Socialist Action No. 94, 22 March 1985
The scan: 094-mar-22-1985-SA-UK.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.
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DEFEND PI MILITANTS
No. 94 22 March 1985
Photo: GM COOKSON
'PEOPLE ARE discovering the price of insubordination and insurrection. And boy are we going to make it stick!' Was Ian famous boast in the Telegraph in justification NCB's victimisation of sacked during the strike. But, while management attacks on the miners and NUM are mounting, struggles are taking place against the NCB's attacks.
•In Cannock, Staffordshire, at Littleton colliery, where 80 per cent were at work when the strike ended, production came to a halt on Tuesday 5 March when manacement ted to corce a power group worker to work overtime. Management
MacGregor's in- misjudged
members.
Sunday of the miners
management s rerusal to give sharp underground tribunal.
SOCiAlist
ACTiON
backed down over threats to withdraw •At facilities from the power group secretary after they realised they had completely the
mood NUM SYstems.
•In South Wales miners at Betws pit came out on strike on 18 March against
WORK workers. And the Thurnacite plant at Abercwmboi superscab Paul Watson won the sacking of five
and miners with his claim that they had spat
provoked an immediate strike backed up by four pits in the Cynon
home Valley. But the South Wales area executive recommended calling off the action
NUM
and management refused to budge
Maule to all housed
Markham, near Chesterfield, Derbyshire, 1000 miners walked out over
introduction of new maintenance
Alongside these victimisations management is trying to carry through a severe attack on work practices
In Doncaster, one of the most solid coalfields throughout the strike, management have introduced a four shift system
abolished safety committees. local agreements have been abolished and miners arriving 10 minutes late are sent
the first time round and if they repeat the 'offence' they / will be sacked.
facilities have been restricted.
Despite these attacks the elections held so far show militants who led the
strike are holding their support among the members.
•At Keresley, near Coventry, members of the branch committee who supported the strike have been re-elected by the 1100 NCB workforce despite the fact that only 246
Stayeu out to the end
•North Yorkshire panel elections showed an increased trend of support for the left. North Yorkshire is a traditional stronghold of the right, but the panel vote this time was split down the middle left and right.
severely
•At Selby, the biggest super-pit in the country, the strike committee received a unanimous vote of confidence despite two-
National Demonstration for Amnesty Saturday 30 March Sheffield JOBS NOT JAIL Speakers: Betty Heathfield, Jack Collins, Jo Reeder, Liz French
Re-instate sacked miners Support the Prisoners Stop the trials Assemble 11am, Caborns Corner (junction of Spital Hill/Carlisle St)
March to a rally at City Hall Called by the South Yorkshire Defence Campaign more info from 73, West St, Sheffield S1 munity during
The between
entire movement.
thirds of the workforce having gone back before the strike was called off.
The other pattern showing up in parts of the country is that significant numbers of miners and women from the mining com-
have joined the •Parti the dispute. In the North Yorkshire area more than 300 have joined in Leeds. Dennis Healey, MP for Leeds East, may have an interesting time with the 6u new members trom the coaltie d who have joined his constituency.
most urgent task today defending the 760-plus miners who have been sacked - and the 150 who have been imprisoned. There are still more than 2000 awaiting trial.
'Jobs not jail!", "No victimisations!" must be the campaigning slogan for the
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Scottish miners under attack
2 Socialist Action 22 March 1985
SOCiAList
ACTION
Thursday 7 March was to have been the end of the beginning for the campaign in defence of local jobs and services. Then the real battle was to start.
In the event, it looked more like the beginning of the end.
Sheffield last July amid stirring speeches about breaking the law if necessary to defend local government services, fell at the first hurdle. It also produced a notable differentiation in the Labour left.
The aim of the campaign was to prepare a united resistance to the Tories' rate-cap proposals. The nine months of preparation, which culminated in the massive demonstrations on Democracy Day 6 March, should have led to clear positions of defiance of the law on 7 March. The real battle would then have opened up.
There is no doubt that had the GLC and ILEA made a stand the prospects for uniting Labour local authorities would have been very good indeed, and Jenkin could have found his Tale la proposals unworkable.
The responsibility for leading the fight lay with the GLC. authority in the country and in the person of Ken Livingstone had a leader of national stature and great authority on the left of the Party.
There was never any doubt that uniting the resistance from Labour councils was a difficult task. Councillors faced severe penalties surcharge, disqualification, and bankruptcy. It was clear that many Labour councillors would rote with the Liberal, SDP and Conservative groups to avoid this risk. But those were the terms of battle.
Livingstone's moves to avoid not setting a rate aided those who had no intention of fighting. It is clear that Livingstone set out to secure a 'no cuts' budget above all — in effect conceding the ground to the Labour 'moderates'
would refuse to defy McDonnell and his supporters who made a clear stand on the 'no rate' position stood by Party policy.
The real issue was the legislation itself not the extent of the cuts. Jenkin had deliberately set the limits high this year in order to get the. legislation into place. Livingstone's arguments for a 'no cuts' budget if the 'no rate' fell, conceded the main point before the battle began.
The defence of local government is much the worse for this retreat. The lower-tier authorities have also postponed the question of going illegal by voting that it was not possible to set a rate at this point SU-
Thursday 7 March government groups engage in a game of 'you go first' on the very edge of the battlefield. Their performance, and Livingstone, leadership given by Arthur Scargill in the NUM — and to the sacrifices of thousands of miners and miners' wives who were prepared to face fines and imprisonment, and loss of their jobs in defence of their communities.
The determined stand taken by Scargill, and the consistent clear position and active campaigning taken by Tony Benn in the miners' support has meant that they have emerged from the last 12 months with their reputations and, more importantly, with a clear lead for the militants of the NUM enhanced. It was an example of real leadership in the class struggle.
The same " cannot be Livingstone. Local government deserves better - and it will need to look to the public sector unions to achieve the class struggle leadership that is required to defend local government.
APOLOGIES TO POSTAL SUBSCRIBERS to Socialist Action, who haven't received their copy for a couple of weeks now. During our move to new premises the computer
DEUCESS disassembied. Now we re back in business readers will have the back issues sent on.
campaign begun in It is the leading Labour the law. John position - rather than outright refusal to do
saw Labour local
particularly that of
stands in stark contrast to the
said for
FOLLOWING Mick McGahey's support for Kinnock at the Scottish Labour Party conference, the Scottish coalfield has emerged as the the non-scab areas. This is a tragedy with a real human cost.
1700 Sčottish miners had quit during the dispute, including 700 who had returned to work temporarily to qualify for redundancy.
The largest number of redundancies Wels the Polkemmet colliery, where
- due to deliberate flooding and the NCB's refusal
safety cover 250 or el sow orginany employed have been made redundant. Anoinel 130 have been transferred to Bilston Glen.
The figure of 1700 out of a total of 13,000 miners in Scotland (13 per cent) contrasts with 9400 nation ally (5 per cent) who have left the industry the course or ine strike
Figures for victimsalon tell une same story There have been 583 convictons of miners in Scotland. England and Wales 502
miners have been dismissed after 4318 convictions; in Scotland an astonishing figures) or 240 (NUM Igures) nave been • dismissed.
all dismissals ir Britain, 25 per cent come
the relalively uny Scottish coalfield. That means that 43 per cent of
miners convicted Scotland have been dismissed.
