated
Brum
comes to
grips with
the media
BIRMINGHAM's trades council has become one of the first to set up a media advisory group, in response to a series of campaigns against trade unionists by the Birmingham Evening Mail.
one or me mosi viol was aimed at the former
Derek Robinson. The trade: council. will • CVS Dol group, already decided not to speak
from Evening Mai
media advisory group is an extension of this acnon Made members from each media union, one of its first moves
to publish designed media to help unionists who are not lauc used deane witne media or how to approach
It contains the addresse and phone numbers o all
radio and television in the area well home numbers for contacts late a
There's a a section reporters working for tional papers in the region Canc intorman times planning ferences and deadline COll
There are also hints on how
Des: Interes newsdesks and how to reac to reporters when asked to
on disputes and developmells
also arranging workshoo where trade union represen tatives can discuss the use of
with an panel from newspapers radio and TV
The Tory Press
How To Fight It
STAR
Page 15 scan of this page
- Seafarers fear sell-out
By Celia Pugh AS THE national seafarers' dispute enters its seventh week, Wales NUS members fear a sell-out tional union leaders:
On 26 January a seperate deal was signed with Canadian Pacific Steamships. The following day, a mass meeting of the NUS branch in Cardiff voted to reject the agreement made bv national union ficers as 'a betrayal of the aspirations of the membership reflected in the national claim.
'We condemn the signing of the agreement during a national dispute which will obviously set the standard of a TUC moves to control
the unemployed
By Alan Theasby, Secretary, Middlesbrough Trades Council Unemployed Workers' Steering Committee (personal capacity)
BUREAUCRACY writ large is at the centre of the TUC's plans unemployed, it was revealed at a conference on Working against Unemployment held in Newcastle on 1 February.
Over 250 representatives of trades councils. union branches, community
unemployed organ
Tucs Centresides ted LIC vuluchics 101 Unempiovea centres . hese as are on grass the groundswell
Blass in organising the unemployed
almost Was unanimousiv abreca lnal lne proposals are incredibly bureaucratic and will stifle
propose:
tull-ume union ornclals appointed by regional TUCs,
BACK
RACIST
OVER 100 Asian workers supported pickets of Raison uter secretar state when he visited Oldham and Rochdale last They were protesting the racist nationality bill.
national settlement, as was intended.'
Referring last agreement by NUS leaders to allow the Cunard Princess to carry a flag of convenience, the resolution continued:
'We reiterate the ment of the London branch during the Cunard union has suc ceeded in snatching defeat out of the laws of victorv 'Accountability trend for organising the
lopetner with local councillors, who in many place would be Tories. The TUC
exclude the unemployed, labour
move maculancommu tivists, except as observers
TUCS would be responsible for reporting out or une centres ine
This would mean cutting off public and
funds, and ing offending trades cus and umon branches
The proposals were seen
trying to the unemployed movement birth.
horrifying fascist activity.
One appeared the police units'
The Police
and weapon training.
Justifying it wing
as among the latter.
'several thousand'.
Timothy
Saturday. against
• Stoning threats to children.
movement calls on the NUS leadership to year's be accountable to the memDers by available for election by the members honourable solution.
state- Musa
dispute described the deal as 'a Troian horse which will devour us from within' 'We menoers. is now a repudiate this betrayal.' the labour
JOBS
BOMBS
20p each & 11½ p postage Bulk orders (over 20) lop each post free
Cher Hasa deistory
history Society.
Newcastle Trades Council secretarv Colin Randall said: 1 nese guldelines must frozen untl there has been a debate at all levels of labour organisations and centres flavt link up independentiy of tne but the fight has to be taken up in the Labour Party and unions
Thousands of racist
horo reports siest rect and
dossiers racist
of all places Police Review. Its detailed account of the British Movement will probably strengthen moves announced last week by the Home Secretary for police forces to consider setting up special units to investigate racist attacks.
