SINCE THE miners strike Socialist Action has been ceaselessly campaigning to bring together the forces which came out of that strike and which stood with the miners in their struggle. It did so for a very clear reason. Because it believed that out of the miners strike something not seen in Britain for sixty. years had emerged struggle left.
That was not just a question of words. It was above all a judgement about where those who had stood with the miners would stand in the key new events of the class struggle. That those who had stood foursquare with the miners would equally fight on the key new issues of the class struggle as they came up. would find itself on the same side of the barricades with these forces number of issues - and the ultimate test in the class struggle is not ideology, not ideas in someone's head, but where they stand when one class fights another.
That is exactly what has occurred over the period since the end of the miners strike. Those who stood with the miners in their strike have deepened their course to the left.
The immediate miners strike was when Tony Benn and Eric Hefpresented a paper to British withdrawal from NATO. The Labour Party Black Section began rapidly developing its olicy in defence of the black communities ir landsworth, Brixton and Broadwater Farm, anc campaigning against the US attacks on Libya.
Campaign for Labour Party Democracy and the Women's Action Committee played a central role in helping establish Labour Left Liaison. It was 13 members of the Campaign Group who voted against the Anglo-Irish Accord. gamut of forces hunt.
Gradually far larger forces than Socialist Action have come around to the need to organise and politically develop these forces. For a long time the degree to which not only the capitalist press but even forces on the left suppressed the views coming out of forces leading and supporting the miners strike was incredible. It is an astonishing fact, but true, that the only place in which you can find Arthur speeches in the miners strike is in the pages of Socialist Action. Socialist Action carried the big on the miners among the weekly press, Socialist Action printed the major statements of the Labour Party Black Section.
Fortunately now, forces than us are taking up this task of getting out the truth in a systematic way. The most important steps have been the establishment of Campaign Group News and the development of Labour Left Liaison - and the links it is forging with the Campaign Group. Both are enormously to be welcomed Socialist Action does not have delusions of grandeur. It believes it has a political role to play in what is developing in the labour movement.
But other forces are much stronger than we are in terms of support. A class struggle left must be democratic. It must respect the real relation of forces that exists among currents.
Socialist Action fights against attempts to exclude it, and fights for its views to be heard, but does not seek, dominate the left convince people it is organisationally manipulate the left.
This however means Socialist Action itself. It is important that much more powerful voices than us are now providing a platform for printing the views of, and organising, the forces which we think are vital for the development of socialism in Britain. This means that we will be taking up many more of the strategic issues that face the left. Our 'Building An Alaliance For Socialism' weekend on 22-23 November will be an important step in that. The pages of Socialist Action will themselves change to take up these more strategic issues of politics.
We will be continuing to support all the campaigns we have always supported -Campaign Group News, and Labour Left Liaison.
the coming issues.
La class . That Socialist Action increasing aftermath of the the NEC demanding A whole have helped fight the Scargill's major Equally, along however, much bigger and never has sought, to organisationally. It aims to right politically, not La changing role for including We hope our readers will like what they see in THE DEBATE at last week's TUC in Brighton on low pay resulted in a 745,000 majority in favour of a document produced by the TUC-Labour Liaison Committee. The centre point of this was the question of a national minimum wage. A composite resolution was also adopted on a show of hands. Concern for the plight of the low paid by the TUC is Hoyle Mil stated that mion herders upon more than welcome. total of 21.5 million were affected by low pay. how adequate is the new TUC document?
Those opposing the document and resolution which called for statutory ward the TUC were Eric Hammond of the EETPU Ron Todd of the TGWU. Hammond argued that skilled workers must be especially rewarded He opposed incomes policy for the same ¡casull. Todd spoke favour of collective gaining, and opposition to incomes policy.
Arguing in favour of the wage proposals, Rodney Bickerstate argued that collective bargaining on its own can never eradicate low pay. need nobody to talk to me about being patient a little find another excuse for doing nothing tor the eight million low-paid'.
The case for a statutory national minimum wage 1s overwhelming. Trade unions have been directly concerned with the probtem of the low-paid since the growth of mass unionisation of semi-skilled and unskilled at the end of the last century. But more than eighty years of trade organisation bargaining Have eliminated low pay.
Department of Employment noted in a restudy that the distribution of male manual earnings: 'has changed little, particularly at the lower end, over the period 1886 to the present 1I0HI day'.
Poverty Chris Pond and Steve Winyard in a Low Pay Unit pamphlet The Case For A National Minimum Wage reproduce Department of rADIOVICHI figures.
These reveal that the wages of the lowest 10 per cent of manual male workers were 68.6 per cent of median weekly 1886 and 68.3 per cent 96 years later! Pond and Winyard point out that: 'the poorest Table 2:
White men Asian and West Indian men Black male wages as %o of white During the debate, workers are now worse off relative to the rest of the population, than they were at the end of the 1970s'.
Pond and Winyard add in male manual worker in low paid; by 1982 the proportion had one in six. Two-thirds of manual women earned low wages in 1979, compared will three-quarters in 1982'.
Effects The figures also show clearly, would be expected, that low pay is not evenly spread across the country. centrated among women workers, black workers and youth, and is subject regional and cupational variation. This concentration of low paid workers among specific groups of workers, and in specific areas of the coun serves to split up and divide the working class There further effects of low pay as well. Where low pay predominates competition between workers TOT the additional crumbs that can be gained from employers intensifies. Massive overtime working becomes the norm. Holidays and weekends become luxuries workers try to maximise their wage packets.
Equal pay Under such conditions the case for a national Ware is incontestible. cent of men's in 1970 to 70 per cent before the passing of the Equal Pay Act by the 1975. With the backing 01 the Act women themselves were able push their average wage up to 75 per cent of mens by 1976. In other words the best organised of women were able to take action themselves thereby also help force through laws thai spread their gains to the less well organised.
But despite the Act wages as a proportion of men's remained basically t that level du ig the mid 1970s and the began to decline. trary to press reports - is woefully inadequate As long ago 1982, the TUC itself set the lowpay threshold at f90 It noted in 1983 pamphlet or Working Women that: per cent of women work ing full-time earned less than that' and 'about 80 per cent of women part-timers earned less than the hourly equivalent' In Low Pay Revien number 24, Robin Smal points out that eveI the government considers:
that fall calllls. below £l10 per week are insufficient for a parent with two children and need to be topped up with means-tested Family Income Supplement.
These figures aren't entirel! comparable to the TUC position • which rightly concerned with basic hourly rates whereas the government deals with gross earnings Tie a ceptan national principle national minimum wage at this year's Congress is an important forward. must be on by fighting against low pay now, by rejecting any wage limits accompanying the introduction of a nationa minimum wage, fighting for an adequate figure to set such a wage at.
Table 1 overtime, of full-time emplyees, aged 18 and over whose pay was not affected by absence: Women as a percentage of men:
1978 73.9 1979 73.0 1980 73.5 1981 74.8 1982 73.9 £median weekly earnings London 129.90 118.70 91.4 (Source: Policy Studies Institute).
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SOCiAlist AcTion A new role for
I TI Women and black people are among the worst hit by low pay
Women's earnings relative to men's earnings Average gross hourly earnings, excluding