The offensive against the NUM is not restricted to victimisation. At Bilston Gen collerv the union has been thrown of its offices. ( Guard aogs are now kennelled there.
Union officials
nave had facilities to see members on other shifts withdrawn. Miners have been instructed to work overtime - a de lacto compulsory end to the overtime ban.
In effect, the Scottish NCB is withdrawing recognition of the NUM.
The scotsman.
KEEP FIGHTIN
most disorganised of all
The Scottish NCB announced on 16 March that
tish are direr, or Sti-
arca this way: Like Scargill, he will proceed as he thinks is right almost regardless of ine consequences. Wheel er is made to look good in a Scottish context.
By Brian Heron
That contexI product of the early check lo ine scollisa suke queto the decision of the Scottish
NUM
CACCULIVe close down production at the Ravenscraig steel plant and the sell-out deal at the Hunterston docks. The 'in-
June of the Scottish executive on the amnesty campaign. and the lalesl deal with Kinnock and Willis Scottish miners' gala, are symbols of that leadership.
But the NUM leadership and their friends in the CP, have been working hard among other socia layers. More than 100 academics from five ScotUSO universities have signed a letter to the NCB urging it in: the name of good management, the interests the industry and the good of the Scottish economy to reconsider its decision on the sacking, and help an orderly return to work by announcing the terms of an amnesty.
Even the police joined the chorus. Chief Constable William Moody of Fife, and lan Boliver of Central thought: tensions in the coalfield would be greatly reduced if each case were re-examined on its merits.
significantly, from the point of view of une say sackee miners. une
LEEP FICHTING
end
Scottish miners joined the recent LCDTU London demo to show their continued determination to fight
Scottish leader Mick McGahey Scottish council the Labour Party and the Scottish IUC called a demonstration on amnesty in Glasgow
varch About 4000 joined the march which was led by the sacked miners and women's support groups.
Helen Hunter, from the national women's support groups, gave the most impressive speech. Donald wewar Kev Hugh Ormston were less warmly received Chairperson OI the rally, Johnny Walker had
Huervent against shouting from the
The Scottish party and trade union leaderships are Li lie nOId the against a storm of criticism of their role in the strike
Even Peter Heathfield
RESPECT
PICKET FOTTISH A
who spoke for the NUM " mulea nis comments. At first he stuck to the Scargill line: 'During this dispute we didn't see a redeeming
of the pledges made by thi trade unions at the TUC
'National leaders who supportea us, but aidn' get support in their unions spoke with forked
tongues
on the Scottish trade union and labour leadership, he he wanted to: 'express the NUM's gratitude to the broader trade union move-
scoland which had helped the NUM in all possible ways
Helen Hunter lifted everybody's sights. assure you,' she said, 'that the return to work was not a defeat. The victory is 12
News
months of struggle by men
and women struggling to-
gether.
•We stood side by side
with our men, where
counts. on the front line
on the picket line. Next
time, she joked, 'the men
can go to the sou kitchens. Women WIl
make more effective picket lines. We will fight and fight on.
After that, Dewar's call
for reinstatement of some
of the miners in Scotland on the basis of 'standards
of fair play so much a hall
mark of Scotland' stirred nobody's soul.
Wheeler's toll grows. Aitcheson, dismissed branch secretary at. Bilston Glen
where two out of four officials and five committee members have been sacked, says others are still receiving notice
Some had not even had outstanding court cases neare yet. "These dismissals are creating an atmosorce onear ne sald 'The Board are hammering it into the men that if the can dismiss local branch officials, what is there to stop them from dismissing the ordinary miner?
In Scotland, the labour movement leadership ar
the miners' strike It was summed up by the Scottish. press after the Scottish
Labour rariv conlerence 'The conference's main function was to act like railway point switching the labour movement in Scot land away from overriding concern with the miners
leading the next election.
But thousands of Scottish miners and women. support groups are com mitted and militant - anc continue to be supporters of the Scargill line. Many groups in towns and cities are still together and active.
Much of the base of the • Scottish
LaDou Party wants to settle accounts with the sell-out leaders. But all this remains to be focussed. Its first task is to
campaign in the Scottish coaltield
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Why South Wales led return to work
News
Emlyn Williams
TWO LINES on the miners' strike are emerging in the labour movement. The first is that of Scargill and the Labour Party left, who point out that the battle was historic, and showed the potential that a sustained struggle by the trade union movement could have against the Tory government.
The key lesson of the strike was that it would have been won months ago extent for une sabotage or the TUC and Labour Party leaders and their refusal to campaign for policies agreed over several years at the TUC congress.
puer line is one that reflects the pressure of
leaders like Sirs Hammond who refused to lift one finger to help the miners. The
aurocommunisi wing the Communist Party, Tribune and the
Co-ordinating Committee are all turning
leadership in the strike and
Scargill in particular.
article Communist Party's weekly iourna. focus. Claims that once the Nottinghamshire coalfield refused to join the strike it was obvious that a victory could
HUl achieved by industrial muscle alone. Sections of che NUM were consequently wrong to rely on industrial strength instead of trying to win over public
Peter Carter in Marxism Today argues that should have been an early
Drop these charges!
through your party or union branch now.
rights. This organisation
licly campaign for these charges and any charges associated with dropped.
condemnation of violence, and support from bishops and the churches: "should have been worked for and welcomed, not met with derision as it was in some quarters. mainly suggests that there should have
May, and this would have avoided the violence with flving pickets the Nottingham coalfields. Be: cause, it says: "there would have been bers abiding by the national strike decision to pickel mel own colleagues.
The Labour Co-ordinating Committee agrees with Tribune on the ballot anu vacks ninock s con• demnation of violence. *The retusal of Scargill and the NUM to speak out against this behaviour appeared to legitimise such violence,' they say.
The debate about the miners' strike will go on for British labour movement. Every labour leader was tested in this battle.
This week we look at the role Wales executive, majority whom were scentica about mass picketing from early on In the rike
THE CHARGES of unlawful assembly against the miners who occupied cranes at Port Talbot docks have been dropped, but replaced by a charge of riotous assembly. So Kinnock, Willis and the rest must be told to carry out their calls for unity against the Tories by campaigning for all charges to be dropped. Get this resolution
This CLP/union branch considers the charges of riotous assembly taken against miners who occupied cranes at Port Talbot to be an attack on democratic
calls the NEC/PLP/-national executive of this union to pub-
other ute occubalion bes.
NUM who proposed the return to work.
GRAHAM ATWELL reports for Socialist Action.
SOUTH Wales has strong_tradition of militancy. Daughters and sons of scabs from 1926 are not allowed forget their forebears. Mountain Ash, an old woman still atlenes luncials or scabs lO vocally mark the passing of anolneı urallor. In the Cynon Valley,
dubbed Scargill Valley in the local press. supermarket assistants refuse to serve Joy Watson, a leader of the back-to-work movement and wife of the only scab 1n the Thurnacite smokeless fuel plant Abercomboi. Bus drivers get off their vehicles when she gets on.
