Socialist Challenge No. 90, 5 April 1979
The scan: sc-n90-apr-5-1979.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
No. 90 5 April 1979 15p
Socialist Challenge
WHY WE
THEY SAY LAW AND ORDER
CALL
FOR THE
WE
RETURN
OF
SAY E
LABOUR
COMMENTING Airey Neave's death, Merlyn Rees said it would strengthen his determination to maintain "bi-partisan" approach to Ireland. On that basis, at least as far as Ireland goes, there Tory and Labour.
Many would extend such a
TROOPS
judgement to other issues: unemployment, racism, infla-
foreign policy Callaghan and Thatcher, much of a muchness.
The shop stewards at the Dunlop factory in Liverpoo threatened to call for abstention in the Edge Hill by-election unless Labour acted in defence of their jobs. Public sector workers disillusioned by Labour's pay policy talk of disaffiliating NUPE from the Labour Party. These are no solutions to Labour's betrayals.
To call for an abstention on
OUT NOW Labour will only aid the party
of big business - the Tories When workers cast their votes for the Labour Party, they are voting for a party of their class
whatever its policies.
But the best conditions for defeating the Labour govern ment's reactionary policies for once and for all is when Labour
in office. Then these bureaucrats who claim to represent working class interests - are judged by the policies they implement.
And, as we have seen after five years of Labour rule, more and more working class people
refusing -to accept its measures. The civil servants decision to reject the latest offer, despite the election, is a case in point. The proof is the way the capitalist press has held up this dispute as evidence that
can't control" the working class any longer.
If the Tories were in office these Labour leaders and their friends at the head of the unions would be let off the hook. Then we would hear all sorts of left noises and promises never to do again what they've done between 1974 and 79.
And after several years of the Tories, they may well even be believed - including by many
those who today are rejecting Labour's policies.
Socialist Unity will be contesting the election in safe Labour seats on the basis of
socialist alternative. condition for extending this alternative is to return a Labou Government Not because it will deliver socialism, but because under Labour the rea socialists can be seen much DID those who ery over Airey Neave mourn the dead of Bloody Sunday! more and heard much louder
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Civil servants - we're fighting
OUR POLICIES
EDITORIAL
8180/9. Distribution/advertising 01-359 8371 Army be lifted. In a
truth.'
Ireland's struggle for self-determination, prepared.
Britain.
Revenge'.
Ireland but 'Law And Order'
whatsoever can be given to the bombing. in Ireland but for the resistance to it.
tactics adopted by Irish freedom-fighters, fight for socialism.
If you agree with these principles and want to oe involved un acuvies by. Challenge supporters in your area, fill in the form below and send it to us.
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Socialist Challenge 5 April 1979
Socialist Challenge, 328/9 Upper St, London N1. Editorial 01-359
Airey Neave; what we say
ACCORDING TO Margaret Thatcher, Airey Neave '... was one of freedom's warriors, courageous, staunch, true'. Clearly she has lost a friend, but the workers movement certainly has not. Far from being a fighter for democracy, Neave was one of the most outspoken reactionaries in favour of curtailing democratic rights.
While shadow spokesperson on the North of Ireland, "freedom's warrior' demanded that the SAS be sent to the Six Counties, that Provisional Sinn Fein be banned, and that all legal restraints on house-to-house searches and the questioning of suspects by th
speech to Conservative women in hi:
Abingdon constituency in May 1977 he went further, calling for the reintroduction of internment and saying: "The public should not be misled by the woolly propaganda of the left that detention can never achieve its objectives. Nothing could be further from the
But whether Neave was killed by a revolutionary nationalist or by a provocateur, the end result will be the same. A wave of repression, directed primarily at the Irish community in Britain but with the aim also of smearing and isolating the supporters of
is already
The Daily Mail editorial, the day after the assassination, called for increased security checks and for identity cards for the Irish in Britain. Eldon Griffiths, Tory MP and political adyiser to the Metropolitan Police, demanded 'more and better equipped units' of the SAS, and for them to be used to back up police operations in
Yelping like puppy-dogs at the wheels of this cart of reaction can always be found the Labour leadership. When James Callaghan said that 'No effort would be spared', he was correctly understood by the Daily Mirror when it headlined his statement, Jim Vows
The campaign in the press is designed not only to increase the election chances of the Tories, but to turn whole sections of the working class rightwards and tie them to the reactionary schemes of the ruling class. The National Front's campaign will be given the biggest boost it could have hoped for. Not self-determination for
possibly Terrorists' has become an issue. For all these reasons no support
But that is not to give any credence to the reactionary campaign of hysteria. The Morning Star did just this in its editorial on Saturday when it expressed utter and total condemnacon or lnose who brutally and cold-bloodedly murdered Mr Airey Neave'.
Andrew Murray's front-page article in the Star confined itself to applauding Neave as a 'hero' of World War II and a major opponent of troop withdrawal (just like the CPGB?). His personal role in aiding state repression in Ireland went unreported. The term "barbarism' was reserved not for British imperialism's operations
However much we disagree with the strategy or the particular
socialists have a responsibility at all times to defend the right of the Irish people to fight back against the primary violence of the British state.
The best way to do this in the election campaign is to be prepared to mount detence campaigns for all those who will inevitably be lifted under the Prevention of Terrorism Act in the next few weeks, and to demand publicly that Labour candidates, particularly the "lefts', commit themselves to such defence campaigns and to the fight to repeal the PTA. They should be hounded by people reminding them of the fact that, whoever planted the bomb, it was primed by this Labour government's policy on Northern Ireland.
Socialist Unity candidates will be calling for "Troops Out Now' as a major part of their campaigns. Furthermore, Pat Arrowsmith (standing as an Independent Socialist against Jim Callaghan in Cardiff) and Brendan Gallagher (standing against Roy Mason in Barnsley) will concentrate on making the reality of Ireland an issue
These candidatures will be used to stimulate mass actions in defence of Irish freedom and for 'Troops Out Now' - in the end the only way the workers and the oppressed in Britain will be won to the side of the Irish people. Now more than ever, our ability to support these initiatives will be a test of our commitment to the
WONTHSI page 2
By a CPSA Newcastle
CIVIL Servants continuing the action over our pay clamn, aespue une general election.
If Callaghan were to meet the claim in full, Labour to decent minimum throughout the public he would be in a much better position to win.
Not that our union leaders are keen on continuing the being action. Ken Thomas, secretary of the Public Services Association, is
strong supporter of the Concordat and has consistently limited the fight to selective action.
It's the pressure of the membership which has forced him to reject the offer of 9 per cent now and pie in the sky later.
A good example of that pressure is the meeting we had at Newcastle Central branch, to which CPSA assistant general secretary John Raywood came along.
He argued that up till now press reports have been good and that we should not threaten *Hanging for supposed escalating action Department of Social Security, lest we be seen to be attacking the unemployed and sick.
Raywood also made it clear that any real escalation of the dispute by militant branches such as our own would not get official support. Speaker after speaker from the floor attacke this, saying that one-day strike and selective enought.
As one striker put it: 'We don't want any striking by proxy. Selective action means
the battle we should all waging."
Barry Fudge, the secretary, argued: way to force the government to make concessions is to force the issue in to public attention. The miners, lorry hospital ancillary understood this, and we should too.
A way of unofficial action has been the rumour that where such action is taken, official action will be called off.
We are finding out that it's not enough to be prepared to take action locally to build different branches and strike
class.
revolutionary socialists are:
* To build
HOME NEWS
member in
will be
and commit implementing rise WaLC sector,
general Civil and support by in the Health and
brolly brigade, portrays
action IS nOl
support.
branch "The only
drivers, and workers
discouraging • we have links between the Upper St, N1. 20p.
Capitalism is in crisis. The leaders of the Labour Party and the trades unions offer solutions that are in the interests, not of the workers, but of the capitalist
Doclanst challenge beneves taa The TWO VIAL ASKS
struggle TendeRcies: In class-collaborationism in the labour movement. These should be non-exclusive in character grouping together militants holding a wide range of political views. * To begin to fight for the creation of a unified and democratic revolutionary
begin to be seen as an alternative by thousands of workers engaged in struggles
such an organisation should be based on the understanding that:
The struggle for socialism seeks to unite the light of the workers against the bosses with that of other oppressed layers of society shack people cars - sirueeinetortner lineration associalism can only be achieved by creating new organs of power and defeating with all
on : despite elections'
Foot wishes the civil servants strike would go away — we have to help them win
committees so that this sort of sabotage can be prevented.
We are not a bowler hat and
as the press We are mostly
ow-paid clerical workers. We THE deserve a decent living wage just like any other workers.
It will be interesting to see how many Labour candidates LEECHEL are prepared to come out in our
CO 200 tion gambit
CreW Have
Anti
CONCORDAT
The Anti-Concordat. Available from The Other Bookshop, 328 now
3
confronting
opposition to women,
TINY COUNC
OFFICE UTE
Tories greet Concordat
By Rich Palser
scope for between an ln coming Conservative govern-
and the unions immense', said Leon Brittan, Tory spokesperson on employmenu, a lew days ago
Wishful thinking? An elec
counter argument that Labour is better at "dealing with the unions"?
Unfortunately Thatcher's
some ground for claiming a Tory government would find much to talk about with the unions and it's called the Concordat
The Concordat accepts that 'curbs on the power of the unions are necessary. It does not use the same language as the Tories, but it agrees changes are needed over picketing, the closed shop, strike ballots -all the issues on which the Tories will have been demanding change.
*As Conservatives we should
examine carefully the solutions proposed the
Our socialism will be infinitely more democratic than what exists in
in the eyes of the millions of workers throughout the world, We are opposed to them and will offer full support to all those fighting for socialist democraes.
The interests of workers and capitalists are irreconcilable on a world scale. Capitalism has not oniy created a world market, it has created • world politics, Jhus we rignttor working crass unny on an internanona. scale. This unity will in the long run be decisive in defeating both the imperialist regimes in the West and the brutal dictatorships they sustain in Latin
In Britain it implies demanding the immediate withdrawal of British troops from Ireland and letting the Irish people determine their own future:
The Communist Parties in Europe are in crisis. Neither the "Euro-communist not the pro-Moscow wings have any meaningful strategy for the overthrow of the capitalist state. New revolutionary socialist parties are more necessary than ever before. Conditions today are more favourable than over the preceding three decades. But such parties can only be built by rejecting sectarianism and seeing internal democracy not 'as a luxury but as a vital necessity. This means the right to organise factions and
Concordat and explain exactly where and why those solutions seem to us inadequate', Brittan added.
We should then invite the TUC Tences these deficiencies and come up with further proposals.
The Tories have made it clear that 'remedying these deficiencies will in some cases mean using the law - to preven effective picketing, particularly flying pickets, and break the closed shop
TUC-Labour government pact calls on the unions to exert self-discipline; in other words for union leaders to impose discipline on the rank and file
The Tories have won half the battle in getting the TUC to admit that some sort of discipline is needed.
Stealing the Tories' clothes
not win Labour the election. And what is worse, it paves the way for Thatcher and friends to launch an attack on the unions should they get in.
Page 3 scan of this page
Putting forward a socialist
HOME NEWS
Socialist Unity
AT THE last election, Labour
promised a fundamental shift
in the balance of wealth and
power in favour of working
people.
Instead the government has
consistently attacked
WILCICSES.
Working people didn't vote Labour to be
policies. Socialist Unity —
alliance of socialist organisaGOES therefore standing candidates in this election as part of the fight for a socialist alternative to the bankrupt policies of the Labour government.
The aim of Socialist Unity's campaign is to help build the campaigns and struggles neces-
sary for working people improve their standard of life and take control of society.
It intends to show that it is possible to fight for a socialist alternative, and that this means building an opposition
trade unionists, MOTE immigrant community, and the women's movement, as well as all those people inside the Labour Party who are prepared to take action agams tae anu-working class
Photo: GEOFF CARROLL
chairperson of the Merseyside Anti-Racialist Alliance.
Edge Hill
By Tony Meehan
THE RESULT of Thursday's by-election in Edge
It was generally recognised that it had become a marginal seat despite the Labour majority of 6,000 at the last general election. But no-one could have expected Labour to lose 8,000 votes - despite the government's record.
This was a wholly working class consuluency that had voted Labour for the last thirty years, each time returning Sir Arthur Irvine, an MP who
alternative
policies of their leaders.
The policies Socialist Unity stands for therefore include: *Against Labour's cuts. Socialist Unity supports their the fight against incomes policy and for a national minimum wage of E60. Wages, Tory and social spending should all be defended against inflation by automatic rises. *Against the TUC Concordat, whose Tory-inspired proposals amount to all-out attack effectiveness of working class
unemployment. reduction of the working week to to 35 hours without loss of pay would create 1.8 million jobs Firms which pose redundancies or closure should be nationalised without compensation under that control.
*Reverse the cuts in social services. Nationalisation of the banks and finance would allow interest-free loans permitting massive programme of house, school,
Ocialist
Unity
Vote OLAN OVER a hundred people at Socialist Unity's final rally in Edge Hill on 26 March heard an impressive platform of speakers (left to right): Pat Arrowsmith, Independent Socialist candidate against Callaghan in the general election; Harry MeShane, active socialist campaigner for sixty years; Tariq Ali, editor of Socialist Challenge; Pete Cresswell (chair), a leader of the recent social workers' strike in Liverpool; Al Walker, the Socialist Unity candidate (who polled 127 votes); and Rashid Mufti,
Government condemned at
could hardly be described as
last The Labour candidate this time, Bob Wereing, was a left. clearly not going to tolerate any criticism of the government's policies.
The result was a dramatic condemnation of the government's record of cutting wages, closing hospitals, nurseries, and allowing employment to double.
The Liberals became alternative because at least they promised to mend the roofs.
The result is an indication of
nursery and hospital building.