A report on such attacks by the all-party Joint Committee Against Racism called on
Home Secretary to 'anti-racist
Review article by Brian Hilliard, put forward evidence to show that the British Movement has sought to use the Territorial Army as a means of obtaining guns
The arsenal recently uncovered by West Midlands police indicates the success of this operation.
The article reveals the level of organisation employed by the British Movement in its attacks. In one incident a hundred BM supporters marched six abreast to attack West Indians in a London cinema queue.
police attacks the fascist movement, Hilliard refers to the 'ritual UF I confrontation of right and left'
The present trial at the Old Bailey of the cinema queue attackers opened with Judge Buzzard asking jurors to stand down if they had sympathies with any extreme right
groups. He specified the Anti Nazi League and the Socialist Workers Party
The dossier prepared by the Joint Committee Against Racism outlines 250 attacks on blacks and Jews over an 18-month period, although it believes that the total may be
Among the incidents are: • Rocks being hurled at Sikh temples surrounded by 300 chanting youths.
• Firebomb attacks on countless homes. • Pigs' heads dumped in synagogues of Asian families and knife
Home News
ane los orane.
to deal with inflation, making themselves the
only
per cent.
Nogan, substitute execulive member. well short of the claim
Nogan outlined settlement brings into He told Have deal. It's ships are
trucking
By Patrick Sikorski
Dangenham plant.
contractors,
them an important concession. Dagenham. The resulted in 20,000
attacks in 18 months
conscious.
in the detail at High attacks, themselves.
Fordham Park next to Mo
anti-
hols in tue area. or Action.
finding commission
toll from the fire is now 12
says: 'There
racists.
Bonus is on them to prove us wrong.'
The seafarers' claim is for Fillipino 25.7 per cent rise in basic pay English. while Canadian Pacific deal, which could now be the basis of arbitration for the national translated claim, gives a rise of only 9.4 On overtime payments, too, the deal falls 'The
how the question democracy in the union which 'A large number of crew sulted.' members on Canadian Pacific Spanish and FORD management has backed down over the use of contract drivers at the
It had wanted to reduce its truck fleet by using outside
but a two-week strike by the 440 drivers at Dagenham has won
The drivers have been guaranteed 12 trips each month to Ford plants on the continent following a 10-hour negotiation session last
Their resistance to management cutbacks was the first serious opposition to job loss at
drivers' picketing, which workers Denny laid-off, obliged Transport Union officials to take up
• Beating of lone Asians until they are un-
The report specifies a dozen cities and towns as among the worst areas, and looks in Wycombe, Oldham, and Lambeth. The committee is concerned that trust between blacks and police should be
rebuilt, as 'we fear a clash between extreme
right-wing thugs and self-defence groups'.
The investigation by the all-party committee did not cover police indifference to racist or racist attacks by the police
SUPPORT Black Peoples Day Of Action
DEMONSTRATE
On March 2nd 1981 Assemble at 10am at ¡ty Centre Pagnel! Street
Deptford fire demonstration A NATIONAL demonstration over the Deptford fire has been called by the New Cross Massacre Action Committee, which represents black organisa. The demo is to be held on 2 Mar-
ch, when there will also be a Black Peoples Day of
Ken Williams, who is co-ordinating a factSavs. The one thing th police are avoiding is the one thing that stares us in the face — right-wing terrorist activity.' The death
The Anti Nazi League is supporting the 2
March activity. National secretary Paul Holborow
is now a welter of circumstantial
evidence to indicate that the fire was started by
'Given the past record of the police, with frequent attempis to cover up racist murders, the
and don't speak They have not been balloted on this deal, as our rule book requires, and the rule book itselt has not been
into their own language as we agreed at national conference
union ofHallullai ficers have signed this deal over the heads of the delegate body drawn from the regions,
not been Cull
subsequent lids. meeting of the Cardiff branch
Ford drivers keep on
their case.
to determine a longer-term solution to the drivers' grievances. However, their case is to be argued by officials and members of the Dagenham panel who were initially extremely hostile to the drivers' action.