…n une carv staces on the strike, thousands of South Wales pickets, freed from the need to guard their own pits, travelled to North Wales, the Midlands and Nottinghamshire.
But divisions in South Wales were apparent at the start. It took a week oi picketing before every pit came out. Fear of isolation was the main problem to overcome, because of the
Dai Davies
'WE WON'T go back until hell freezes over,' proclaimed Terry Thomas at last October's Labour Party conference. Five months later it was the South Wales
South Wales miners have been among the most militant and determined throughout the strike. Paradoxically, their leadership has acted to stifle this.
failure of national union to back the fight against the closure of the Merthyr colliery.
Rather than combatting these doubts about the union and linking up with LOC militant of the cargill leadership of the VUM, South Wales con tinually pursued a different Kim Howells, an elected research officer with little experience of the industry, became the key spokesperson for the anti-Scargill line.
The first sign of this ditference came over Orgreave. Howell argued this was CLOT union, that modern polmethods rendered
me sic sing the NUM
also NUM should avoid tactics that would 'alienate' public opinion.
Emlyn Williams and Kim Howells were insistent that there should be 'no Orgreave in Wales' . After a week of growing pickets at the Port Talbot steel plant Williams called them off
Photo:
-PORT TALBOT
ME
KONT LUNGES
COAL
OLE
South Wales executive members on the platform, Peter Heathfield speaking, at a 'Coal Not Dole' meeting early in the strike
Newport docks following an agreement with the police Whilst the executive, based on the central coalfields, argued for increased mass action against coal convoys. and docks importing coal, the majority preferred sanction guerrilla actions, culminating in the occu-
Talbot and Newport transporter bridge, with over 101 arrests.
The Wales TUC and the Labour Party were equally of little assistance. Neil Kinnock, despite representing the stituency of Bedwelty. made only one visit to the pIcke lines during the entire dispute Faced by the failure of the TUC and the party to
policies, militant lodge leaders from the central coalfields argued the NUM
GI should develop Its links
with rank and file workers in South Wales and, at the same intensify picketing.
IS BUSINESS •
FOR BRITAIN
- NOT
FOR MINERS
They believed the flow of coal could be stopped
Kim Howells had a different idea. Having recently switched his allegiance from the CP to the Labour Party, he used his old connections to launch the Wales Congress in November. Described by Hywel Francis in Marxism Today as a popular front it brought together the CP MISUCK S supporter the Labour Party the trades union bureaucracı and the South Wales executive. Plaid Cymru's new leader, the left winger Dafydd Elis Thomas, joined the Congress hoping to use it to defend the incusta communess and to promote the campaign for a Wales assembly.
The Congress ceeded in neither task. Ray Davies accurately dubbed
century. The public meeting attracted ittle rass roots support. It simply acted as a torum tor con drift of the south vales solidating. rightward
Socialist Action 22 March 1985
3 executive
There is no doubt that Tollowing Christmas activity, , morale was low across the coalfield. There was no sign of any initiative which would show the way forward for the union
Whilst the strike was still 100 per cent solid hardship was severe. Da: Davies estimates that bs then 95 per cent of finance for the strike was coming not from the TUC and the Labour Party, but from supporters abroad
Tyrone O'Sullivan, sec ot lowe NUM thought it inevitable that there would be some return to work in South Wales. Yet, he argued, the strike should continue to link up with the right against ratecapping and growing opposition to the government's refusal to negotiate with the NUM.
This was a scenario the majority ot ine South Wales executive was not prepared entertain Afraid of being isolated and the mines or the anu atraid of anv al ca they allowed Kim Howells to publicly speculate on a return to work with no settlement.
Speculation about the possibility individual pits breaking the strike grew. Although the executive quickly publicly repudiated Howells' statements the damage was
The return to work was rushed through the South Wales delegate conference with a total lack of consul Lalon file. Penrhiwceiber with the rank and Lodge
abstained following the refusal of their demand for the convention mas meetings to mandate delegates.
On Sunday 2 March. the national aelegate con ference narrowly voted to return to work
The key lesson that has been learnt by South Wale miners is that a new area leadership will have to be built in the course of fighting the immediate threat of pit closures.
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Part of the Tory plan for coal
Socialist Action 22 March 1985 IN THE LAST month the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) celebrated the end of two challenges: the miners' strike and the public enquiry into the Sizewell B nuclear power station. Sir Walter Marshall, head of the CEGB, gleefully connected the two. The case for the planned pressurised water reactor (PWR), he claimed, had been made by Arthur Scargill in the last 12 months.
_unaer Marshall the CEGB has had a clear DOIC Jependence on coal — and uereov Icalcia the ieverage. of the National U'nion of Mineworkers. It is 3 project shared by the covernmcal
By Paul Aitkin
Sizewell Bisintended to be thetirst of atamilv of tive or six PWR nuclear power stations designed to meet the entire projected in• casc l energy demand berond the end oi tne
This would bump century. up the share of nuclear
:060 per cent at the end of :he century and 70 percent 3: -U30
Imagine the effect on ImInO areas 1981, dectricity production took
1 per cent of the NCB's a=aduction, concentrated on the seven big coal-fired s¡ations that produce 40 per cent of the CEGB's power autput phased out between 2008
PWRs at a cost aillion a time.
Ifanyonethinksthisisa ong way aneaa, so ills. Bul : showsthat the rulingclass .auDKS LOTunC :erm. If we are to fight Re. so ust we
On the face of it, the way :he ruling class plans ahead provides clear evidence of :heir irresponsibility. Con:emed as they are to reduce he power of the NUM and having to deal with the
engineers and the EETPU has fewer terrors or them - they downplay ae econonc ano тесопо:ogical dangers of choosing :he PWR
Sizewell B is another : ersion of the kind of PWR ¡ation that broke down at Three Mile Island in the US ?. 1978. Only Sizewell will be twice as big!
Since the accident at
The worst case
A MAJOR accident involving a large release of
radioactivity from Sizewell
blowing towards London, could lead to:
• 24,000 fatal cancers
• evacuation of 500,000 people within two days
•
London for 17 years (GL.C figures)
• a ban on crops produced for 17,000 square
kilometers around the plant
• a ban on all fishing in the North Sea
• damage to 22 per cent of UK crop area, 20 per
cent of livestock, and 9 per cent of milk
‹ Figures produced by Oxford Political Ecology Research Uroup)
Sizewell B Power Plans
Three Mile Island very few PWRs have been built in the United States F wnICn originated the technology. Indeed, some PWRs have been shut down, and less electricity is produced by nuclear power today than six years ago.
This is a disaster for companies like Babcock and Wilcox, and Westing-
which built nouse, PWRs. They are therefore looking to dump their redundant technology On any mug who'll buy it
than Sir ane woo bener Walter Marshall?
The CEGB claims that. on its tigures, a serious accident could onlyhappen once in a million years. Objectors like the OWIl and Country Planning Association (that well-known threatto civilisation
we know it!) have produced olnel possible figures that increase the danger factor a thousand told
When you divide the resulting ratio of one
accident every sculvus thousand years by the
of new Hullucl stations, you have the
of something t scul really nasty happening every 170 years or so. (For iust how nasty such an event could be see 'The worst case'.)