*Against National Front should not be allowed to spread their racist poison. Socialist Unity stands for the scrapping immigration laws and the right benefits of black people to
themselves against racists and police harassment. It supports the Anti Nazi League and all mass action against racism and government- fascism.
*Equal rights for women in on the
all spheres. stands for free contraception and abortion on demand sc that women themselves
The
choose wnetner or not to nave children; free series; an end to
pro- against women in or out of the
home. independent workers women to achieve their aims.
*The right of women and men to determine their own
houses supports the
organisations to
new discrimination.
the clear need for militants to fight both inside the Labour Party for a socialist alternative.
Desptie the comings of the Socialist Unit campaign, partly due to time and resources, SU supporters in Liverpool -were standing in the by-election SCHOOS STU are absolutely convinced of the
un- need to fight in the general
election.
an A decision on whether to
stand again in Edge Hill or in another Liverpool constituency will be taken later this week.
racism. The
of the
defend Socialist Unity
can
24-hour nur- ror the
violence repressive notably the supports the organisation of
Act (the "sus"
Unity military units. fight of
end *Full elections in al tour Small Heath, deston, and Newtown.
area
District
CUTS.
mobilising
Glasgow,
FaSO teachers and currently in struggle
date IS hospital.
and outside
Socialist many short
supporters.
including many candidate is Janet
about secretary London
ASTMS No. 8.
An
*etee draperate rights.
scrapping legislation Prevention of Terrorism Act, Suppression of Terrorism Act, 1824 Vagrancs supports
laws), Criminal Law Act, Official Secrets Act; for the disbanding of the SPG and other special police and
majority elections rights for youth.
Although there are no votes to be gained in this way, Socialist BIRMINGHAM Small Heath: Lambeth, The candidate will be chosen Soutwark later this week. Socialist Unity will also be contesting the local
wards:
Saltley, Dud-
GLASGOW Queens Park:
The candidate in this Gorbals
Walter McLellan, assistant secretary of Glasgow to Pakistan'.
NALGO and well-known in the campaign for better housing and against all
Socialist Unity's campaign here will lay particular stress on
for the 21 April Tee demonstration on Ireland in
supported by both UTOM and Sinn Fein. It will
provide a platform for civil politics
HULL Central: The candi-
Pauline Stanton who delegate to ASTMS Divisiona Council No. 1, a member of Hull Trades Council executive, and an active campaigner for 6). abortion rights and against the closure of a local women's
A novel development is the setting up of a School Kids for NUPE
Unity by young Council.
LONDON Deptford: The
Maguire, of the South-East Medical Branch of ASTMS and a member of workers'
Divisional Council
campaigner against the cuts throughout the life of the Labour government, she is currently secretary of the
CHEER UP!
LABOUR CAN'T HANG ON
FOR EVER
VOTE Socialist Unity S
Unity will give a voice in this election to youth and their demands for adequate facilities and the right to a living wage or grant for full-time education. It
organisations like NUSS. SKAN, and RAR
*For a Scottish Assembly. The referendum produced a
for devolution the Assembly should go ahead immediately.
*Self-determination for the
Where SU is standing
Lewisham and trades councils committee against the cuts in the health service.
LONDON Southall: The candidate is Tariq Ali, editor of Socialist Challenge, who was once told by Labour MP Syd Bidwell that he should either join the Labour Party or return
Bidwell reportedly likes to and joke with Asian voters that 'My name is really Bidwell Singh, but his real record can be seen in his signature on the racist Parliamentary Select Commit-
Report on Immigration produced last year
Socialist Unity is making it clear that if Bidwell loses his seat he will have only hi
blame; Ali's candidature primarily aims to offer a positive alternative to the thousands of black people
will away from Bidwell in disgust. To this end Socialist Unity is circulating an open letter to Bidwell (see page
LONDON Tower Hamlets: The A district retary nest
district and a member of NUPE's London Divisional
Apart from the major issue of racism, Socialist Unity will take up the local reflection of Labour's right-wing policies in the council's stand against the
workers and socia strikes the latter now into its eighth month).
MANCHESTER Ardwick: The candidate is Jeff West, a welder and member of the Boilermakers Union. He will be
HILARY DRIVED
Irish people. Socialist Unity demands the immediate with drawal of British troops from Ireland and supports the H block prisoners struggle for political status.
*Break all imperialist links. Socialist Unity stands for solidarity with the struggle to smash the white racist regimes in southern Africa; immediate withdrawal from NATO: unilateral nuclear disarmament. standing against Industry Minister Gerald Kaufman, notorious amongst other things for helping to sabotage the Lucas workers" Corporate Plan.
NOTTINGHAM East: The candidate is Juniper, member of ASTMS who works for a trade union information unit. He is active in the ANL commintee of the Notinghing steering Anti-Cuts Committee.
Apart from these constituencies, there may also be Socialist Unity candidacies in LEEDS South (against Merlyn Rees), LIVERPOOL see article on Edge Hill by-elec tion), and LONDON Islington North. Confirmation expected later this week.
Finally, Socialist Unity wil also campaign actively for independent candidates in two other constituencies:
BARNSLEY: Here Brendan Gallagher, father of Willie, is standing on a "Troops Out platform against Northern Ireland Secretary Roy Mason.
CARDIFF South-East: Here Pat Arrowsmith is standing as
Independent Socialist against Callaghan, and contree support het candidacy has been set up the Campaign for a Socialist Alternative.
The •main issue in this campaign will be Ireland, but it will also focus on unemploy. ment (with the recent closure of the East Moors steel plant in the constituency) and devolu tion. The SWP has pledged that its members will be active in the campaign.
Soeialist Challenge 5 April 1979 page
Page 4 scan of this page
What they said they'd do
Only for the ears of the party
Labour's record
retreat.
and dragged the name of socialism in the mud.
Let's look at the record.
*The balance of power and wealth: Between 1974 and 1977 real earnings fell by seven per COLL the same period dividends rose by four per cent faster than the increase in the cost of living.
Also in the same period the government transferred over six billion pounds to private industry in handouts, twice the previous rate and two thirds of the total fixed investment by industry.
This was taken directly from the working class in the form of cuts and increased taxation. Leaving the SCUES aside a moment, personal taxation grew from 38.8 per cent to 46.6 per cent, whilst corporate taxes fell from 6.4 per cent to 4.6 per
*Poverty: Last week Child Poverty Action Group reported that the number of children living on the poverty
faithful?
JOBS will be an election issue. Leading Labour speakers have aimed their fire at the threat to jobs contained in the Tories' industrial strategy of massive spending cuts and an end to state handouts to industry.
This may seem a sick joke to the aURO already jobless under Labour. But Callaghan and Co feel no
Leading Tories make threat seem real enough. In a Daily Telegraph article last week Jock Bruce-Gardyne MP
called for: an end to automatic
ises in pensions and social
security benefits; a one-year freeze in Civil Service and local
government recruitment; cut-
ting spending on job centres
"job-creating schemes; axing housing subsidies and aid to private industry; and cutting spending on aid to deprived inner city areas.
Some OI this could
dismissed as kite-flying rant by a more than usually loony Tory right-winger.
But it is official Conservative
policy to trim some £3 billion
from the subsidies and grants to
Socialist Challenge 5 April 1979, page 4
LABOUR IN CRISIS
DO you remember 1974? That was the year this government began. In January 1974, in the wake of Edward Heath's defeat at the miners' hands, the working people of Britain had the capitalist class in
Labour came to power on a programme which reads like a hollow mockery today. Not one of its pledges have been honoured. In betraying its promises, the government has demoralised the labour movement
line grew 500,000. Nearly people live at or below the supplementary benefit level.
*Accountability of industry:
The Labour government concluded precisely one planning agreement UK Stockbrokers Greenwell Co. said in their Report: *Participation agreements have turned out a bit like the Cheshire Cat. The socialist body has disappeared, leaving only grin on the face of Harold Lever'
*Economic equality: In 1976 the top per cent population owned 46.2 per cent of the wealth -more than in 1974. The bottom 50 per cent of the population the owned 5.6 percent quarters of what they owned in 1974.
The top 10 percent of the
Tories' plans for industry
private industry now administered. by the Department of Industry, and to cut National Enterprise down to a simple holding com pany for those state sharehold. ings in lame duck' firms that cannot find private all sounds Edward Heath was returned in 1970 with similar policies of big LaX and spending government withdrawal from
the tax cuts would make investment ROTC profitable capital, and lead to economic growth. In fact, happened was that the boom never got beyond the stage of -frantic speculation.
Before his government was brought down by the miners, Heath had nationalised Leyland and Rolls-Royce, passed the laws which provided the basis for massive handouts to private business.
So the whole De industrial intended to keep their party rank-and-file happy, rather like Labour leaders' occasional talk of socialism? Only up to a point.
True, the wilder fantasies of
population have income as the bottom 50 per cent.
*Employment: In February 1974 ofticial was 545,000. for 1979 put unemployment at
*Housing: building workers unemploved, housing starts fell from 351,000 In 19 z lo 26,000 Average house prices doub5,000,000 led in the same period; public
spending on housing halved.
*Education: Between March 1975 and March government cut capital spending by 3u per cent. with Chrysler unemployment now stands at
an estimated 66,000. Labour Education Minister 1977 Oil Williams has stated that at least
have to be employed simply to implement existing agreements on class size.
health ma Salon WaCC three-quarters of all hospital beds are in pre-1918 hospitals, of the and. only
hospitals have been built since three per cent the war,
imposed cuts of nearly 30 per cent in hospital spending.
It has forced local authorities
through its cash limits. the 'free-market' fanatics do not fit the real needs of modern big business. Much government spending today on education,
housing and bransport, is e
necessary subsidy overhead costs of capital.
the As for direct aid to industry, Board what would be left today of
bulam s producuve capaciy and export-earning potential if big firms like Leyland had been buvers. left to go to the wall? familiar. If this also has the effect of
saving jobs, dole-queues growing quite
cuts, fast,
another plank in the strategy of ast the big capital;
co-operation of the trade union leaders in policing their rank and file.
for The same role is played by
aspects of government's legislation which many Tories modify, such as the Employment Protection Act.
But that does not mean that a Thatcher government's market programme would go the same way as Heath's, or so
and
easily. ism' is the small business, lower
estate middle class Tory rank and file.
Tory These people can afford the simply price of Callaghan-Heath style
'class-collaboration' less easily than big business, whether in the shape of higher taxes or legislation.
They might not be so easily
much
unemployment
The last figures
With 200,000
267,000 in 1977.
1977 the
Teachers'
Shirley
would
health COHSE, out 2300 unemployment 70,000. the government has
reasons The appalling capital outside the HOVCHICH numerous hospitals workers.
The _onrases mn ditched as last time,
crisis.
modern shows that the trade
side srine barga
labour
forced him
or stopping the 'U-turn'.
so that is also useful for cuts, and
ADOUTH buy the the political alternative.
Labour COnUSCO
would like to working class as well.
*free most of
The base of "Thatcher-
policies class.
the socialist protecHve labour Callaghan
battle
Promises: promises
enlisted. *It is indeed our intention to:
their families; b]
to fight poverty abroad;
workers and the community at large;
wealth, and the community at large; e]
work and spend their leisure...
democrate brocess workers' union, nursing Culllate arounc disagree implemented.
for results were not control of British The fine-sounding Labour's 1974 CHU SLaLC alter a further six or seven years of
Big business too is less willing to pay the price of consensus if mounting industrial unrest
union bureaucracy cannot deliver its
Finally, the position of the
movement under Thatcher Government would not be just a re-run of the fight against Heath's policies which
to make
After the Concordat, the
unemployment, opposition would find it harder to present itself as
The tax-cutting, anti-bureaucracy ideology of Thatcherism has a potent appeal not only to the lower middle-class but to
of the
Labour's savage attack on its own roots, and the revolutionary left's failure to make the
its opportunities, means that there is an absence within the labour movement of any systematic body of ideas with a mass base, that could legitimise class struggle in the way that Thatcherism legitimises attacks on the working
That means that the fight for
alternative to is central to the against Thatcher's
"THE AIMS we set out in this manifesto are Socialist aims, and we are proud of the word. It is only by setting our aims high, even amid the hazards of our present economic situation, that the idealism and high intelligence of our young people can be
a] Bring about a fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of power and wealth in favour of working people and
eliminate poverty wherever it exists in Britain, and commit ourselves to a substantial increase in our contribution
make power in industry genuinely accountable to the
achieve far greater economic equality — in income,
increase social equality by giving far greater importance to full employment, housing, education and social benefits;
improve the environment in which our people live and
'This preliminary manifesto, drawing upon the new policy statements which the Labour Party has discussed by its
over the last three years, sets out the specific numbered pledges which the next Labour government will seek with all its strength to carry out in a single parliament.
LABOUR PARTY MANIFESTO, February 1974
with which no revolutionary would could have been
They were not implemented because the government made a political choice. It chose not to race ine consequences or a ngu for its policies: a break with the capitalists and their economy Tories promise no teddy bears' picnic
In future issues, we shall show how many of the policies in Labour's programme promoting working class interests could been achieved through a full-scale mobilisation of the working class to impose them
And we'll why the government backed down.
Page 5 scan of this page
Why the Tories will do very nicely,
HOME NEWS
be calling on their readers to vote for the Tories.
Margaret Thatcher.
their message will lean in
and presses.
How much the Tory Party is spending on street posters to advertise its wares is a secret. The rumoured figure is f2m.
That might seem extravagant since most of Fleet Street now functions in effect as a permanent propaganda machine for the Conservatives.
The affinity with the party of big business begins in the boardrooms of the multinationals and conglomerates which - with the exception of
Daily Telegraph
daily output
National newspapers these days are not profitable
The register on the loss side of the financial balance sheets. It is politics which largely maintains the City's interest in supplying our daily reading material.