Union officials have thousands of jobs at Ford over the past year without even a hint of protest from the shootody take on workforce has failed
further neadaches Dagenham plant was once again at a standstill on Tuesday when the drivers took 24-hour sympathy strike action over a dispute involving transport drivers at Silcox and Collings
driver's picket line strike. But Silcox and Collings management ignored an drivers basic pay.
TUC letter
tivity' by racist groups in Britain in police powers.
The report, whose
police and blacks
quite normal obscenities.
Children out
nounced by the tionality Bill.
right To claim tionality children of British citizens.
The apparent
their children would be able to remain.
be held in London on 5 April.
unanimously demanded that 'The general secretary reconvene delegate conference at the earliest possible date with view to escalating the dispute _present foreign-going ships from 14 companies are involved in action. he Car diff resolution would mean that the crews of all foreign going ships would refuse to set sail.
Similar resolutions for a delegate COLIC CaC toughen the action were also passed by mass Swansea and South Shields on 4 February Members of the Swansea dispute committee told Socialist Challenge that they share the Cardiff NUS fears about their national leaders.
Talks are now to be held at national level
negotiated away
But management's attempt to the most militant section of the
The militancy of the drivers has caused
management.
The latter had refused to cross the Ford
during the two-week agreement guaranteeing their
THE TUC General Council is to write to affiliated unions, regional councils, and trades councils in the light of what appears to be a resurgence of ac.
The TUC will ask that unions and trades coun cils review their activities in tackling racism to ensure that racists are not able to use the trade union movement to promote their views and activities.
Police obscenities A REPORT on relations between police and blacks in Lambeth, South London, calls for an end to the use of the Special Patrol Group in the borough, which includes Brixton, and no increase
authors include local Labour and Tory councillors, points to the lack of democratic control over the police as one of the reasons for 'extremely grave relations' between
A black bus driver is quoted describing the police as 'more like war officers than peace officers'. A magistrate said: "They do their best to provoke blacks by shouting at them from cars. It is
for a police officer to shout
THE Campaign Against Racist Laws (CARL) has criticised the supposed cincessions an
government lo Na
At present all those born in Britain have a
citizenship Under the Na Bill this would apply only to the
concession was that all children born in Britain and who remain here for 10 years would have citizenship rights. But CARL points out that under the existing law immigrants' parents would be unable to stay for 10 years, so that it is highly unlikely that
The campaign has called for a national demonstration agianst the Nationality Bill to
Socialist Challenge 12 February 1981 Page 15
Page 16 scan of this page
OCCUPATION BOOSTS
21 FEB GLASGOW FIGHT UNEMPLOYMENT
By Bob Pennington AS 21 February approaches the Scottish labour movement is mobilising its forces to make sure demonstration against unemployment will be Scotland's biggest ever.
The marches and demonstrations have now been joined by an
against unemployment.
At the Lee Leisure
Greenock garment factory 200 in
nearly women have barricaded themselves in the factory, sleeping on floors and benches, in an occupation against the threatened closure ot the vant in April.
Alarming
The occupation
will boost fightback against job
losses in an area with an unemployment rate already at the alarming figure of 15.2 per cent. It should also act cias aring to offi cials of the Garment Workers Union, which repre sents the women.
Although the union has called for job sharing with the firm's Irish factories, it has not backed this with any call for action.
The union's area official has more or less given on Lee Leisure. Referring to
the-shamanagement)
(management) advised us that such a
Socialist Challenge,
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SCOTTISH JOBS
that the Glasgow •idli was not dossioe we would reluctantly have to accept the company's decision to close.'
The workforce has other plans, announcing: 'We will stay here intil we get a prope solution even It I means staying in-
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FIGHT
Women workers in Greenock have occupied for jobs definitely.'
Last week in Paisley, a town livino under the shadow of 5,000 job losses, over a thousand people marched against sackings and redundancies.