Three Mile Island was, of course, a small accident. and so were all those small leaks from Windscale (sorry, Sellafield) which seem to occur much more often than once in a million years.
Even without 'accidents" like these, the area around Sizewell already has leukaemia cluster, an area where blood cancer significantly ausae than the national average. The CEGB
would nave believe that the preste r the Size well Magnox nuclear power station has nothing to do with this.
They would also have
B, with the wind restriction of access to 620 kilometers of
A moael of sizewell D us believe that the PWR is cheap. But evidence produced at the enquiry shows that a new version of the Drax
Wal-l cu SLauOT would be half the capital cost of Sizewell B.
Converting oil stations to coal. enerev conservation and the development combined heat and power projects would be cheaper and safer than going nuke. This is to leave aside the difficulties of long-distance advance forecasting in a
capitalist economy - and the CEGB itself five ditterent projections for economic development.
even on the CEGB's figures the chances of Sizewell B being, "economic' in their own LC OIOS is denendent being : constructed on time with signiticant • COSI overruns. And must
efficiently vuclalc InOlC than similar .US stations have : been known to.
Nuclear power stations
ora cis for however, notorious significant delavs in construction time and heavy cost overruns.
It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Sizewell B will be an "uneconomic unit'. It is equally difficult, however, to imagine this government rushing to have it closed with the same eagerness that they show to shut pits.
La heavy responsibility falls on the Labour Party. However, unlike the
the NUM
THE DECISION of the
further.
The Notts
CACCULIVO has not onl disenfranchised its members, it has even disentranchised tame area council. By the ume mne ared courcuna. the opportunity to discuss the decision. It will be-too late to do anything about
By Pat Hickey
The Notts executive obviously expects that the national ballot .will go overwhelmingly In avoul of the levy, and they have no intention of abiding by national ballot decisions. That lesson should not be VAUI lost on those in the move-
saying that a national ballot was the decisive question in the strike.
NUM, the GLC, and Tony Benn personally, the party aid not put its postion at thi enquiry. It refused to state clearly that ally lutur Labour government •will scrap plans for Sizewell and its successor projects - as
malles losing dowister.
manently existing nuclear power plants.
Any Labour government worth its salt - one prepared to struggle against the entrenched power of the ruling class would
Notts attack
Notts area executive to prevent the NUM holding a ballot on the levy for victimised miners in the Notts area takes the attack on the national union by the scab leadership there a stage
Even if the ballot massivelv in tavour of the levy the Notts executive is determined scab The decision follows furthe! moves by the a rea to altack the national union.
Notts has already withdrawn from the overtime ban and is attempting to engage in separate negotiations with the NCB
Fi on ine wage orer of 5.2 pel cent outstanding since 1983 — again in defiance of national I decisions.
rn cmocTauc char. aliel of the new 'dem-
in the NUM oclalc crouD - made up of Notts, South Derbyshire and Leicestershire - is clearly limited. In tact it is hand in glove with the NCB in its plans to weaken the national union.
Fi ne boara is aiming a decentralising the coal InuusLIy create indiv. idual profit centres. This
News
depend on the miners' and other workers' ability to 'hold the country ransom'. As it is, nuclear power is losing popular support
In 1980, 60 per cent supported • IL. Today that figure is down to 45 per cent. We need to campaign
cut that support still lurtner
•For further information see Martin Ince's Sizewell Report, Pluto, £3.95. will mean widespread redundancies. Some estimates of the plans tor the next financial year say up to 40,000 jobs will go in South waler Scotland, Yorkshire, and the North East
The Notts area leadership is playing the Board's game, and scab leaders like Roy Lynk are well a ware of
ballot in Notts shows that une scao edders are nol al all confident that they have
Utal JUDOUlI the members in the area. Many miners who worked during the strike are not ready to break wiin the nationa union - and many would undoubtedly support levy for victimised colleagues.
The call for a levy is one of the finest expressions of loyalty memoer. made by any national trade UOROE Britair major issue which to
Notts against campalgn in the scab leaders - and to rebuild the national union in the coaltield.
Page 5 scan of this page
Digging deeper
News
DIGGING DEEPER, published by Verso, is the first comprehensive study of the miners' strike. JOHN ROSS assesses its weaknesses.
VERSO are to be congratulated for getting out so rapidly such a comprehensive collection of material on the miners' strike. It is a book which every socialist should buy and read.
Some of the individual chapters are truly excellent: David 'Where's Ramsay. MacKinnock?, absorbing study of the similarities between Neil Kinnock's role in the 1984 strıke and Kamsav Maconald's mn 1926; John Mcliroy's Pickets', the best summary a vailable on police attacks.
Huw Beynon's 'Decisive Power: The New Tory State against the Miners' traces how the Conservative Party prepared its controntation with the NUM A Labour Party TV broadcast based on that chapter would be a fitting reply to Kinnock's condemnations violence' and the supposed separation between industrial disputes and politics.
But, despite the mass of excellent material there's a slight feeling of 'might Have pece aDoul uRe ooOk. material is so good, it's a pity that the strike's real significance, as a turning point in British politics, is not brought out more clearly. All the elements are there for a real advance in political understanding. Untortunatelv not all the 'i's are dotted or the 't's crossed.
One of the questions the book ought to have confronted is posed accurately at the beginning of the chapter 'Beyond the Coalfields', by Doreen Massey and Hilary Wainwright.
Expressing the view of much of the left, they write that: "The miners' strike seems to epitomise those aspects of the labour movement and class politics that certain interpreters have found "old fashioned", , sectional and, by implicanon, banktupl.
'Male manual workers, the working class with a vengeance, fighting
save jobs what described as a declining industry, state-owned and located in isolated delining
strengths and
Other
Howell's movement of
an women's liberation movement.'
'Police and
alliances that surusdie. blacks, republicans,
of miners since World War II.'
But more than just
J0 lca Doln some
he basic movement. This
conterence.
to support black sections.
June debate on
NUM championed the paign for Gay Rights.
including unlawful
mandatory reselection of MPs.
every struggle at the conference.
How extraordinary old
officially
regions. And yet around this struggle a massive support movement has grown
almost unreported with as £10,000 broad a social and geographical base as any post-war political movement.'
colliDulors pul forward what they think to bethe same paradox. For example, in 'We'll be here right to the end..and after' Loretta Loach puts Beatrix forward the extraordinary idea that: 'It image would be quite wrong to say that the movement of women in the miners' strike was a feminist one', and that: "The
Women Against Pit Closures did not owe its existence to the
Yet, as everyone knows, one of the most stunning effects of the miners' strıke was the enormous range ol social
were created around the women, Irish international solidarity most organisations, as well as trade unionists INUIV, and the entire left wing of the Labour Party, participated in the struggle.
In the words of the Financial Times, it was: 'the greatest civilian mobilisation
La solidarity movement was involved. It has trans
miners, and the position of the NUM within the labour
was seen dramatically at the 1984 Labour Party
The NUM was the only major union
Ăn NUM delegate was the only man to speak in
the Women's Action Committee resolutions, in favour. The
Labour Cam-
It supported the fight of the cities,
acuol. It Con- wulicll. demned the use of plastic bullets in wilnll Northern Ireland, and strip searches in the women's jail in Armagh. It led the fight against Neil Kinnock, in defence of Chinese
In short it played a leading role in
for the New Statesman-Marxism oday view of the Liberal world! After all, don't we know the real situation? That male manual workers such as the miners are supposed to be the most 'backward', racist, sexist, and correctly
anti-gay Tories.