As Victor Matthews, executive of Trafalgar House, put it when his shipping and property company took over the ailing Daily Express couple of years ago:
'It is very important in the present state of the country that the Beaverbrook papers should
and express views which are sympathetic to those of the Conservative Party and of capitalism.'
Trafalgar House puts STOP WATCHES will govern
the appearing othe election
during election campaign. Under the Representation of the People Act and various broadcasting strict rules of 'balance' determine the time allocated to the main political parties.
So on the face of it the leaders of these parties shouldn't complain about.
A clue to what lies behind this neutral facade is given by Anthony Smith, liberal commentator on the media. in his The Politics Information:
*The broadcasting authorities in their commitment to
coming more far-reaching anteconshat of harder to guarantee: that keeping society wedded to its political structure.'
That marriage is, of course,
that Jim Callaghan approves. Never mind maintaining the political structure provides the broadcasting
Elections and the media
thank you
ON 3 May, the day of the general election, over 70 per cent of the national newspapers on sale in Britain will
The Daily Express, Sun, Daily Mail, Daily Star Daily Telegraph, Financial Times, and The Times (if it's back in business) will all be waving the flag for
TV and radio can't officially line up that way, but
the same GEOFFREY SHERIDAN looks behind the screens
direct sense. In 1977 it donated £20,000 to the Tory Party. S Pearson and Son, owners of the Financial Times, contributed bit £10,000 in the same The companies which fund the Tories do not need to directly own papers to ensure their VOICE account. It is their advertising provides the inancial prop to the editoria columns.
Alone among the 'popular' mass dailies, the Daily Mirror calls for a Labour vote. It's almost there unwritten rule that it should do So.
The labour movement, spite of its hostility bosses' press, has barely begun to debate the possibilities of an alternative mass press, the Mirror were to withdraw its traditional backing chief Labour Party shown Fleet products could finally snap.
There are no prizes guessing the kind of Labour government the Mirror wants to see re-elected. The Sunday Mirror spelt out its support last weekend: their The Prime Minister has shown true grit in standing up to une unions in tne long-term interests of the country. When its comes to patriotism money where its mouth is in a | Callaghan can claim a thing or | which the present government
Television's blind eye
authorities with their justificanon for the conservative broadly pro-Tory
Acts, The routine attacks strikes; the silence over the war in Ireland; the promotion of WORECIS existing society; the pervasive racism; the reporting of international events from the standpoint of British imperialism are in line with the Labour government's policies.
And when it is these kinds of solutions that are offered to of deal with the present political and social crisis, TV interviewers are happy to restrict their questioning of politicians to this right-wing framework.
Alternative policies, including those of left democracy, will have virtually no airing in the coverage of the election; although one particular alternative is likely to figure - the National Front. that Making Britain a place fit for capitalism in these trying times nas made me ty controuers
TORY DAILY
VOTE direction.
TORY
=
year.
taken into A mal RAT.
is an
to the
"The charge that he is
but if lackey of the unions now holds
about as mucn walce as for the Sahara desert, and the voters the tolerance will be interested to know how
Street's Mrs Thatcher would cope with
inflationary wage claims withfor out the misery that has been inflicted on winter."
The political spectrum of the national press reaches HER ZIES the word right-wing social rightwards.
No Fleet Street paper, for example, came anywhere near Mr to supporting the manifesto on increasingly hostile to critical innerents treatment of political and social and therefore issues. Bread and circuses is the output of order of the day, with BBC's
Tonight the latest target for the axe.
Not surprisingly, sponse of most viewers to the place
boredom and cynicism.
After the Michael Swann, - all these person of the BBC, said: "The
risk of over-doing things is a very serious one, and we shall, I expect, set or endeavour to set a slower tempo and a lower key [for the EEC referendum than done elections.'
But it is the narrow definition of politics and the stultifying approach to it which will cause the TV sets to be switched off.
social
Even live would make the coverage less preuictable cratic, are opposed by the party leaders. Only if the audience members are handpicked by the party organisers [in carefully worked out proportions] will
/SMELL
referendum the Market
the Labour left.
the
everyone
of the Sun
if from democracy over the paper
Labour vote. 1978 — £81m.
the -IC- S. Pearson 1977- £44.9m.
'74 campaigns,
then chair-
1977 - £22.5m.
for ordinar 1977 - £18m.
Trafalgar House 1978 debates, which
demo
TORY VOTE TORY was elected. They unanimously called for a Yes vote in the
Common membership, WHICH marked a significant defeat for
The sharpest turnabout in
voting line up on the the national press this decade has policies. come with the phenomenal rise
In the 1970 general election, class, shortly after Rupert Murdoch's News International had taken reveals,
- which began life as the Daily Herald, jointly owned by the TUC and Labour Fleet Party - the Sun called for a
Company/profits
Reed International
28.8m.
Thomson Equitable Corp.
News International
- £60.6m.
the party leaders participate.
So there is little chance of Callaghan facing left-wing
TORY VOTE TORY could be mistaken for Margaret Thatcher's personal fan mail.
Yet the fact that Murdoch's paper has achieved such a high working class readership popularising the politics reaction is itself a reflection of
Labour government's
Press freedom in Britain is virtually a monopoly of one
and as the present struggle at Times Newspapers
even that -can of suspended when it comes to confronting the printworkers.
Street will need to invest f20m to convert to new technology, which means - as Now its 4m plus daily copies | John Whale, a leader writer on / of the working class. Do you buy a newspaper from these multinationals?
UK publishing interests
Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror, Sunday
People, 3 provincial daily/Sunday
papers, 9 local weeklies, 175
magazines. Aggregate circulation
Financial Times, 12 provincial dailies,
111 local weeklies, large no. of
magazines. Aggregate circulation of
newspapers 2.4 m.
The Times, Sunday Times, 15
provincial daily/Sunday papers,
37 local weeklies, 46 magazines
Aggregate circulation over 6 m.
Sun, News of the World, 2 provincial
Daily/Sunday papers, 24 local
weeklies, 3 magazines. Aggregate
circulation 9.2 m.
Daily Express, Sunday Express, Daily
Star, 1 London evening, 3 local
weeklies. Aggregate circulation 6.4 m.
criticism on the box.
At the end of the day, it is the policies he advances which will | worth viewing.
the Sunday Times, puts it in his book The Politics of the Media:
'Organisations which invest that kind of money could not help preferring a world where the rights of property were respected and the future reliably predictable from the past.
Meanwhile the Labour government advocates the kinc
"rationalisation' which Times Newspapers is attemp ting to carry through. and remains silent on how that new technology could be used expand the press in the interests
Publishing interests as %
of turnover
24%
25%
N/A
65%
17%
lead many working class people to the conclusion that Labour is not offering them any solutions
Socialist Challenge 5 April 1979 page 5
Page 6 scan of this page
Confronting racism at
HOME NEWS
RACE & CLASS pamphlet no.6
95p POLICE AGAINST
BLACK PEOPLE
Racist night
club quotas
SEVEN people wère arrested at a picket against the racist quota system at a Birmingham night club on Saturday night.
Eighty people had picketed Pollyanna's night club following a report by the Commission
Racial Equality which found the club guilty operating a quota system on the admission of blacks to the club, and of turning away people in turbans and woolly hats. manager of the club, Geoffrey Weston-Edwards, has openly defied the CRE ruling, and announced his intention maintaining quotas.
An action committee has been formed to fight racism in all Birmingham's night clubs. K22110 Ahsan, leading member of the committee and a shop steward at Rover Solihull, said after the picket:
"The police action arresting peaceful picketers on Saturday night. was totally unjustified. They
special point intimidating and arresting women on the picket.
*We are going to come back
picket club Saturday night until these racist practices are dropped. particular we shall be fighting for the trade union movement T&GWU members to refuse all deliveries and to prevent thecollection of rubbish.
*There is no way in which the police are goung to stop smashing the colour bar at this club.
R TWO hundred pounds for the Garners strike fund was raised on Sunday at a film benefit at the Gate cinema, Notting Hill. More than 150 people came to see Dark Star and Dread, Beat and Blood.
The strike committee holding two further benefits in the next week which it hopes will be equally successful.
The first is on Sunday 8 April at 1pm at the Paris Pullman
Gardens, SW10), showing Wim Wender's film The American Friend.
Then on Wednesday 11 April there is a late-night showing of Dread, Beat and Blood and Blacks Brittanica at 11.15pm at the Screen on the Green, Uppe Street, Islington.
Socialist Challenge 5 April 1979 page 6
be saying and doing.
racialist campaign, Webster.
By Rich Palser
The Anti Nazi intends to counter the NF every step of the way. It has already
eaflets which local branches will be distributing in every constituency.
*If the Front threatened St George's Dai march on 21 April in Leicester, we will definitely be calling a national counter-demonstration, says ANL organiser Paul Holborrow.
of •We want local branches to counter the Front every time they come out on the streets for rallies and marches to spread The race hatred.'
The Front also seem likely to
five-minute get a broadcast. Comments of borrow:
'One would not allow an organisation that vocated rape time. The Front is committed to inciting racist violence and we will be advocating that
pulled in broadcast.'
The national demonstration planned Saturday 21 April, falling as it of does in the middle of election campaign, can tackle the fascists' impact in the most effective manner every mass action on the streets. We
demand that In candidates back it.
Even if the Front back out and call off their demonstration. or if it is banned under the Public Order Act, must go ahead with demonstration in order to show
in prace Eatens opposition
uS
necessary to protest against any attack on ine nigni anti-fascists to under the Public Order Act.
The National Front will not be the only ones contesting the elections on a racist plattorm. In showing the Front to be fascist by exposing its past Nazi connections. our 1ob must be to force white workers to question
By Chris Khamis
JUST after midnight on 3 July last year, seven men burst into the shop of Nazir Ahmed in Longsight, Manchester.
Nazir thought that they were fascists. His fears seemed to be confirmed when one intruder pulled out the telephone wires, preventing son contacting the police.
The Ahmeds tried to defend themselves. and snouted lor help. When it arrived intruders identified themselves
they were plain clothes police officers.
Nazir Ahmed has now been
NF plans 280 candidates
the polls
THE NATIONAL FRONT are making no bones | about what their intended 280 election candidates will
•We're going to be fighting a very, very heavy
says Front leader
the similar advocated by other candidates.
League One way of doing this is to demand to know where other
ANL
hold their election Hol-
openly adbroadcasting
the on their
counterfor
an
through
Labour
the ANL their
of the demonstrate
* ADVANCE TICKET FROM charged with policeman with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, and his son races two assaul charges.
They could face years in jail simply for themselves against what they believed to be a fascist attack.
Black people in have good reason to be wary of from racist assaults. Last year, tor example, the house of an Asian bus-driver was leaving his daughter in a coma the for weeks.
Another Asian family were hounded out of their shop in Levenshulme smashed up by a gang of racist
deportation under
Martin
policies
ALEXANDRA PALACE
SAT 141h APRIL 4,30pm-12pm
THE RUTS,
ROUGH TRADE, ACE HEGORDS, HONKY TOMI
REGORDS, AND SMALL WONDE
Victimised for self-defence
wounding youths.
defending into the events
that area Society,
Community Centre, fire-bombed, Central Manchester Union number of local committees was
candidates stand on the case of Abdul Azad, threatened with parties
the racist immigration laws; or the case of Nazir Ahmed, now facing charges for defending himself against what he thought was a as d fascist attack (see below).
Another step is for ANL branches to initiate local rallies racist jointly with trades councils and union branches, at which the -CUTECHLY
ASWAD,
COOPER CLARKE, DAMBALA,
TICKETS £1.70 (inadvance*) E1.95 (on the door)
UPSTARTS,
. LEYTON BUZZARDS
£1.70 W
paTin Ahmed manence Came
demanding dropping of all charges against for the Ahmeds and a full inquiry
supported by the Pakistan Social and Welfare
Afro-Asian Society, Khaksar, the Pakistan
Manchester branch, Area National of Students, and anti-racist and ANL paign,
So far it has organised a
candidates of the workers'
can explain their opposition to the fascists.
The fascists of the National Front must be defeated in their attempt to present themselves
national force to be reckoned with. On top of that we must begin to confront their
policies, fortunately have far wider
ANGELIC
lin dole card)
petition to the Home Secretary and a picket of the committal hearings, and it is preparing
mass demonstration outside the court when the
I ne Ahmeds come to trial.
Support is vital. Black organisations, trade union
local Labour Parties can all be approached to send messages demanding the dropping of all charges to the Home Secretary, and to support the picket of the trial.
Messages of support and financial aid should be sent to: The Ahmed Defence Cam-
Gc/0 642 Stockport Road, Longsight, Manchester.
Open
letter to
Sydney
Bidwell,
Labour
MP
crisis people have IntensITie search for scaDecoaTs It is blac
eople in this country who have be
hosen by racist politician
fascist National Front to play this rol
Tour aude government's policies on immigratio
(now
ocialist Workers Party) many year the experiences of the last five years For it is since Labour decided to support and introduce racist immigra tion policies that the fascists hav cained more support and racism ha
incredible outat
problem one immigranon, but or racism perfectly well that nearly 10,000 whit
Rhodesian immigrants have returned
to this country over the last two years
Many of these were responding
drive! ce in Salisbury Police our finic pation one House
House of Select
Immioration. Inis repon is racist anı
seeks to institutionalise racism 9o8ll even in repthis such ashese whic
repons sucn as mese wnic
TestS Int 'norm" throughout Britain
EVOl
government found the report too racis
and refused to accept its recommenda
tions is the most eloquent indictment
disgrace
issues Titte happy a chatty that
Jest a public debate on the issue
Yours etc., TARIO ALI.
Page 7 scan of this page
The speech that brought down the government Fruits of Labour's
IRELAND
Frank Maguire, government.
government has stood for on Ireland.
the government.