On Saturday, despite the worst weather
Glasgow 21 Feb
Assemble 11am Blythswood Square,
march to Queen's Park
Glasgow Socialist Challenge Meeting Jobs not bombs
Speakers: Pat Hickey, TGWU steward, Rover
Solihull; Denny Fitzpatrick, POEU Westminster;
Stewart MacLennan, Branch Chair CPSA, DHSS
Glasgow North & Central Scotland
Stalls, Food and Books 2.30pm, Dixon Halls, Dixon
Avenue (off Victoria Rd), 5 mins
from Queen's Park
By Davy Jones SOLIDARITY union leaders are threatening a new wave of strikes following the Supreme Court's decision to reject legal registration for Rural Solidarity. peasants support the new union.
JUST OUT!
Bookshop, 20p each or 12p in bulk of the year, 2,000 marched them Stirling.
Among were delegations from
Leyland Bathgate, British PetrolGUN Grangemouth, firefighters, GMWU,
councils and local MPs. The demonstrators were
Up to a million poor
Glasgow
Against
The
Jong
Glasgow against the Tories badge. Order your copy from: The Other 328 Upper St, London N1 urged by Neil Kinnock MP make the February demonstration one that could inspire working peole to fight back'
Dennis Canavan, MP for East Stirling, called for industrial ac tion to get rid of the Tories. He pointed ou
government pad
governments OCCISCO ow mass industrial pressure.
Example
Canavan caused a few red faces among Communist Party members on the platform when he asked
workers follow the example of
Polish trade unions.
fightback in Greenock, along with the demonstrations and the widespread mobilisation, IS what is needed to make the 21 February demonstration an outstanding event
It can both inspire and give confidence to Tine working class in its ability to take on the Tories and sweep their government into te gutter.
POLAND - week of decision
Monday's Communist Party mittee meeting.
leader Stanislaw Kania.
Fi ne new premier is former defence minister
General Jarulzelski, army hardliner. Kania is rumoured to be preparing emergency powers legislation to, halt the country's unrest
The Polish workers and peasants are conti nuing their dramatic struggle against corruption The strikes in the Jelenia Gora region centred on a private clinic exclusive to party members, and in Bielsko Biala the workers won the dismissal of currupt local officials.
Corruption
Some 67 Communist Party officials had already been expelled from the party for corruption before the party's 'clean-up' campaign launched last November. One of those purged was former building minister
Glazur who built himself a private 4-storey house with £250,000 of state funds
What you
can do to
help
Solidarity
* Affiliate to the
European
casterr Solidarity Campaign at 10 Park Drive, London NW11. * Organise within the unions and the Labour Partv to win donations to the EESC solidarity
equipment the Polish workes ang butc solidarity campaign in Britain *Support the resolution passed by Birmingham South district AUEW to raise funds to send a smal orin.
ting press to Solidarit in Poland . Send dona tions to: Polish appeal, c/o 137 Digbeth, Birm ingham B5 6DR *Send resolutions through union bodies for the union leadership to invite speakers from Solidarity to national Union Conterences this summer Already the General s Municipal Workers'
This new crisis follows the purge at last
central comPrime minister Pinkowski became the third premier to bite the dust in recent months in a move to strengthen CP
The monopoly of wielded
by Poland's Communist Parti increasingly under threat from the ICW Worker powel, lic Solidarity union movement. A test of strength between these two powers is inevitable.
Invasion
US State Department officials have claimed that a Soviet invasion of Poland ПОЙ 'inevitable'. Polish workers may soon neea tne Tullest support from the labour movement in unis country in their struggle for workers' power.
INSIDE: How the Polish workers can move forward full workers' power, a Fourth Internalonal resolution; the two men jostling to Kania as CP leader; and workers democracy
In Belko-Biala - see page Il.
Union and the National Union of Students have issued such invitations.
* Twin your factory or
workplace witn a cor-
responding workplace
Poland invite speakers from their indepent unions over to
Britain.
Party the trade
Labour
union and to urge a
*Discuss with the
ty branch about in-
cen move.
organise public
union or Labour branch
on Eastern Europe,
the latest issue on Polish events Available from: 23, 136 Kingsland High St, London E8
← Socialist Challenge No. 183, 5 February 1981Socialist Challenge No. 185, 19 February 1981 →