No one earning a salary of less than
La year can possibly defend women's causes. Only those who don't get their hands dirty - and who read the New Statesman, Marxism Today and City Limits could possibly support the demands of the oppressed. That is
Campbell's weekly-presented of the world, and Today's monthly-presented one.
As it turned out though, it wasn't the fashionable white collar unions ASTMSs, the CPSAs, the NUTs which supported black sections in the Labour Party. Nor could they, in fact. Many of them don't even fulfill the minimum conditión of being affiliated lu c pally
At least the manual unions davancea enougn lo allinlale. And lne
"proletarian' of them all, the took the most progressive positions.
To anyone with a sense of history none of this should come as a surprise. Historically it has always been the core sections of the working class, and their closest allies, who have been the most consistent fighters for the demands of the oppressed. The 'intermediate strata' have ususally backed off from the fight
It was the Bolshevik Party in 1917, based on the industrial sections of the 'Russian' working class, that enacted the most advanced social legislation in the world - the most advanced on the question of women, on anti-racism, on national self-determination. The Mensheviks, based tar more on privilegec and white collar workers, refused to distribute land to the peasnats, refused the programmes for the liberation of
refused the right of nations the empire determination.
In China a working class party, the
Communist partv. based or peasants' struggles, carried through the measures for breaking the slavery of one eighth of the world's population: the
capitalism achieved nothing in that domain.
TaT national liberation
concerned Sandino, in Nicaragua, put it
when he said: 'Only
workers and way'
What we saw in the miners' strike was not an exception or a paradox' — it was a phase of the normal process of social development. It will be the core sections of the working class - those in industry, in the mines, in transpor!, in communications. in the biggest concenMarxism trations of numbers — who will Be the
best allies of the oppressed in their fight for liberation. • the It will be the intermediate layers of
the working class privileged, those in petty production, those white collar workers most closely tied to management - who will back off in the struggle for the demands of the oppressed. are Every oppressed section of society
rallied to the miners in 1984, and the NUM began to precisely because the oppressed understood that here was a force ability to rock society and which was an ally of theirs.
What began to emerge in the miners' strike was a section of'the labour movement tunctioning as a true labour': that is, as a force which took up the demands of all those having nothing to sell but their labour power.
For the working class is not, by any socialist definition, those 'who get their hands dirty'. It is those who are forced to work for others, for capitalists - or in tour million cases. those who would like to work for someone else but are unable to get a job. In Britain today, it is around 20 million people.
That is a working class which is no longer even remotely 'white male' in its composition. In the first place well over 40 per cent is female; a large part is self- black; 10 per cent is gay.
That working class has major social allies. wno work in tae nome, wno by every other virtual class.
To them, add China. unemployed on official figures (before precisely Norman Tebbit doctored them!), and
more in reality; several million people in an education system which long ago ceased to be a vehicle for prothe ducing privileged lackeys of capitalism;
peasants will go all the
the MOSU transform itself, Centra Western Europe. with the
parly of of Ireland
Canal struggle
They are the millions of women finally
objective criterion are working
four million
ocsabona the heart consciousaes.
strike the class
democracy,
British reality. 1 nal was book though.
OCSCIvC CICOll
Socialist Action 22 March 1985 5
DIGGING-
DEEPER
millions of pensioners whose rights are systematically abused bv capitalism; key international allies in Ireland, in
America, in Eastern and
The alliances which can tie together ail these forces, and unite the working class in a fight for their common goals. however, cannot be achieved through a clever advertising campaign, or simply through organisational formulas (although some of the latter are vital). That unit! can only be achieved through struggle - through years of massive struggle in which the white male section ot thi working class finds less and less space for the luxury of racism or sexism, in which the oppressed impose that reality on the working class as a whole
It is a process of struggle in which women, or blacks, or gays, or the people
find out that their onli reliable ally is the working class as a whole and its organisations. It is a time
which the Beatrix Campbells and Marxism Todays of this world will abandon the struggle for their sex or for the oppressed because
- they are more closely tied to capital than to other groups in societ!
That dynamic of struggle was what was vital, what was thrilling, and what was historic about the miners' strike.
ror around I0 vears now the labout movement has begun to discuss the key
changes that would begin to enable it to function as a 'party of labour' in practice and not just in a name. Demands for party democracy. the demands of the Women's Action Committee, for black sections, and for British withdrawal from Ireland are at
_of that developing
The miners' strike jerked the process Strike chat aliverye, herl el enta
alliance, that polenlia alliance for socialism, knitted together Il a common suruggie agalnst capilal — in so doing the whole became far greater than the sum of its parts.
In the 1984 miners' strike a whole series of the key strategic ideas on how to fight for socialism - an alliance for socialism, a party of labour - changed from just words and became realities of
struggle. They began connect to an ideology — of socialist
democratic : socialism that alone can give them coherence. For the first time for 60 years some classical positions of Marxism took a real grip on
why the miners' dispute was far more than a strike. It was, and will continue to be, an carthquake in British politics. One whose impact will deepen not lessen in the coming years.
All the elements needed to understand that reality are in Digging Deeper. But they aren't tied together with the historical perspective and concepts that would give them true cohesion
Don't let that stop you reading the
It isn't perfect but going to be hard to beat in any 'best book of the strike' contest. For getting it out with such speed, Verso publishers
Every Socialist Action reader should buy it
For getting it out with such speed Verso publishers deserve credit. Every Socialist Action reader should buy it
• Digging Deeper 2 issues in the miners' strike, Verso, 1985, f3.95 paperback
Page 6 scan of this page
Building a Part
Socialist Action 22 March 1985
CHESTERFIELD, Derbyshire's second largest town, is described in the tourist guide as 'the gateway to the Peaks'. But it is better known as a place that was rock-solid in support of the miners' strike.
The local chamber of commerce reckons that retail trading has dropped 25 per cent in the last year, just one indication of how the strike has affected the town. But Chesterfield isn't simply a mining community. Its industrial base is chemicals, steel, and a lot of light
A sleeping
UNTIL THE beginning of 1984, Chesterfield's main claim to fame was a dramatically crooked church spire. Then, on 15 January, a delegate meeting of Chesterfield Labour Party chose Tony Benn to fight the forthcoming by-election. The media hit the town. By the time the official campaign started there were 25 film crews stationed in the town. press spent over f1 million covering the month-long event.
Towards the end of the by-election, Chesterfield Labour Party member and erovshire leader, Heathfield, was elected general secretary of the miners' union. Less than a week after the by-election victory, union had begun its historic year-long
During that year Chesterfield has come ave politically. Everyone's agreed, the town will never be the same again.
For the previous 19 years, Labour's representative was Eric Varley. In a parliamentary career remarkably similar to Benn's, he spent 16 of those years on Labour's front bench. But government jobs - in technology, energy and industry — are where the likeness starts and ends.