"This will be the unhappiest speech I have ever made in this House. When I was elected in 1966, I sat on the Labour Benches...
*When the Labour Government were defeated, I took my place among Labour Members of the Opposition benches. Throughout a 14-year period in Parliament 1 have never once voted in the Conservative Lobby...
However, all that we had built laboriously wrecked by the election February 1974. Wethen in May of that year experienced the UWC strike. That strike terrified the Labour Government.
"Since the Labour Government have been running The Transitional Programme, 30p plus 10p p&p, from The Other Bookshop, 328 Upper St, London N1.
WOMEN IN ACTION new women's liberation paper for the trade unions. Pilot issue to open discussion on a broad based paper for the unions. Sponsored by Working Women's Charter Campaign, Women in NUT Women's Rights Group CPSA, branches of ASTMS, NATHE.
Copies from *Women in Action', Box 2, 190 Upper Street, London N1, 12p each.
Conference to establish the paper. September 22 Birmingham. Details and donations -write to same address.
Irish policy
IN THE END it was Labour's Irish policy, leading to the abstentions of Social Democratic and Labour Party MP Gerry Fitt and Independent Republican
which sealed the fate
Socialist Challenge does not agree with many things which Gerry Fitt does. It does not agree with some of the points he made in the Commons last Wednesday. But his speech was an eloquent indictment of what the
We reprint this edited extract, not just for the value of what Fitt said, but because Labour supporters have the right to know why he abstained and brought down
away i to Unionists They have not stood up and
extremists as they should have done... *Some journalists and others have said that personality conflict the present Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and me.
That is totally untrue. *The right hon. Gentleman is only implementing Government policies in Northern Ireland. If I criticise him, I was criticise this Government. in *In late 1976 or early 1977 the Government WCHE minority and began to make arrangements with the Ulster Unionists. *Every deal that they made so antagonised community in Northern Ireland tal any denunciation or unis Government gets a standing ovation..
I believe that the Labour Party will win the next election, and my speech is an attempt to point out the Government's tragic mistakes over the past five years. *I did not make up my mind about how to vote because of devolution Scotland and Wales. I made my mind up the Friday before last when I read the Bennett report on police brutality in Northern Ireland. *The report clearly states that TECH WELC brutalised ill-treated in the holding centres in Northern Ireland. tions were placed on debating
A WOMEN
ACTION
TROOPS OUT OF IRELAND:
Political Status for POWs
Called by Glasgow United Troops Out Movement, supported by Sinn Fein Assemble, Queens Park Gates, Victoria Rd. 10am.
that report when discussing the Northern Ireland
and we have not been promised of the a debate.
'That report was only the tip of the iceberg. We have heard of Watergate and Muldergate,
"Bennett-gate" *When the true story emerges of what has been happening in the interrogation centres, people in the United Kingdom will receive it with shock, horror and resentment.. *It has been said that if I do not vote for the Government tonight and there is an election, Loyalist the alternative is just as bad. I
do not think that that is so. *I want to see a continuation of the Labour there is But if there is a Conservative between Government, I warn them not
to get carried away with the belief that somewhere around
solution to une Labour Ireland problem.
'Unfortunately that is the tune we have heard from the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Every Monday morninto ing at 0 o'clock he sees the
Chief Constable. Every Monday at Ipm we hear on the news that so many IRA men have been caught and so many have been sent to gaol *Every Monday the Secretary of State looks for a military solution. But Mondays and Mondays and more Mondays when there will be no military solution and there will be no solution at al until we start to grapple with the political Northern Ireland My grievances are very clear tonight and readily understood.
in though not too many of my
and
Restric-
MAKING Ireland an issue
North End Road, London W11.
we were will be
the
GERRY FITT
Government.
*Many regret
devil in the person Northern Northern
'In all there will be laws
quietly dropped its
the
problem
'allowed' hon. Friends will stand up and | remain a crime in the Brendan Gallagher, who is taking on Roy Mason in Barnsley.
say this in the House, many of them have told me that they recognise what has been going the Labour on over Northern Ireland and express 1 Many regret bitterly ever handling having done a deal with the of the Ireland Unionist Party. But it is too late now.
understanding the real needs of COnSCICCE. and Northern Ireland, I would be a liar and a traitor to the people
Gay rights
ALL the Ulster Unionist MPs Counties. are opposed to any change in the affecting gay people.
Hence the Labour government decision taken earlier this year to extend 1967 Homosexual Law Reform Act to the north of
While homosexual acts in private between men over 21 are IS olding legal in England and Wales, and Scotland, they George St, Pat Arrowsmith (right), Independent Socialist candidate in Cardiff, exchanging words with a British soldier at a recently held anti-recruitment picket in the city. Pat's campaign against Callaghan in the South-east Cardiff constituency is being backed by the newly formed 'Make Ireland an Election Issue Committee'. The committee is also supporting
*Make Ireland an Issue' is planning wide-ranging activities throughout the election, and a pamphle on Labour's record in Ireland is being rushed out. For more information contact the committee c/o 1
who sent me here if I were to go into the Lobby tonight with
Government to confidence of the affairs of Northern Ireland.
*I want to see an election as soon as possible. I want to see the abour Government wir with such a majority that never again will they have to rely on the votes of the Unionists in Northern Ireland.'
Menos
The government has not even bothered to submit evidence to the European Human Rights Court, to which a member of the Northern Ireland Gay Rights TWO Association has taken the issue.
The London Gay Activists Alliance supports the demand for the extension of the Act, and
picket of thi Northern Ireland Office, Great
London SWI, Six | Saturday, 7 April, noon to 2pm.
WHAT'S
LEFT
D per word. wisDay z2 Der colum PEOPLES News Service benefit: film by Red Sisters Collective, Take it like a man, ma'am. 1 April SCalE cinema Tottenham St Wi. 1.50 at door or PNS, 739 9093 x7 PICKET GARNERS: Main
very day. noon to som and o.Ju To 1
•London. V (OpPord Circus) 40-41 Haymarket: 5k Selfridges); 243 Oxford Whitcombe St. (Leicester Sq.). Mas:
Saturday at noon,
FLEET STREET Branch of the Ant MAY DAY GREETINGS: would you
council shor committee or trade union branch put
/ greetings in Socialist its May Da Challenge? If so, just send us the nam and address of the secretary and wi will send details so that it can be raised at ine apri weDDer. ro box ou. London Ni ear (tel. 01-359 8371). eDINbURGH Kevolutionar -COM Munist GrouD rimina senes montniy pubiic meetings
Liberation SUDDOR IN 7.50pm at Trades Council, Picardy wednesddy
PAN AFRICANIST Congress of Azani
Covent Garden, WC1 (Zila Azania Band, Dud Phukwana, and Curchill Jolobe). GENERAL olice worker to back
Londor oTTice. Amateur needed. ADDIOX ZOU WEEKIY nexible nours.
TOWER HAMLETS socialist Unity tin snowine. lake t Like a an. Ma an and "Home Soldier Home". Friday, 13 MOn TICKeTS 11.0U Further informa tion from: 01-247 2717.
socialist feminists require considered.
01 8341 or 958 506
SOCIALIs male. zs. seeks room l
Please write Box 101, cl Socialist Challenge. and Big im Fascism, pamphlet, Wavertree Road, Liverpool 7.
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Down with siamic meacto TOT workers revo union in tan rubAon 7.30pm, Central Library, 68 Hollowa Road,
r Holloway Road POWs Prisoners of War. Speakers from Sint
Cuman Cabrach and Prisoner: Aid Committee Conwayna
Friday 6 April, 7.30pm Lion square.
A•MISSION raisoners MATC Committe
NAC RENS-T 6 Anri. 1979 pam. nrecent Relicha Beacon 7.30pm One Manning Universit
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Socialist Challenge 5 April 1979 page 7
Page 8 scan of this page
PUBLIC SECTOR
'A lot of the women feel
TO SAY whether it was a victory or defeat you have to look at the original purpose of the action. It was the first round in a battle to establish a national minimum wage. In that sense of course it was a defeat.
When you look at the anger being expressed at Fisher's position recommending acceptance, the call by the London NUPE Divisional Council for Fisher's resignation which is being echoed up and down the country, the membership do not see it as a victory.
However, that isn't struggle was a total disaster. It was a cereal, our not a dercat or our dolty to win, because we never engaged in full battle.
Sections of the union have learnt a lot out of this struggle. It has been the first experience of collective action different publicservice workers —Jocal government, health, ambulance work-
they've learnt a lot
seledile action i'very divisive THE gang of four put in charge of the tow pay battle Mallinson, Keating, NUPE.
By Jenny Webber, NUPE
BEFORE the strike there was very poor union organisation amongst women in the schools in London. Everyone was In the union, becase it a? OSCA SHOD they are not protected, because they are not officially stewards.
In Tower Hamlets we began to build a stewards committee members turned up but it was quite an
Socialist Challenge 5 April 1979 page 8
STRIKE:
in different types of struggle losing different types of money. As the strike goes on people who are on all-out action begin to feel that others are not doing all they should.
In Southwark, for example, they all went out on strike and then went back of to selective action because they felt they were on their own
In Westminster the all-out strike, waged a fight to get the rest the undermined by full-time officers on the scene, and the result accepted a £200 back to work bonus and took no further part in the action.
Selectivity tends always to pick on the most organised to take the action and this has a long term effect. by much more difficult to such more die, tounget the duk to November they were corting forward
about to the area committee, saying "don'
expect us to do all your lighting for COHSE; Charlie Donnet, GMWU; Mick Martin, T&GWU; Ron
hoodwinked'
off-putting body, partly because the male officials talked a lol and wouldn't let the women get a word in edgeways. Also it wasn't really doing anything.
Prink tarsince we
regular mass meetings this has been overcome. A lot of women are much more satisfied thatthey can fure up and: say what they feel, be informed discuss the problems.
Sometimes Also. many women members do not
see money as the main problem. As
be fully involved.
under rule at all.
dust went on
WHICH the last four or five years. was inal they
in the next.
Whatsteps were needed to win?
-back in
example, similar figute to us. went into all-a
- from left: Terry
isolated from DOTONERS. went as a result.
begair having
the strike
to find out what was going on.
Women workers became much more involved, electing their own stewards, coming to the meetings, and wanting to
In London we began to create a tradition of holding London stewards rallies, which there's no provision for
If you look at the dust the experience of organisation in the past stands them well in this dispute — in Tower Hamlets it took only days for a joint stewards committee between the unions to be set up, though it had ceased to exist over
The gains in this dispute in union organisation will stand us in good stead
The ideal time to go into struggle was in November, when we could have had a united fight of sections in the private and public sector. The lorry drivers, for
-were ighting for a very weak. But local
So is the problem
-achon, put this was still selective in the national sense, The leadership was happy to let them go on cause to be able to t all-out strike, so long as they remained
other areas and WACCULEC part-timers, many women argued at the meetings that there was no point in getting a pay rise if half of our jobs
Every kitchen | know of in Tower resolution Hamlets is running af three women short as a result of "natural wastage"
There has been a solid refusal by the women to de work study, because even though it's more money they know the older woren will suffer through lost
That decide to lake action, and that
pound supplement
The bad orgenisation and lack of per cent is nothing consultation reinforced that view, Bui they came to the mass meetings during
partly because they were angry with the union, partly to make surel voted against a strike, party Just
Was Certainly, that's part offine problem, be
action against the linesof the union
La lead must be given by bodies which have some authority in
One of the resolutions passed was for regular mass meetings every fortnight,
after the strike we voled to continue on a monthly basis. Another
was for SHOU "stewards committee and whilst it's still not huge, there are many more attending than before.
There has been au upsurge in minor actions as a result When one schoel bear what's happere another the
Fever possib
New pence. 1 that compar will not consider part-time we
There's a lot of anger at the anion negotiators, and a lot of the women feel hoodwinked. We're 75 per cent of the union but they've forgotten about us.
AT THE CENTRE of Labou nearly 1½ million workers in t
The claim is now settled, bi from over inside the public ser
enough done to W comparability? And should w they betrayed us?
Socialist Challenge asked i JENNY WEBBER about wha
nakedo 25 ner cont RAY VARNES, a member the eyes of the membership lonal and ciry-wide strike des, by divisional councis, cic But a lead will only come fron bodies if militants are providing he into all-out political lead within them There is
organised left inside NUPE, capable co-ordinating the activity militants within the shop stewards
The lo
By Mary Allen THE PUBLIC sector Stand Commission headed by indust -relations 'expert' Hugh Clegg, is the dynamic new proposal it was out to be, when as used to sell réturn to work. This body will exam low pay and compare it to pris •THOUSE It is just ohe more it a long im many sach bodies that lave over the past ten
mion attitudes present Standiag Commission history in the board set up by Labour Government under the Pr and Incomes Act in 1966. Whe six-month statutory pay freeze imposed, the Pay Board played decisive role in determining
Page 9 scan of this page
WAS IT ALL IN
ig, sordid history of comparability
crisis has been the pay claim of ublic services. iscussion about the dispute is far unions. the claim, and port a Labour government after
VARNES these questions and • dispute has done for the women NUPE. the touping save her that all For th were
Not exactly. We are talking about strong oppositions whose ideas could
Until 1970, the Prices and Incomes Board not onlv attempted to scrutinise and control unions' claims and actual settlements, but also review structure, and methods of pay bargaining:
A pay board continued under the
Tory Government, but this time it was
administer the statutory wage.
The Pay Board was abolished by the Labour Government when it ended the statutory incomes policy.
what gain is
•Worker of the memb they could out action? because they wete representative.
governments,
they have established wages bargaining procedure, them, the
of solving the problems of low pay, through all pay board and reports.
ballot
The could have given that alternative lead
service.
The job of CAN is not to substitute itself for the union structure, but to fight in it to win an adequate strategy. and
pay boards Have policy, marca important developments
centralised and, through concept of productivity deals has been introduced wholesale into the public sector, under the guise
Another feature of the early 1970s
• The notion of comparability has rün
inquiry This idea, in one form or another, has traditionally dominated
Even the limited intervention of the left into the London Divisional Council -winning the call for stewards rallies, for all-out national action, for rejecting the deal — shows the potential.
Despite the willingness to fight on the Dar or une memoersno - 200 Enc action taken escalated right up until the
the struggle remained sectoralised as long as we did not answer the politial issues faced by the JC OCTIO
union leadership answer these problems because when it comes to the crunch and the life of the government is put on the line, they are
CONCCEC despite "alternative policies'. They cannot see
alternative the goverhment coming out of struggles by working class people.
That's why they are forced to accer he framework of the Concordat, an we started getting separate directives
union leaders. minimum wage adopted by the Labour government would be one of the policies that could Keep them in office How do you se the fight for a nationa minimum wage going lon
¿the code of picketing in the heali
We need to show how These, are linked together within the Concordat,
gett rejected there was no widespread challenge to pay differences between the public and
OLIVALC SCCLUE current demands for such comparisons have arisén because pay policy is more rigidly enforced in the public sector.
Wage increases won by organised workers in the private sector have set the going rate Tor the rest of industry,
Alterra pay report and arbitration, the industrial workers switched to the pay research method. But as the civil service dispute I shows today this method does not
conferences.
The other danger is that in accepting the framework set up by comparability, we will be avertea from our stralegy of a national minimum wage. We don't need comparability what we need is a national minimum wage which is then indexed against inflation.
The fact that the government rejects a minimum wage and says comparability suggests to couldn't whatever the boards come up with it
will be a con.
The danger is that we will get pulled into struggles in August and April to get their the full amount under comparability,
Which will undermine the November of next year for a national Labou
minimum wage. national fight three times a year.
So SEOUL organisatioit, and opposition union
with the cost of living, let alone an adequate wage.
The The pay
Brigades Union broke from traditional pay comparisons. But this stemmed from one prime comparisons could Firemen established comparisons with manual workers wages, but that will ret guarantee inflation part of a whole history restraint They offer no way forward for securing a living wage. A minimum wage maex-imkea to rises in aving costs is the only way that workers' pay can be
have sold out
with anybody,
disaffiliation. me that
fight in
You can't wage a
developing union ISTE
ho hand in hand. The use our strike to funt 75 per cent of public service workers are women. deal awarded to the Fire
reasont pay
NOT DECCLEO establishment Commission.
VAIN?
They know they are sold out, and unless you show them that it's possible to wage a fight to remove those who
not avoid them or by-pass them but remove them - then activists retreat into localism or become demoralised, and you find the gains in union organisation can evaporate.
There's another example of this if we look at the debate in our union over
When the Labour government denies even the most elementary right to a decent minimum wage, some of the membership want to turn their backs on the Labour Party, to run away from politics, to disaffiliate.
Unless they see a way of fighting the Labour government by the union fighting within the Labour Party, then in the event of a sell-out the members demoralisation results, in abstentionFisher is not prepared to wage serious light in the cabour Party. - he wants to call off the protected. But this gain can only be achieved through struggle
If one lesson can be drawn on the basis of this history, it is that when workers resign their right to determine their wage settlements they will end up with minimal increases Public sector workers are now Tinding that their Increases will do no more than take their standard of living to 1974 levels
This particul
bittoo much of theidea of a Pay Board: With a Tory Goverbm ntin power, the machinery of the carly 70s could be Trolled out yet again. But this time it will be that much easier thanks to Labour's
of the Standing
Socialist Challenge 5 April 1979 page 9
Page 10 scan of this page
Silicon chips: Facing up
*THOSE directly affected by technological change must be assured that they will be among the
SILBERMAN examines what this assurance is worth, how silicon chips are being used to digest
HOME NEWS
preperation
AS the trade union and labour
leaders are well aware,
of the technology has already met with some resistance from the workers' movement.
Post Office engineers took strike action last year to back their demand for a 35-hour week. In the newspaper industry, trade unionists have
least slowed down the introduction BEne technology.
AUTO throughout society there is a growing concern about the social consequences of the new industrial revolution.
But the response Callaghan, Murray and Co. to
prospect of millions unemployed over the coming ten years has been...to go along with it!
The government has been at pains to point out that it has "saved' around 300,000 jobs through its various subsidies, training schemes and the like.
But these are little more than cosmetics, when the Concordat's central message is the need to increase productivity -of both capital and labour
*Minister for Unemployment' Albert Booth put it more bluntiv. 'As with computers, micro-electronic technology can often replace people. Why in such circumstances should the government promote applications of it?" he asked
'If our competitors boost productivity and reduce costs by employing new techniques,' Booth explained, 'then we have no option.
Needless to say, the criteria of productivity and profitability play completely into the hands of the employers.
The Concordat would have us believe otherwise. Among the benefits will be shorter working hours, improved conditions of work and better education. But those directly affected by technological change must be assured that they will be beneficiaries.
What are these assurances worth? At last year's TUC, Congress adopted policy for the 35-hour week. But General Council gave support whatever to the Ford workers, the public sector manual workers and others who have tried to achieve it. As long ago as 1972 the TUC adopted policy of nationalisation of the computer industry - another resolution to find its way into the dustbin.
As for better education', the Labour government presided over huge cuts schools.
The Concordat claims
Socialist Challenge 5 April 1979 page 10
to the job gobblers
beneficiaries', states the TUC-government Concordat.
Socialist
and control jobs, and the impact on women's employment.
'concern', but the Labour the government is really pouring new massive finance into develop-
Wing the new technology.
December last government had £400 million -to or vale industry develop or use the chips. And the TUC General Council has gone along with it.
new
genuine concern existed about the social effects of the technology then would be TUC measures to deal with the problem unemployment.
of Firms declaring redunan-
cies or threatening massive job
of loss through these new gadgets
should not be given hand-outs, but nationalised without compensation. By placing under workers' control, hours could be cut to save jobs.
Lucas plan has shown how socially useful products could take the place production for profit.
This could be combined, for instance, with programme of house construcgive jobs hundreds of thousands unemployed building workers Instead of the Concordat's green light to rationalisation, a workers' plan is needed to beat the crisis based promoting mass around such socialist policies. Action now on the 35-hour week - including the call for government action - could be just the springboard needed.
IT TAKES an Albert Booth to claim that the new technology will unemployment. the trend is have little
towards the elimination of jobs within industry as a whole, including the producing industries.
Writing in Scientific American, W.C. Hotton explains that at IBM: The computer itself
the Cal DICUaTC the
the no
WORLD has
By year, the • TWO out of
working women in Britain are predominantly in clerical or secretarial jobs.
secretaries and there
of mass
them OR REPORT The YOU VDU of wasteful
crash
to the
of
capitalist
action
BOTH cartoons drawings that will be employed to define the circuit pattern on effect the silicon.
Other computers supervise the fabrication process and still another one tests the completed technology- chips, automatically
the defective ones?
Similar examples exist within "traditional"
Cal firm Instance. as Topone wereers o
DONT WORRY DEAR YOU CAN RE-TRAIN AS A RETRAINING OFFICER, RETRAINING RETRAINING OFFICERS TO RETRAIN
RETRAINING OFFICERS!
Challenge's trade union conference, JONATHAN
Women in the firing line
every five Word
Ninety-eight per cent of
typists are work of four.
Set these ILL are taken from Chris Harman's pamphlet on New Technology and Socialism.
Ritno.
In an produced by
shows the marking quences of
industry. The Fiat, for DrOCCSSOr. breaks you typewriter
disappear
The
machine.
And consider quences of
called to show the correspondents
processors
probably the most spectacular
example of the new technology
— allow one typist to do the
three sets badly
down.
The
another following 'Generally
work.
And now for the alternative
produce the new model, the speed of work,
excellent pamphlet the Socialist *Today, Workers Party, Chris Harmar
enormous consethe firm. technology on employment. He quotes a Fleet Street worker who uses a word Aerospace
"All shown, get using - when you change paper, shift the margin, move ponding from one job to another workers.
since the word They processor does all these things proposals tor you at very high speed...
mental effort is more repetitive and more continuous.
*You get the feeling you are being forced to exert yourself ever more by the pace of the
the conselatest electronic switchboard 3750' drawn to our attention by the French metal workers union the FGM. It controls all phone "telechiric' calls, decodes phone numbers
list of outside the firm. and it can control the
statistics side by side and it is
only too obvious why the
'micro revolution' spells dan-
ger for women
This need not necessarily be
the case. Ideally the position of
women in the labour market
mean whole
multitude of skilled jobs would
be open to them.
But that is not how capitalist
society functions. The majority
of women in this country are in
paid, or
unskilled occupations.
Now, thanks to the way new
technology is to be used, the
major job area available to
women faces a massive run.
tion. banking industry another field of relatively high employment for women
example. Note the of comment from Lloyds' 1978 annual report:
machines are going to have to do much of the
Already the United the
Kingdom clearing banks computer systems process up twenty million cheques a day... the revolution that has taken place in the clearing of cheques will be repeated on the counter.
*It is our job to serve our customers with the right people and the right machines in the right combination... an on-line Cashpoint system... Is Dentel than the most charming cashier at the far end of the queue.?
check work productivity and follow up the movements of the staff.
Many clerk - or perhaps shoo steward - mav be followed step by step within
Mike Cooley and the Lucas
stewards have or however that possible to forge elements of an alternative technology corres-
the needs of
put forward for alternative sources of energy, alternative transport systems and so on They have also tried to counter the tendency where techniques are designed in such a fashion as to objectivise human skill, and thereby diminish or totally replace the human being'.
To counter this drive to 'eliminate all that vast human knowledge, the Lucas Aero space workers have proposed
devices (literally "hands at a distance'). These machines are labour-saving, of course, but at the same time ism they allow workers skills to be 1979
It is "better' for the directors
of Lloyds bank, it is not better for the charming cashiers' who last year ensured that Lloyd had a pre-tax profit of E182
Will that profit, and the new technology, be used to cut the working week of the 'charming
No, because even the vast profits Lloyds made last year are, in the words of its chairperson Jeremy Morse, 'too low and not sufficient
The ability of women in particular to fight for the new technology to be used for their benefit is restricted because of their relative lack of unionisa-
Often this itself flows from the nature of the work women find themselves in, and the lack
enthusiasm from union leaderships to recruit seriously in such arcasas secretarial services.
Nevertheless, the fact that
percentage of women workers who join trade unions is half that for the unionisation of male workers is one more reason why women face the biggest threat from a new technology controlled by the bosses, for the bosses.
*A conference on Women and the New Technology is to be held shortly. Information from: Helen Deas, 12 Randolph Road, London W9. developed through the work process conditions of complete safety.
In a vivid way, the Lucas workers have shown us tha there's an alternative to two common positions: a complete opposition to new technology
acceptance of the new technology while struggling to win certain concessions at the level of control.
That alternative is workers control over an alternative technology.
THE following material was particularly helpful in the production of this page:
Computer Technology and Employment, papers from a national conference organised by AUEW (TASS) and now produced as a book publishe by NCC
The Future of Employment in Engineering and Manufacturing, Lucas Aerospace Combine Shop Stewards Committe CAITS 1979.
New Technology and Social-
Chris Harman, SWP
Page 11 scan of this page
Iranian referendum: a foregone conclusion
New Iranian solidarity campaign
such a thing in an "Islamic Republic'.
page we ask why.
By our Foreign Staff
IT WAS a foregone conclusion. Faced with a choice between the monarchy and an Islamic Republic — and that was all the ChOICe Cre inevitable which way Iranian people would go.
But inevitability was good enough for Ayatollah Khomeini and his entourage. To make doubly sure they issued coloured voting cards -green, the colour of Islam, for yes; red, the colour danger, for no.
In every polling station voting was overseei religious leaders. One half of the coloured card had to be put in the ballot box, the other half discarded in a bin. This was done openly, with no pretence at a secret ballot.
In some places it is reported that mullahs and electoral officials were telling voters to put the green card in the ballot
›ox and the red one in the bin.
In many areas there was a ow turnout. since peon e could hardly see the point of voting. By Steve Potter 'WE are going to iran express our solidarity with our sisters fighting for liberation. We will come back to Britain to tell the women's
whole labour movement about their struggle.'
This was the message that Farideh, a member of the newly formed iran Women's Solidarity Group, brought to a delegate conference on Iran last weekend, called by Committee Against Repression in Iran.
The conference later voted to set up a new organisation Campaign for Solidarity with Iran.
The delegation got enthusiastic response from the
delegates and observes. Another Iranian woman drew the attention of the women's
Intercontinental Press
- inprecor
'STEELWORKERS march on Paris'. The struggle In French steel industry is again the featured story in the new Intercontinental Press/ Inprecor (Vol 17, No 12). Other articles include analysis of the China-Vietnam conflict by Pierre Rousset and a discussion of the French and Italian Communist Party congresses by Livio Maitan.
Single copies -ALC Subscriptions are £9 for one year, £5 for six months or £2.50 for an introductory offer of 10 issues. Write now to Intercontinental Press/Inprecor, PO Box 50, London N1 2XP. Cheques payable to Intercontinental Press.
INTERNATIONAL
THE real winners in last week's Iranian referendum would have been the opinion pollsters — if they had
The overwhelming vote of approval for Ayatollah Khomeini's regime was utterly predictable. On this
The most dramatic boycott Calle in the nationalities, where the people have already discovered what an "Islamic Republic' means in practice, with armed repression against the national movements
the in Kurdistan and Turkestan.
In those areas where there not was a high turnout, this should
not be taken to mean that the new regime's problems over. The trouble with an reterendum Is that it still leaves
of guessing as to what the masses
actually think.