Varley, an ex-branch secretary Markham colliery and an sponsored MP, was a confirmed right winger whom many feared would defeat to the SDP. After a year of rumours that he would be offered the chair of the National Coal Board, Varley announced
intention resign as November 183.
IONAL UNION OF
NERS MARCH
ON
LATIONAL
RALLY
He became deputy chairperson of Coalite, a fuel and chemical giant which produces, among orner inings, 140 1 — the same chemical responsible for the Seveso disaster in Italy, when poisonous Dioxin gas was released into the atmosphere with devastating and fatal effect.
industry.
The miners union does have
strong roots in the local labour
movement though. During the past
12 months they have been
tremendously strengthened,
giant awakes
CHESTERFIELD
The
BY-ELECTION
Peter
the
On taking office, Varley expressed his pleasure that: 'I can do a job connected
with the coal trade, which is what I wanted. Coalite is a very valuable part of North Derbyshire life.
Coalite owns Malvinas and made a handsome profit during Thatcher's adventure, charging $1.50 a night for every soldier billeted on company premises. It is claimed that of the firm made another tidy penny from NUM- lucrative deals with the forces.
As his new job shows, Varley was out for himself from the start. Talking left to win the Labour Party nomination, he moved sharply right when he MP, in crossed the portals of Westminster. Party members around at the time remember his selection speech as one which 'would do Militant proud'.
But having a careerist as MP took its toll on the local party. Margaret Vallins, a member of Chesterfield party for over 15 years, recalls: 'I can never remember activity like this Chesterfield
constituents more of Tony in this year than they've seen of Mr Varley in the 20 years he was here.
'There's more activity, more public hiccullies. mOre since Tony took over. Supporting the miners' strike, and now launching the Community Defence Campaign, Labour Party has become linked in with What's happening in the town.
'Before it was a typical Labour Party organisation. We weren't the go-ahead type of constituency that now defending rank and file people.
Margaret's husband wally seviclaly, aricco.
Labour Party meeting, wasn't very impressed. There were only about 10 members and nothing political was ever discussed. We eventually built the ward up, with newsletters and such things. This is now happening throughOULI the constituency. Every becoming more and more active.
'The political awareness that's come from all that has happened in the last year is unbelievable. can cver lumt back.
Tony Benn summed up that change. The by-election, he said, 'released from
was used as a stepping stone to (WAG) was
encouraged
similar organisations,
many months old.
Now there
of a different kind
kitchen-sink sort of woman'.
At Labour Party September,
NUM delegation.
40 per cent of the
nostie-looking
siastically.
Argentine
viewers applauding unionists, this time grim.
team set
enthusiastic
Action Group under Eric Varley.
have seen
political discussion,
the the labour movement in this town qualities, talents and abilities of a kind that sort of had alwavs been there expressed themselves."
When the Chesterfield Labour Party was already geared up.
Tom, now this Labour club where we're sitting has •When I came been a centre of the most concentrated
Lauc union to be honest I community involvement I've ever seen
in my life,' says Benn. "The support for Labour has increased. It must always have been there but these circumstances reicastu Il
ward is a year in Chesterfield is how this can be done. not by toning things down, sharpening them up. The miners' strike I don't think we and the by-election, coming together,
began an advance into moral, ideological, democratic Labour had evacuated.'
especially with the Labour Party.
Chesterfield hit the headlines when the local Labour Party chose Tony Benn as its candidate in the now-famous by-election. This fight change.
CHESTERFIELD WOMEN have played a massive part in the miners' strike. Their Women's Action Group
the first women's support group in the country. They
women from nearby Barnsley and Doncaster to set up
as well spawning dozens of groups throughout Derbyshire before the strike was
are women's support groups up and down the land. Out of the strike has been born a women's movement
- drawing in working class women who didn't consider 'politics' their province, but who will never return to being what Toni Bennett describes as 'a
This new movement began with the women of Chesterfield Labour Party.
On 21 November 1983, a local newspaper carried a report that Labour sends in the A-team. Referring to Walworth Road's campaign strategy unit, the so-called 'crack team of national officials formed to fight the Chesterfield byelection', the Star's headline writer never dreamt how prophetic his words were.
_conference last Chesterfield Labour Party president Johnny Burrows was part of the
When the • Women's Action Committee approached the union to speak in support of their resolutions, Johnny volunteered. He was the only man to speak in the debate. It took him three nervous hours to compose his speech.
As he walked to the rostrum TV cameras scanned the hall. The view was of
women smug besuited trade union men clapping enthu- before we
*Don't cheer too loud lads, you may be making a mistake, he said. He was right. At the end of his speech, TV
•i women wildly amid the same trade
Johnny had described Chesterfield's real A-team, the all-women canvassing
: up during the by-election to reach the wives and mothers of the town. The women earned their label, and it stuck, because they were the most active,
effective canvassing team of the whole election. At the end of the campaign they formed the Women's
arrested.
Toni Bennett of Dennis Skinner's Bolsover constituency was part of the A- February this team. She explained: 'When the election Strike was over we wanted to stick together as women. We formed the Women's Action Group and were bandying about different ideas on what we were going to do. But
know throughout
miners' strike came,
'For the last 12-14 months "Then there
and ponnical achon and
Day 'What we've been able to show after
about organising it.
Not by electoral arrangements
but by
territory that
transforming the local party - and not just around elections. The massive solidarity with the miners' strike has been the height of that
Now the party is attempting to International Women's Day in Chesterfield: a small army of women worked hard to
Women: Labour
could start anything, the miners' strike was on us
'We started taking soup round to the picket lines. Then came the need for food parcels. do a crous was seruo to coorol nate the different areas. We went round Derbyshire setting up WAGs. This centre now distributes food parcels to 34 other centres throughout North Derbyshire.
'Then it was a question of funds to buy the food. We had to go up and down the country telling people what we were doing and seeking their support. Apart from jumble sales and coffee mornings, you name it and we've done it. We've all been on picket lines, and some of us have been
'We've organised many events. In
year, we organised the Ălive in '85 march which went round all the pits in this area over a week, and ended up on the Saturday with a big rally in Chesterfield town. The women organised it, and lots of trade unionists and men from the pits joined us. Whilst we were marching workers came out from the factories and showed their support.
We organised the march to let people
the country that the There strike was still on the go, we were alive in '85. It was a morale booster. Not that morale was low, but from time to time it did us good to march out and let people Roy. know we were still there
was the Interational Women's Day demonstration. Our deleate Whiteside, Who salso the chaires, to Women Against Pit Closures, WAG, came back to the group after the meeting and said, very calmly: "Guess what lassies? The International Women's
going be held Chesterfield." We had five weeks to set
'We were thrilled to bits really. It was the first time we've ever been involved in anything on so big a scale. Twelve months ago, before the strike started, if anyone had suggested it we'd have thought they
organise the forces that emerged during the miners' strike, to keep them together for the battles to come. The Women's Action Group, the Community Defence Campaign, and other structures se were crackers. But we've got fantasti women in this group, and we've had a awful lot of help from Labou controlled borough council.
This latest activitv of the Chesterfiel women has had a big impact on the part More than a week later, it was still th main topic in the Labour club bar.