The point is that, having
by struggled for months
terrible loss of life to overthrow the Shah, no-one could vote for his return now.
Most of the political parties called for a boycott -more or less active character. An exception was pro-Moscow Tudeh which supported the Islamic KeDuDiC - which is wny unc Morning Star has had such sparse coverage referendum Both the Mujahedeen and movement to a conference on Women in Iran on Saturday 12 May in London.
After hearing representatives their
of the Liverpool Port Shop Stewards Committee on the experience of building international solidarity campaigns in the British labour movement, the conference discuss action.
Top priority for delegates was support for the women's delegation. They also decided
the
- ПЕ the
an
30р.
oppressed
are SHOTS Came OUE Tormen still maintained that referendum, everyone
they were in favour of an Islamic Republic.
The redaveen with that they were in favour of immediate constituent outstanding problem is their continued
ol a support for Prime
the hierarchy.
Party, Constituent
tions - immediate, secret and free - are an infinitely more CHorale way of the what the new
should be.
The Iranian on the need lor delegation from movement. This would be the focal point of movement conference on Iran.
Discussion arose about the anticines or taking sondaris into the labour movement. All agreed that the campaign had to get the truth out on Iran to counter the lies in the Western press.
But a successful resolution moved by the Socialist Workers Women's delegation will express solidarity with Iranian women's struggle
Prime Minister Bazargan — elected by no-one. the Fedayeen guerilla organisa- | Workers
though elections to
defence of announced nationalities. As we
LO problems
assembly. The
policy of "critical
tion.
Minister ENC
assembly elec- the nationalities,
raised the of deciding constitution ment,
Socialist a similar the • labour
labour organisations volved.
Steve
solidarity
active support struggles.
Gonbad-e
Turkoman
pondent. hospitals
the fighting tension and between
Party (HKS) has evening combined its agitation for a boycott of the referendum and
La constituent assembly with a campaign in
the oppressed explain dead. elsewhere on this page their
can only be democratically resolved by the free exercise of self-determina-
In opposition to the Islamic Republic which has meant successive attacks on women,
and the workers movement — the HKS
demand for workers' and peasants' govern-
the only government people. capable of meeting the needs of denied this.
fighting.
Gonbad
Party tended to be pessimistic
degree which labour and student movement
could in- Turkomans
Archer from International Marxist Group disagreed, pointing out the fact that there were many in the labour movement who both applauded the overthrow of the Shah and were willing to give
to current tracts peasants' distribute stie.
ceasefire
Turkestan- a
permanent revolution
By Richard Carver 'WHAT kind of Islam is this?' This appeal from a nurse in
Qabus just about sums up the attitude of the
population to the Ayatollah Khomeini's referendum on his Islamic Republic.
The nurse was interviewed by phone by a Reuter's corres-
She said that were refusing to admit Turkomans wounded in
with Khomeini supporters and the army. She was one of a small number
provide treatment.
But, 'We have no medicines, no blood, nothing, please help.'
The fighting broke out on 26 March after several weeks of
sporadic clashes Khomeini's Islamic Revolutionary Guard and the local population.
It seems that the previous
La Khomeini militia member had tried to arrest a Turkoman cigarette seller. One
cigarette seller's relatives saw the incident and tried to intervene but was shot
When Turkomans gathered at their cultural centre the following day to discuss the incident they were fired upon. But they had held onto their guns after the insurrection and were soon returning fire.
Early reports suggested that the Fedayeen guerillas - who still give 'critical support' to the Bazargan government - were fighting on the side of the local
But they have since
On the other side the army has been put on alert but says it has not taken part in the
But reports from The say that Turkomilitias have already confronted and disarmed three lorryloads of soldiers.
Like other oppressed nation alities in the Iranian state the
are demanding autonomy from the central government. In this North eastern region, up Soviet border, the national and agrarian questions are closely bound together.
Under the 1963 land reform' the Royal Family seized large
of the Turkoman fertile land to among its high-ranking servants and hangers-
Much of the land was subsequently resold and farmed by absentee landlords.
The Turkomans have not renounced their claim to the land and the central government has refused to upset landiord interests by agreeing to the peasants' demands.
The government's plan to send the Ayatollah Taleghani to Gonbad to sort out the rebels is therefore hopelessly optimi-
Taleghani has found himself cast, probably reluctantly, in the role of the government's troubleshooter in the nationalities, was he who formulated the
Wants, proposals in the Kurdish capital of Sanandaj a fortnight ago. These included a state limited autonomy and greater use of the Kurdish language.
SIGNIFICANCE OF KURDISH STRUGGLE INIRAN
Speakers: From Kurdistan and H. Hamza Socialist Workers Party
Friends Meeting House, Euston Road, London NW1. Monday, 9 April, 6.30pm.
This was enough to stop the fighting but it will not satisfy either the rank and file Kurdish minas or une mass or une population who are determined that it should be they who determine what relation Kurdistan has to Iran.
In his speech in Sanandaj, Taleghani made it clear that he did not accept this idea. The Kurds, though generally not advocates of total separation, seem adamant on the principle of self-determination.
Ine central government see: the stop-gap Sanandaj formula as a model for its nationalities policy - a sure sign that that policy must fail. On the eve of the referendum assistant Prime Minister Amir Entezam announced that Kurds, Turkomans, Baluchis and other groups would be free to teach and broadcast in their ow languages.
INSURRECTION IN TEHERAN
NOW into its second impres sion - Insurrection in Tehran an eyewitness report by Brian Grogan. 15p plus postage from
Other Bookship Upper Street, London N1 2XQ
But the more significant development the same day was a report of new national unrest among the Baluchis.
In all the oppressed nationalities the referendum is a dead letter - partly because they are in a continuous state of semi-insurrection, but also because the vote offers solution to their problems.
A Shi'a 'Islamic Republic has no future among the minority religious sects which predominate in the oppressed nationalities. Nor does it meet
problem organising sovereign assemblies in each
nation — the only way of givin
substance to the idea o self-determination.
After the referendum the old army of the Pahlavi state will still be intact. That problem is better resolved by armed struggle on the streets!
And. as the lurkomans an showing, the referendum has no answer to the mass deman to destroy the power of the landlords and hand over the land to those who till it.
In other words, different groups of the oppressed population -and religious minorities, peas
and factory workers - are discovering that within the present, capitalist
there will be satisfaction for even their most HECHESTES. from the Iranian Socialist Challenge 5 April 1979 page 11
Page 12 scan of this page
Forge unity in steel
Make Zimbabwe an issue
Europe.
1980, compared with 751,000 in 1973. By Martin Meteyard
The steel crisis reflects both the effects of the economic recession and the impact of LICW technology. DUl outcome is not being left to chance.
On the contrary, the EEC's industrial commission, headed by Viscount Etienne Davignon, is vigorously overseeing whole process to make sure that cutbacks go ahead on schedule.
Workers every producing Common Market country are feeling the pinch. In Britain, for example, the last eighteen months have seen the closure of plants in Hartlepool,
of Jim Callaghan's Cardiff constituency), Ebbw Vale, and Shelton. Next on the list are Bilston and Corby.
In France, where 30,000 jobs have already been lost since 1972, the government is trying
make further 20,000 steelworkers in Lorraine and the North redundant by next year.
But there the similarity ends.
In France the reaction of the workers has led to some of the biggest class battles since 1968.
Employers' ( offices police stations have stormed, MOLOTWEYS railway lines occupied, whole towns taken over for several hours during massive general strikes.
On 23 March more than 100,000 workers converged on Paris to demand a halt to all lay-offs and an immediate 35-hour week with no loss of By Richard Carver
BISHOP Muzorewa's effusive weicome for te rory victory In the House of Commons was a reminder of something that was already obvious Zimbabwe would be an issue in
Muzorewa is a minister in the "internal settlement' ment of lan Smith, which will itself be contesting elections — if the meaning of the word can be stretched that far - on or around 20 April. This statement is a predictable demonstration of where white racist sympathies will be in the British general election.
Even before the vote of confidence Muzorewa written to Shadow Foreign Secretary Francis Pym inviting him to monitor the 20 April elections 2U8L Mew your personal interest and that your Party in solving protracted problems which have faced this country over the past 14 years.'
Despite attaching 'enormous importance to this election and I wish I could accept your invitation', Pym had to refuse.
'However, as you will know, Mrs Thatcher will soon be
Socialist Challenge 5 April 1979 page 12
INTERNATIONAL
Against nationalist solutions
JOBS in the steel industry are being cut back all over
One forcast predicts that the total steel workforce in the Common Market countries could fall to 580,000 in
In britain, nowever, Steel Trades Confederatione Trades Confederation, Bill Sirs, responded to recent
SIES
action to save the jobs at Bilston by saying: *I would always hesitate to embark on strike action. I am against strikes generally, and if
the they can be avoided they should
be.
That kind of talk is music to steel- the ears of Viscount Davignon
and his EEC cronies, especially when it is accompanied by the instant nationalist solutions of the Communist Party.
In Britain CP shop stewards East Moors (bang in the middle* have initiated a campaign in
Ford to make the company use more British steel.
Morning Star (27
favourably quoted the comments of Transport & General Workers Union national organiser Ron Todd: 'We arc posing about the sources of steels used in the car industry in order to defend our British industries where thousands of jobs are being lost."
The same line adopted by the and Party in France. been organised practically no soli-
darity with the recent massive and strike of the German steel-
workers, they are now parading with banners bearing slogans such as 'No to a Europe and '1870, 1914, 1940 that's enough'.
SIn name independence, the Communist mayor of Longwy has issued a municipal decree appointing a team of observers to represent the Conservative Party and I am confident that they will be able to form a balanced judgement on the election. that Traditionally Tory govern-
ments have given unequivocal backing to -une regime. On the face of it Pym's reply to Muzorewa is in the same spirit. but there reasons for thinking official Tory support for Smith is less whole-hearted days.
The problem for the Tories — as on so many other issues — is that the Labour government has so effectively done their job for them. had Tory spokespeople
always draw back anything which might associate them with terrorists' but the more sane among them realise
of that the Anglo-American the proposals for Zimbabwe are
the best guarantee business interests in the region. So it is worth going back to see what the 'Owen-Young' plan, published as a Labour government White Paper in September 1977, actually says.
The White Paper makes, reform"
the The March)
questions
has been on 23 March.
Communist the transport of iron ore and
Having steel products from through the territory of the town.
But nationalist solutions are no answer international crisis of the steel German industry. They merely prevent workers from unified offensive against the of national internationally
attempts of the employers to rationalise the industry through • promolung the Davignon Plan. Wesete
Farc that
these
government. Yawning: Ian Smith.
will a number of quite specific from proposals.
• The liberation army replacement by Zimbabwe National Army' of British
• he retention existing police, judiciary and civil service, even beyond the 'transitional period. • The plan would permit the government of Zimbabwe to introduce measures DUL
abroad' possibility
what is an reundancies
organising been taken.
co-ordinated of Lorraine,
Belgium come together, Speaking: the Rev, Sithole, a member of lan Smith's transitional
mutually contradictory destruction of the
and its new to its tertile su farming land. of the • 20
per cent! of land subject to
aree L'ILE
VERA STEEL against steel. Paris cops confronted the 100,000 workers who marched against steel lay-offs
Not just the need but the
such unified action has been shown by the they live on, common demand raised in each struggle: for a 35-hour week to share available work and stop
Already some steps have
The geographic situation of the northern part
where 'national' borders of France,
and Luxembourg has brought the
of establishment
whole.'
takes
*protection from deprivation of
Rally property'. The two points are
- the obvious intention being that the white 5 per cent should hold on
per cent of
per cent of parliamentary seats will be specially elected' to represent 'minorit in the plan. communities'. The minority, of British troops. force course, is white. It is also not 20
• Western powers will launch selves
*Zimbabwe Development position,
home to many workers that, whichever side of the border
they are being forced to bear the same costs of the same economic crisis.
This has led to the formation of a 'three borders committee' of trade unionists from these
Another promising sign was the a successful public meeting in Luxembourg on 23 February ist addressed by the former editor of the German steelworkers Fund' to bolster the economy of the new country. This is not, however, unbridled altruism
investment will only be forthcoming if the transition takes place without disruption
economy' and *the and continued operation of the Fund are on. predicated upon the acceptance and implementation of the terms of the settlement as a
There is a not very polite word for that!
Finally, the Labour
government proposes a transition period in which Britain
back colonial power through a Resident Commis sioner, who will command the
But *the primal •SULC responsibility for the maintenance of law and order will be with the existing police force.
Most ominously the White Paper provides for a United Nations Zimbabwe force to implement the other proposals
. The core of such a would undoubtedly be
No wonder the Tories have problems differentiating them-
from the government
union paper Metall, Jakob Moneta, and jointly sponsored by the Belgian, German and French sections o the Fourth International.
The European elections in June offer a possibility generalise such workers solution in opposition both to
employers attempt stabilise multinational capital-
institutions and to the narrow chauvinist response of the CP and Labour lefts.
Another enthusiastic supporter of the Anglo-American plan is Liberal leader David Steel. He recently went on an 'unofficial'
Strip to soutner Africa and came back with a superficially sympathetic appreciation of what was going
Viewers of David Frost's celebrated *Global Village' programme on Zimbabwe will remember that Steel's was the most radical voice there. But all he actually said, when it came down to it, was that no solution
possible the participation of black leaders more representative than Bishop Muzorewa
And how is Britain to make
that the OULCOHI acceptable? He didn't tell Frost, but Steel's position is that troops should be sent.
His visit was undoubtedly arranged in close contact with the Foreign Office and government. Steel is a stalking horse
what he says today the Labour leadership will say LOLLUTTOW
For the people of Zimbabwe that is very, very dangerous And that is why we too will be making Zimbabwe an issue in this election
Page 13 scan of this page
Zionism, war and peace
By Ike Nahem
ZIONISM as a modern political movement was founded in the late nineteenth century by Herzl. Herzl put forward the idea that the bitter anti-semitism that plagued European escaped by establishing an all-Jewish state in Palestine.