Win Barker, secretary of the party women's council, has only recently joine WAG. I've become involved sinc International Women's Day, she ex plained. Chesterfield Labour Party par ticipated enthusiastically the ever called by Women Against Pit Closures.
Another member of the women council, a nurse, described the popularit of the women's health stall, one of th many there. Jill Jones, a prospective c didate Chesterfield's county council elections, agreed. A sm army of women had worked hard to mak the day a success
Women determined to together the formidable force of WAG Labour Party , men are equally enthi siastic. Roy Cunningham described on woman he spoke to during the strik
was only one way her husba would return to work, she said, and tha was when Arthur Scargill told him to 'We are very proud of our women,' sai
"They've achieved something, an it's this strike that's let them achieve it
More than anyone. wome them selves realise how much the strike taught them. Toni Bennett described it
•Women have politicised themselve For example, I've been talking to peopl for a long time about how blacks ar treated by the police. I don't kno whether they didn't believe me or jus weren't interested. But the comments to me during the strike were: "Now we kno
blacks must feel. fee ashamed to have ignored what's be happening to them." That's through thei experiences on the picket line — the atti tude and treatment by the police
Page 7 scan of this page
y of Labour
up by the party are broad united fronts that welcome into their ranks anyone in the labour movement, party member or not, who is prepared to put their energies into mass campaigning. nake it a success
's A-team
'An awful lot of women have joined the Labour Party, and not just to become card-carrying members. They've joined to play an active role. They are quite determined hey're not going back to be a kitchen-sink type of woman.
'We're portrayed by the press as left wing, boots-and-braces type of women. We're not. We're very ordinary; we love our husbands and we love our children. It's just that the strike has awoken in us the knowledge that even the simple things we walll Ill life we have to bloody well fight for. If that's what we're going to fight.
understand how Common women feel. I heard it time and time again from stupid little men, commenls such as "I've read Greenham women, they're all lesbians."
what if they re all gay. those women are there for is so important to everybody. The fact is that there are cruise missiles in this country and they have been through hell and water to tryto stop them.
'The Greenham women have endured a lot, and they're still sticking it out. They ve even supported us. With the problems that they have, they've even found time to support us."
Margaret Vallins organised the Ateam and became a founder-member of WAG. too describes changes. 'The women's canvass team directed itself to trying to get past the men and talk to the women. Some of them stood there and just talked, about the school being closed down for example. Then they said: "We don't know anything atolE nolCs. we've got nothing to do with politics. » They didn't know what was happening to them and their children was polities.
'At the beginning of the strike women were concerned that their rent, that they had no money - not that in the future it was going to be that way lor evermore.
that reality. about their chiidren's
La one muse oles.
Not only women, but
istic,
shall still have the it means, then
over.
Greenham
avi nese
What see for a long time,
I've seen it, and it's great."
hoto: DERBY NUM
'Ine same thal
they couldn't pay
Tony Benn often speaks of the
'refounding' of the Labour Party.
But it took the mighty upheaval of the miners' dispute to begin to build the types of alliance that give
Since
just
•Women now have got so involved, they' ve realised what politics is all about. They' ve realised that their little worry close
education. children's jobs, their children's health, is
has the strike awakened it's awakened men in this area. The mining industry's very chauvin-
always has been. Now they realise that their women have kept this strike alive. Now we will work together. But we
Women's Action Group metings even though the strike is
Women especially have travelled a long political road in the course of the miner's strike. The final word on the last historic 12 months must go to Toni. who said: 'If someone was to ask me what I'd seen out of this strike, that I'd wanted to
quite simply I'd say I've seen socialism. It's what I've wanted that
the
POHT FA VICTOm
Johnny Burrows, party president and Derby NUM treasurer
On a local level, that is the alliance Chesterfield is trying to maintain.
The lessons are well worth • looking at. CAROL TURNER visited the constituency recently.
UNITY HOUSE, the headquarters of Chesterfield Labour Party, is just across the street from the Derbyshire NUM area offices. For the past 12 months the activity in both buldings has been for one and the same purpose: to win the miners' strike. Like many parties in mining Chesterfield has turned itself over 100 per cent to supporting the NUM.
That has produced dramatic results.
February 1984 the grown from less than 500 members to
under 1200. Tom Chesterfield party secretary, says that well over half are from mining families. 'What I'm pleased about is that most of them are active and want to be involved. It's very good for the party.
'When Varley announced he was going to resign, the time was right for a progressive member of parlament. As rar as this constituency was concernec there was a wind of change blowing.'
That wind biew in Tony Benn as Chesterfield's new MP, followed only days later by the NUM strike. thing nas been oul SuUUIl lUl miners,' says Tom. •We have given 100 ocr cul suboorl onysicary. ımancaly and in every way we can. I'm not saying
wouon-l have happened Varley, but.it wouldn'i have been so enthusiastic.
'We've been out on the pickets with the banner, and every single spare penny we've been able to find has gone to the miners. We've run soup kitchens and an advice centre for miners and Inel tamiles. t con t tnink we d have got that previously, the party was very dormant
Even before the strike the party had
links with miners. previous Labour MPs have been NUMsponsored. Of the 127 delegates who selected Benn, one seventh were from the NUM, representing 11,000 North Derbyshire miners.
Labour rally president, Johnny Burrows, is also area treasurer of the miners' union. He recalls: "The GMC was cock-a-hoop when Tony Benn was tinally selected. He wasn't the miners candidate. That was a fella called Cliff Fox, who is the disgraced (because he broke the strike - - ed) leader of North East Derbyshire. But it became evident that Cliff wasn't going to be successful, Ten ine miners changed their vote to Tony Benn. It was that switch that clinched Tony's selection.'
The 12 months of strike has shown
NUM delegates made the right choice. Johnny explained the etfect of
party during the strike: numbers of party members have joined
areas,
party has
Vallins,
the pićket lines with the local banner. They've . been who' ve perhaps never before thought of becoming members have been talking to the party on the picket lines. That's one of the reasons why party membership has increased more than 100 per cent.
Party members glow with pride at their 'The main party's achievements. the repeated phrase is
centre of things'. It's backed up with a string of examples.
National rallies and demonstrations under have been held there, the most recent of
which was the 9 March International Women's Day event. And Chesterfield's MP is one of the strongest and best known supporters of the strike.
The party has been active too in getting the message across locally, with regularly organised public meetings. even commissioned an opinion poll at the beginning of this year, showing 58 per cent of Chestertield's inhabitants thought the govern ment Both handled the dispute and 70 per cent
opposed to the programme unlal the Chesterfield Labour intend to sit on its hands. The financial support for the miners will go. on for many more months Chesterfield is continuing to support miners and their families, especially the victims of bully-boy police tactics who have lost their jobs. Johnny Burrows is confident that tually win back every man's job, but that could be many months for those dismissed after conviction for more serious charges such as assault and alSUlli The party is rightly angry at the response of Labour's leadership to the strike, especially the latest refusal to call for a general amnesty. 'Large plained: "There's been a lot of criticism
- and I'm part of that — of the Labour Party leader. Neil Kinnock has sat on the bloody fence so long he must have permanent marks. Now he's fallen on the wrong side. 'The Derbyshire area NUM was one of the groups that supported his nomination and eventual election. But we shall have great problems in the Derby area and I think in the Chesterfield constituency supporting future. critical of the miners. 'It's no secret that Tony disagrees with a lot that Kinnock has said. But it's not Tony's attitude that has formed the opinions of the constituency. It's very much our involvement in the strike: seeing firsthand the attitude of the police on the picket lines, seeing firsthand the suffering inside the mining community and being involved in helping torelieve
'Kinnock should look at Scargill's leadership. It might might not be aceptable to everybody -
Peter Heathfield, elected NUM general secretary only days before the strike began
A fighting
Labour Party
well-received. Lads behind him.
have members The majority of Chesterfield Labour
The most Iow we re al une
months.'