In order to gain Palestine, the Zionists pursued a consistent policy of trying to make deals with the imperialist powers who ruled Palestine at that time - namely Turkey, and then later Great Britain.
Accordingly, in the early 1900s Herzi courted mainly the Sultan of Turkey and the German Herzl's proposal to Turkey was to WaranCe them an foothold in the Middle East. In his book, The Jewish State, Herzl explained:
*If his Majesty the Sultan were to give us Palestine.. there a part of a wall of defence of Europe In AsIa, civilisation against barbarism.'
Despite all of his promises to the Sultan, Herzl failed to get a charter from Turkey. The Zionists CHanCe TO emerging from World War I as the new imperialist rulers of the Middle East. In 1917, the British issued the Balfour Declaration, announced support for establishing a Jewish nomeland in raiestine
Sir Ronald Stores, the first civil governor of Jerusalem under British rule, summed up the thinking of the British imperialists. He
Palestine could create 'a little Jewish Ulster in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism'
Zionism was not a movement for national liberation but a movement based upon collaborating with the imperialists. Unlike 'classical colonialism' Zionism aimed to create a colonial-settler state.
Such a state would not be based solely upon exploiting the labour and resources of the colonised countev. The Zionists instead planned totally to remove the native population - in this case the Palestinian Arabs - and replace them with Jewish settlers.
In 1940, Joseph Weitz, the head of the Jewish Agency's Department in Palestine, explained the Zionist strategy.
•Between ourselves it must be clear that there is no room for both people together in this country.. solution is Palestine, at least western Palestine, without Arabs... and there. is no other way but to transfer the Arabs from here to the neighbouring countries; to transfer all of them: not one village, not one tribe should be left... There is no other way out."
It is a bitter historic irony that at the same time as the Nazis were
OUT the policy 'Germany Without Jews' the Zionists were carrying out a similar policy against the Palestinian Arabs.
Zionism claimed few among Jews until the 1930s and the rISe of fascism. Most Zionism as a utopian dream based its appeal on the notion that anti-semitism was an inevitable and permanent part of modern civilisation.
poor working class Jews rejected this idea and were thus much more attracted socialism than to Zionism.
As fascism triumphed in Germany,
Jews throughout Europe first tried to emigrate to the United States. search for a 'holy land' in Palestine, the American Zionists themselves with President Franklin Roosevelt in refusing to immigration maws persecuted Jews could enter the United States.
The American Zionists pinned
INTERNATIONAL
Theodore
Jews could be
to Kaiser.
imperialist
we wowd torm
outpost of
then
who were
which
predicted
Colonisation
The only doors of the
movement adherents
Jews saw that the advantage in
state of Israel.
November revolutionary
Western partition. by their
allied
amend the
the fertile land.
attention on the Middle East. oppose Zionism. and Arab people against the Israeli state. their hopes on the idea that if the
United States were closed to the Jewish immigrants, then the Nazi persecution would spur the
to resettle Jews in
Immediately after World War II, an upsurge in the Arab revolution helped to convince Washington
supporting the Zionists call for the formation of the
To accommodate the Zionists, the United Nations passed a resolution in
1947 that divided Palestine into two parts — a Jewish state and a Palestinian Arab state.
The Palestinian Arabs, who were the majority, strongly objected to this
Even after the post-World War II attacks, Jewish immigration, the Palestinians still constituted two-thirds of the population, including one-half of the population in the part of Palestine that was assigned to the Zionists. In addition, at the time of the partition Palestinians farmed three-fifths of
THE 'peace treaty' between Israel and Egypt has again focused Many people in the labour movement welcome the treaty because they see the state of Israel as the Jewish people's safeguard against anti-semitism. They are puzzled at why revolutionary socialists — who fight against racism in any form - nevertheless
In the first of our series of socialist education articles we therefore look at why we support the struggle of the Palestinian
The outbreak of the so-called Israeli war for independence on May 1948, led to another defeat for the Palestinians. This war provided the Zionists with the pretext they were seeking to expel the Palestinian Arabs from all Palestine.
Even before the outbreak of this war, the Zionists were cooking up plans to expel the Palestinian Arabs On 9 April 1948, an entire month before the outbreak of the war, the Zionist terrorist group called Irgun massacrea ove 250 unarmed men women, and children at the village o Deir Yassin.
The Irgun leader at Deir Yassin was Menachem Begin - now Israeli Prime Minister.
Zionist threats and combined with the onset of the 1948 war, thousands of Palestinian Arabs to flee their homeland.
Israel emerged victorious from the war. The Zionists took advantage of their strength to annex additional land. In 1949, King Abdullah of Jordan made a secret deal with Israeli
Premier David Ben-Gurion. 15 agreed to carve up and divide the
Palestinian half-state that had been established by resolution.
These secret deals were carried out without the agreement or participation of the Palestinians, living in the area. democratic votes taken, no elections held.
Since 1948 the Palestinians living in Israel have been refugees in their own land. Those "lucky' enough not to have been expelled face conditions similar to those of black people in South Africa and Zimbabwe.
Immediately Israel was established, the Zionists bruta instituted a policy
Arab labour and Arab products. For of years, Arab workers were exclude
from membership in the all-Jewish trade UHOR Histadrut.
Today, Arabs in Israel are treated like second-class citizens. They are subjected to legal segregation in education,
thousands of
have
as recora
this out.
Suez Canal; the Arab monarchical,
was the during
For Recently, driven pretences.
being the
They
the 1947 UN
There were no after the state of
of boycotting
federation the pamphlet
Moshe
housing, and in every
aspect of social life. There are
political prisoners in Israeli jails, where cases of torture
been documented by the International Red Cross
Zionist foreign policy has been just
domestic practices. A few examples will point
The Israeli government:
1) supported the French in their war against the Algerian independence struggle in the 1950s;
2) supported the US aggression in Korea in 1950 and in Vietnam during the 1960s and 1970s;
3) joined with French and British imperialism in the invasion of Egypt in 1956 after Nasser nationalised the
4) supported the landing of US marines in Lebanon in 1958 to hea off a popular uprising;
5) maintains friendly relations with the apartheid regime in South Africa
Israel has consistently supported
most reactionary elements
society the feudal pro-imperialist elements - against the upsurge of the Arao revoluton
25h the position example isract
position taken Israel the upsurge in Jordan in September 1970. At that time, the mobilisation of the Palestinian and Jordanian masses was threatening to overthrow the reactionary monarch, King Hussein of Jordan.
Zionist propagand
iccused Hussein of being anti-Jewis and an employer of Nazis. However when'a major social crisis forced the Zionists to state where they really stood, they made it crystal clear that they had no qualms about invading Jordan in order to save the Hussein regime from the Palestinian and Jordanian masses.
some anti-Zionists as well as 'left' Zionists have come out in favour of the idea of setting up a Palestinian mini-state on the West Bank of the Jordan River on land captured by Israel in the 1967 war
Such a solution cannot succeed Any such state would only be ar appendage of Israel.
Many Jews, who have been victims of Nazi genocide in Europe, were
to Palestine under false Instead of finding escape from their oppression, they were simply placed in the position of
oppressors of another people - the Palestinian Arabs.
WAR AND
In the Middle Eastl
PEACEI
M. Machover & M.Jafas
FOR further reading see the new
from Palestine Solidarity Campaign: Zionism & Wal and Peace in the Middle East, by
Machover and M. Jafar. Available from Box 98, Rising Free, 182 Upper Street, London NI.
Socialist Challenge 5 April 1979 page 13
Page 14 scan of this page
Surrealist
text - we
were
wrong
to publish
A FOUR-page supplement on surrealism in the 22 March issue of Socialist Challenge, contributed and financed by a group of surrealists, included 'automatic texts' containing extremely violent images of women.
The newspaper's Editorial Board reconsidered position on the publication of this text, and concluded that it should not have been printed.
However, we must make it clear that the Editorial Board did not endorse the views contained in the supplement. We
text was accompanied by a critical comment from the Editorial Board which began: "Some of the automatic texts published here, especially that Stephan Kukowski, contain extremely violent images of women. They are fantasies of male agression to women of a kind which are only too often played out in reality — in rape, woman bat-
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Socialist Challenge *5 April 1979 page 14"
tering, street attacks murder.
aney are among the most humiliating and images of WY OBLICHE bourgeois ideology up. Feminists have attacked such images - in art, advertising, and the media — as constituting an actual incitement to violence against women.'
We utterly rejected the surrealists' claim that the "merely' recorded the disgust Tell Dy someone rape. Our starting point was how best to combat the sexist nature of these contributions:
by deletion WaS publication?
We intended the critical publication of the text as part of our support for the fight to end violence against women. After discussion we recognise that we did not achieve our intention.
On consideration we should have removed the text with a note of explanation.
Then, if we had wanted to further expose the text, could have done so on our terms in an extended article where it would have possible TONKE up questions: sexual fantasy and its relationship to violence against women; sexism in art; the right of the oppressed to 'censor' art. Our aims were never to condone me degrada tion of women.
Protests over the publication of the text came from a number of quarters, including members of the International Marxist Group and in particular from some 20 angry women demanded a meeting with the Editorial Board on 27 March.
The women — 090 attended the feminist conference pressed disgust that a socialist paper cond material. One of the women read out a long statement which analysed how the text degraded and humillated women, in the most violent way. None of us disagrees with this assessment of the text. We understand and
Line anger Cane expressed.
The statement ended with demands from this group of women which included: report of the meeting Socialist Challenge; four pages
paper feminist viewpoint on violence against women; and the £200 which the surrealists paid for the supplement to be paid either to the Rape Crisis Centre or the Women's Aid Federation. The The decision to publish the automatic text was not taken on the basis of any
NORTH EAST NEWCASTLE Socialist local supporters are active! If you 2905in them, phone Pete on (0632) DURHAM Socialist Crn. 2 loneer Caliages, Low
who
STOCKION ON•/Ecs readers can buv socialist Gnalence trom Green books upstairs in une opencer man snooping
SCOTLAND ror intormation about ine paper or 1s supporters ocollane please contac whalenge DOORS
Sat afternoons. sarangement 2217481). Widerange POr Fourth International publications. EDINBURGH Socialist
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DUNDEE Information namense actres tones Cute
and financial consideration. We disagree that Socialist Challenge should degrading
that Since it was launched Socialist Challenge has had a policy of giving space in its columns to
denied access to the media. In many cases, these have been included within pages in the form of suppletext ments or speak-out columns.
With the surrealist group it witnessing a was different.
approached us space. We agreed as we think surrealism is a legitimate area or of concern for a socialist paper.
However, we collective to pay the costs for their supplement. We were not prepared to give four pages of our normal 16 pages over to it. We retained control over the content of the pages - hence the editorial statement which accompanied it. It is how we exercised that should be criticised, not that we we asked the surrealist collective to pay the pages.
been benefited financially.
In respect of the demand for access to the paper, it is absolutely in line with our policies to turn over Socialist Challenge's pages in this way. In fact, we have asked the Rape Crisis Centre, the Women's Aid Federation and others for contributions. Spare Rib article in one of the first issues of the paper. We have never any section whe women's movement to pay for such space.
More importantly, Socialist many of them Challenge has always tried to socialist have worthwhile coverage on
all aspects against women's oppressed and
such exploited role.
liberation. That is why we carry extensive stall writers, soliciting additional material. For this reason, we welcome the production of four pages on women against violence against women women. As we agreed with the
women who offices, the pages should show the positive WOWERS struggle
We hope the four pages will include contributions CUTESS number of organisations like
the Rape Women's Aid who can write on the basis experience and discussion.
If it is not agreed to this particular time, would remain open to such kind groups for me nuture
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Statement
the supplement
feminists
out
debate ON Tuesday 27 March a group of about 20 women invaded a
Socialist •LAC Challenge Editorial Board. We staged this protest in order to express our rage and disgust at
Editorial the printing of a viciously sexist and violent piece of writing in
Socialist
This piece was part of a
supplement entitled debate. "Surrealist Challenge' with the subtitle Surrealism and Revo- The lution' and it was intended by
be example of 'revolutionary art'.
It described a man's fantasy of a gang of men raping a dead woman, drinking her blood and tearing her body to pieces,
Abortion marches - world-wide put the size of the march at 5,000 people
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leaving only her mouth, breasts and vagina intact.
It was printed in full readers were spared none of the horrific, vicious bloody details. he editoria comment few lines stuck in at the end of - said that the surrealists had been asked to take the offensive piece out but had refused and so it had been left in. This outrageous copon the grounds that it would stimulate the issues of censorship and violence against
The same insulting argument was put to us by members of the Board when we occupied their offices. They saw our protest as part of the debate. But we say that we will not allow our distress and anger to be used as material for any
excuse for four full
Literary thugs with no editoria control to restrict them was that they'd paid for the printing themselves. In other words any group that calls itself revolutionary and has £200 to spare
ORAL DRY
WOMEN from all over the world headed Saturday's demonstration in London organised by the International Campaign for Abortion Rights. At the very front was the band Soul Sisters. Organsiers
Abortion campaigners in Liverpool also organised a march, while Glasgow women mounted an exhibition in a shopping precinet. Many shoppers signed a petition for a day-care abortion unit.
In Belgium 8,000 marchers called for the removal of abortion from the Criminal Code. In The
and Italian. In Venezuela 1,000 women attended the first ever national meeting on abortion rights
Speakers at the London rally included writer Amrit Wilson, Isabel Villena from Barcelona, teacher
Alison Downie from the National Union of Students and a woman from the National Union of School Students. Sue Youngdahl (United States) chaired the rally.
Angela Phillips of the National Abortion Campaign urged support for a national day-care campaign whose first meeting will be at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson hospital on 27 April. The campaign wants NHS laws amended to oblige the health service to provide day-care facilities.
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debate. What women's group
can afford this luxury?
Before walking out of the Socialist Challenge offices we made four demands:
1. that in the next issue of Socialist Challenge a public apology be made to women for any mental or physical harm caused by the printing of the article.
2. that a report of our protest also appear.
that in subsequent issue 4 pages be given over to women free of charge - for us to sav what we think and fee about violence against women.
that E200 — the amount paid by the surrealists • 0C paid to the Rape Crisis Centre. If Socialist Challenge does not have £200 then they organise a benefit to raise it, Just as women's projects such as the Rape Crisis Centre are constantly having to do.
If the Socialist Challenge Editorial Board do not meet these demands then we will consider taking further action.
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Page 15 scan of this page
rock to
insulted
Burnel of the Stranglers.
By Jude Arkwright
Rock music is about sex and
Sexual expression. In
when Elvis's thrusting pelvis
first appeared on stage, people
began to think it was all about
sexual liberation.
Parents MCIC shocked,
politicians outraged - it was
020 as communists. But as it turned
rock was strictly
business and actually helped to
reproduce existing
about women ana men
The lyrics of every kind of rock music from cock rock to teeny bop insulted women and glorified male sexuality.
The Rolling Stones:
Under my thumb The girl who once had me down Under my thumb...
The Who:
What is it I'll rape it
The Stranglers:
Beat you honey till you drop
Where violence may seem rather excessive, a more subtle approach is used.
Just give me love when you can
if you need me, woman in love
I'll give you all that 1 am,
believe me School of scandal
By Dick Withecombe OVER 60 trade unionists, women's groups, and Labour Party members joined
public school in Wiltshire on 23 March
Since une beginning March, when the domestic staff
Transport Union members - were locked out, Stonai has become known as the Grunwick of Wiltshire.
The domestic workers earn 66р an hour, compared £3,000 a year and more that most parents pay for their child to attend the school as Doarder
However, school management has consistently refused to enter into negotiations on
Rock Against Sexism
From cock
teeny bop,
women were
'COCKS and jivin' and the odd bloodied nose... That's what rock music is made of — like slugs, snails and puppy dogs' tails — according to Jean Jacques
Doesn't sound much fun, does it? But it's true.
Anyone who thinks lyrics fact, don't matter ought to think about a song like Substitute, the meaning reinforced by tune.
It invites Sam to make use of this woman even if she's only the second best - after all, we sex OD CCES пате interchangeable, big really.
But it's not just the lyrics values and the style of the music. The music industry entirely controlled by men, and is - also highly Women's bodies are a good way of selling products.
Some people thought punk would be different. Punk was for people not profit. It was anti-establishment, interested in sugary romanticits obverse, violence.
But it didn't work out quite like that. The best of the punk bands have been signed up by companies punk still excluded or ignored at least half the human race.
Paul Cook of the Sex Pistols was still in it for the 'booze and the birds after the show".
But here the contradictions will did Musical Express start emerge laughed
Poly Styrene's 'puppy fat' yet a lot of its readers appreciated
pay and conditions, in spite of an agreement made through ACAS last October. picket 23 March organised to greet parents as they arrived at an end of term 18 dance. Pickets are being maintained daily during the Messages of support to.
Swales District of TGWU, Swindon.
Rail lockout By Pete Grant to ASLEF (Paddington branch
THE British Rail Board has put a ban on press reports of dispute which is resulting in train cancellations and affecting the supply of coal to power
UNDER REVIEW/HOME NEWS
which the plaintive is almost
profitable.
and not what she was saying
sexual stereotyped roles and mer society.
Rock Against preached anti-racism, yet some of its bands employed racism and LO WOlICH That - SeXIST. against Sexism We started in December; group COl women women's movement, the student bands.
New Tom Robinson immediately pledged support and now we're drawing in some of the newer punk bands and the feminist
The dispute involves railway shopworkers, The mass parity minimum wage, 4 weeks paid
was holiday at t80, increases for all other shop grades.
Because the National Union
holiday. of Railworkers has dragged its
A. feet over this,
Officer, Railways National Committee
put out a call for a week of action from 19 March, including a two-daystoppage of work.
This followed strike in February involving 46 depots on the Scottish, Eastern, Midland and Western Regions.
Management responded on 20 March by locking out all who refused to work normally.
Sour resueds most Scotion
South Wales depots being locked out till the Saturday.
about Danes .consubuild the Racism
follow.
is really how Rock came about.
from the
movement, and feminist
La whole.
focus within rock who have
bers of
and pro rata
the unofficia
shopworkers mined..
Racist quotas
By Des Murphy
London London
importantly
Our aim is to use music to to become
against sexism We want to reach the youth through the music they
That does not mean we think we can change rock music. It will never really be 'ours' to change until it's out of the hands of big business, and it will never become non-sexist while sexism exists in society as
We want to create a counter
music. We other want to challenge the ideas and get the bands and more SW11.
Management's fuelling of locomotives resulted in mem-
ASLEF boycotting them at the large London depot injunctions of Stratford, and shopworkers in South Wales responded by sitting in on the locomotives.
The British Rail Board are Poly's West now realising that the NUR's belief that the shopworkers
measures committee has no support is very much a false hope. The
remain deterings
were made
hours THE fight by North East
Polytechnic student the sheriff. union against the racist quotas imposed by the governors took
Kings. - their followers part of the fight
We want RAS to be a link between young people and the women's movement; as RAR was the link to the ANL and the anti-racist movement. of
That's why... we want to have fun and fight sexism.
Anyone interested in coming arganising a gig or in you'd along to RAS meetings, like badges, copies of dRAStic For measures, gig guides,
things, write c/o 12 Road, - London
a further dramatic turn on Thursday. Armed with both possession orders and
the High Court sheriff and a large number of police officers smashed into the week-old occupanon Or tne
Ham precinct.
Already evicted by similar
al the Barking precinct - but confident i ight of a mandate from thre consecutive union mass meet-
- the singing occupiers sat tight behind the barricades.
Eleven not so gentle arrests
An immediate picket of West Ham police station forced the police to release all the students in two
- most being charged with intentionally obstructing S112SS
The remand for one month at West, Ham Court the next
The
cane
mutiny
By Redmond O'Neill
IN Croydon's 22 secondar
were 1,300 recorded canings of students last year. A survey of a quarter of Inner London schools has revealed 3,000 recorded can-
It is in response to such
extensive physical assaults that the National Union of School
Students has launched
campaign for the abolition of corporal punishment, which begins with a picket of th National Union of Teachers' conference in Scarborough on April 16.
The campaign will involve
petitions ano culminate in
London demonstration following the general election.
Britain is one of the few countries in the world to allow The extensive use of physical violence in its schools.
In most European countries it was abolished along with the revolutions of the 18th and 19th
centuries. SETSSIS its abolition was one of the first measures taken by the Soviet government established follow. ing October 1917.
Just how widespread is the use of the cane in England and
Wales, atTe Scotland, can be judged from the fact that an MP's Private Bill calling for the abolition of corporal punishment in schools for the mentally and physically handicapped was blocked last month by Tory filibustering.
At a time when the Tor Party will be stepping up its campaign for more 18w and order', including in schools. and the government and most
councils TCLUSE implement the Labour Party's policy for the abolition corporal punishment, the NUSS campaign is especially important.
The left and particularly left-wing teachers need to come out loud and clear against one
most reactionary hangovers from Britain's imperial past. The NUSS campaign should be supported and publicised in every area of the country.
information on the campaign, petitions, and copies of the NUSS magazine, BLOT write to: NUSS, 302 Pentonville Road, London N1.
morning was the scene another mass picket by students. The occupation had become the focus for activities aimed at changing the mind of the governors and rejecting as has Middlesex Poly - • the quotas which limit the number of student admissions on a racist basis.
Student occupiers, together with members of the college lecturers' union, have spent the last week visiting individual governors seeking an emergency governors meeting so that the whole matter can be reconsidered especially in light of the Middlesex Polytechnic decision. With the now with us a temporary lull in
action has occurred but the promises to see the struggle taken up with new vigour.
Socialist Challenge ,5 April 1979 page 15
Page 16 scan of this page
Socialist Cl IT COULD HAPPER MERE!
Registered with the Post Office as a newspaper, Published by Relgocrest Ltd. for Socialist Challenge, 328/9 Upper St, London N1. Printed by Feb Edge Litho Ltd (TU),
material. And still they have no answer.
By Richard Carver
* What has happened at Three Mile Island?
In short, the worst nuclear disaster - apart from the "planned' disasters Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If incie nave been no deans so far, that is because death from radiation Is not short dramatic but slow lingering.
The Three Mile Island plant uses a pressurised water reactor (PWR) - that is, the reactor is cooled by water pumped round it at a high pressure. It is as safe as any nuclear installation.
What went wrong was not the failure of some sophisticated DEUCESS unknown substance but the breakdown of two pumping systems.
An emergency valve stuck open, allowing radioactive fluids to escape, and emergency core cooling system was accidentally switched off.
Supporters of nuclear power always use complicated statistics to show how improbable such a combination of failures would be. But it has happened.
* What did the failure of the cooling system mean?
It caused the fracture of one of the fuel rods - just about
worst thing that happen. It took staff at the plant three hours to realise that somcing was wrong.
Then there was another unforeseen development - the formation of a bubble of gas in the top of the reactor unit.
MOST readers will be flooded with calls for money in the next few weeks. With Socialist Unity standing in a dozen constituencies that is how should be.
But let us plead our case. Our regular financial supporters may feel inclined to forget our fund drive for a month in favour of more immediate causes. However, as the only weekly paper fighting for a socialist alternative to Labour's policies, we need your help more than ever.
The last two weeks are especially worrying. We have not made our target of £2500
THEY haven't got a clue! That is the only conclusion, as plans go ahead for the evacuation of up to 600,000 people from the area of the leaking Pennsylvania nuclear plant. Up to 50,000 square miles could finally have to be abandoned to the wilderness for ever. The nuclear core of the reactor threatens to melt down, releasing an incredible amount of radioactive
* Do the US authorities know what to do?
No. Their computer has been working ever solutions but it hasn't yet come up with anything. two things they disperse the bubble. One is to let the gas out, but radiation and levels are so high that no-one and can get near enough to do that.
The other, which they have tried, is to disperse the bubble by pumping in cold water All that happened was that the bubble split in two, changing the balance of the gas and nearly causing explosion!
* What does this mean for the people of Pennsylvania?
Nobody really knows certainly not the authorities. It all depends on the WHICH and how radioactive material has been released into the atmosphere.
With typical one spokesperson said: radiation level is what people would get if they played golf in the sunshine.' But golf courses are not usually evacuated or subject to curfew as soon as the sun comes out!
Another estimate was 'no more than you get in a dental X-ray'. Are there plans for the permanent abandonment of all dental surgeries? can If the nuclear core of the reactor melts down - which is the worst possible outcome -there would be a major release of radioactive material.
Ford Foundation reckons that this could cause 3,000 early deaths, 45,000 CaNC radiation sickness, 45,000 cases
OUR FUND DRIVE
this quarter once again. And we have an even bigger job to do.
Covering an election means sending reporters, paying the high costs of British Rail tickets. It means extending picture coverage, putting up our print run. To add to our problems the money we have received in the past two weeks is dismally we hope part of the explanation is the London postal strike.
How can this situation be rectified? As ever we are not short of ideas.
To sellers: the election is a time for hectic political activity.
It isthe best opportunity there is
nuclear
find
There are can do to
high pressure nuclear
much
complacency
"The
of cancer, and 30,000 genetic effects over 150 years.
* Could it happen here?
Yes. The British industry is strongly in favour of PWRs. Indeed the Three Mile Island reactor is one of the designs currently dered to the British Central Electricity Generating Board.
The nuclear
stations carry this sort of risk. Remember that wrong in Pennsvivania were simple mechanical devices like
for increasing sales. The target for each seller should be increase of 50 per cent. Where
and Socialist Unity is standing it
should be higher still.
and To readers: we want to help
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Which means a bigger financial contribution to the paper thats Socialist Unity. Send a tenner to us now.
To new readers: we expect to gain many new readers during the campaign and we want to
pumps and valves.
The complacency
nuclear nuclear industry is
Who would have
being ten-
breakdowns? power
what went
chance of profits.
an offering subscription months.
such challenge'. We agree.
money,
commitment Box
Islington, London N1.
weekly Our thanks to: committed to JRiley
M Tupper D Hoyle Costas Prodromon Total GRAND TOTAL
were recently
* What can be done about it?
of them.
of the capitalist exceeded only by its terrifying ignorance.
thought it possible to build a nuclear power station without being able to mend the most simple of that. this prepared to mortgage capitalism could do human life itself when there is a
opposition
Protective legislation is
keep them. We are therefore
special election f2 for three
Opposing the no confidence vote in parliament Callaghan called for a bolder socialist Name...
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useless. Five US nuclear plants
closed down because of defective design.
Three Mile Island was not one
It is the state, operating in
interests, which directs nuclear policy. It has little concern for safety.
* How can we change that?
Lobbying has proven useless.
For example, there was little
Parliament voted to go ahead with the
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ge
Windscale fast breeder reactor.
The only way to fight state nuclear policy is through an uncompromising campaign of mass action which says: "Capitalism can never be entrusted with our safety. Stor all nuclear development now!
The next opportunity to do that will be from 4-7 May when there will be a mass 'festive gathering' at Torness in East Lothian against the proposed nuclear power station there. Details from SCRAM, Ainslie Place, Edinburgh. 3-4 The Oval, London E2.
← Socialist Challenge No. 89, 29 March 1979Socialist Challenge No. 91, 12 April 1979 →