They
Chesterfield naa mis Campaign
Tories' pit closure munIly grouos
strike is ovel cauren teaders Party doesn't CDC is led by
ConC
Derbyshire will even-
invited anybody interested.
Johnny Labour
community.'
Johnny
simply,
O Vew
him In ne He's been too prepared to be
that future.' abrasive, practice it."
Socialist Action 22 March 1985 7 but he has pulled the support of thousands upon thousands of miners
In a similar way, thé activities of Chesterfield Labour • Party - a dırect involvement in the strike —
pulled hundreds of new
'I'm convinced that if Kinnock had taken a similar line that would have attracted thousands of new members into the party nationally. It certainly would have given the activists already in the party something to look up to, a has missed the tesat in he inst ik has missed the boat in the last
From the miners' strike Chesterfield Labour Party. has learned the importance of retining its links across the avour movemenl ul menos mar ne united front forged during the course of the strike should remain in existence to fight the many battles still to come. To do just that, the party has set up the
Community Defence (CDC), taking in trade unions and the trades council, com-
women s groups, une local Communist Party, and even some
Set. up at the end of January, the
Chesterfield Labour Party. Tom Vallins explained how it got off the ground: 'It came about after Christmas, when there was a bit of a drift back to work. We thought that perhaps support for the miners was not as strong as it was in the early days. Tony brought up a discussion document on what we could be doing to help the miners and help the community
'We arranged a meting with some of the trade unionists in ine area ano
else who might be We've held meetings throughout the constituency, each one with a different theme. We had one with
Campaign • tol Criminal Justice, one with the NCCL, one about privatisation. We're covering the whole broad spectrum of things that affect the
Burrows summed up its aims: 'The activities of the CDC, quite
be involved in an! struggle within the community, to taki up the arguments from a socialist point
and to demonstrate that the local party and the local unions can be of assistance to everybody. I'm very confident of the future in Chesterfield. The links that have been formed in the last 12 months can only be to the good for
The lesson of Chesterfield, says Tom Vallins, is: 'Don't be afraid to go out and talk to people about issues and about policies. We pride ourselves in the Chesterfield party that the majority of us believe in socialism. That's what's made Chestertield the town itis. We car now talk about socialism, not as if it's a dirty word but in a meaningful way. The Labour Party is seen to be trying to
Page 8 scan of this page
Crisis in the Phillippines
Socialist Action 22 March 1985 THE POLITICAL crisis in the Philippines has been inreasingly hitting world headlines.
Dictatorship.
But the most important
the bulical movemehl Comunistad by te Communist Party Philippines (CPP). This
was created in 1968 through a split with the old pro-Moscow Communist Party. The CPP originally supported China its polemics une soviet
nion but with the turn of the
detente with Washington the party has
reasingly broken with
According to the figures giren in the December 1983 issue of the CPP journal LATE Bayan this party. a nich in 1968 had only members by 1981 had achieved a membership of 30.000. The CPP plays the lading role in whole series of urban and peasant
and, hoyclicils most importantly, leads the main armed opposition force against the Marcos
the New People's Army (NPA) which in 1981 organised around 20,000 fighters.
Australian socialist DEB SCHNOOKAL was able to interview in prison JOSE MARIA SİSON chairperson CPP. Sison has been imprisoned by the Marcos dictatorship since November 1977. The Military Court at Fort Bonifacio was a large, light and airy room with three long tables and highbacked chairs arranged in a l' shape, facing the rows fre Millary Co amision ¡as or moe dualence
25 was to hold another hearing, of the subversion case' against several alleged leaders of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) charged with seeking to cierthrow the government
torce in collusion with ar unnamed foreign power, presumably- the People's kepublic or enina
Jose Maria Sison, who tad being
rairpersor of the out-
awed CPP, was chatting ir
lively with Hallile! journalists. When we were introduced, he shook my
arend started to takedi-
ately started . Lalk
listen proceedings, prefer talk with people who come here.
Sison was arrested with his wife, Juliet, November 1977. For most
This detention has kept continement. After arel ne was beaten anu tirured and then man-
bed tor 24
urs a day so that he was
For two years of his imprisonment, Sison was s. wed to be together with he wife, who up until that
naa aisc been
litary confinement. Jader Sison was released in March 1982 after she gave tarth to their child: Sison
was then placed in solitary -again until July 1984.
Sison's case has gone to the Court five
with petitions tor
hateas corpus. The way
arcos openly Houls une law' Sison said, 'he has• praducally destroyed Juris prudence in this country.'
The greatest pubcity has gone to the urban unrest against the Marcos
Two others accused along with Sison were also present at the 31 August hearing at Fort Bonifacio
journalist Satur Ocampo and teacher Mila Aguillar-Roque. Roque
only Deen three weeks before. She was suspected of being the highest woman official of
CPP. Her husband, a .CPP had been
cauer. killed in an armed conflict two years ago. Since then she supposed to have said that she no longer wished to be politically active and wanted to bring up her child in peace. She is presently held solitary confinement at Camo Crame
Sison was very cheerful, joking with his guards, who sat close behind him in order to make sure they heard every word spoken. •I always talk with my guards, he sala. 'They are dissatisfied with their conditions, ine bullying iney suffer. They want a
you?'
LOO. COLI asked, turning to his prison guards, who looked sheepishly at the ground. All the funds Marcos gives the military never gets to these
Sison remarked.
Hickle I asked Sison what he
considered the major problems the Philippines faced today. 'First, he replied, 'we need to achieve national independence in
political, cultural and other fields.
beconalv. wicca co realise democracy; that means the elimination the fascist
And lastly, need solve the land problem. By national independence, ,' he continued, medIl cutting off of the dependence on a superpower like the United States.
lo develop democrac) we have eliminate reudalism, to liberate the peasant from feudal and semi-feudal bondage. Marcos has only carried out a bogus land reform. Only about 2,000 hectares have been transferred to the peasants while Marcos cronies have grabbed hun-
of areas tnousalus hectares
We have to break up feudalism,' he said, "so that the local forces of
capitalism can be liberated, that is, the national
entrepreneurs and smaller
The property owned by the multinationals and traitor elements will be taken over
by the state. Our economy
would be a combined one
of state and Filipino private ownership.
*This involves a change
of political power, of
course.' he concluded.
That fundamental transformation of society.
US imperialism, feudalism
and virulent lorm
fascism in the Philippines.
democratic revolution of a
new type. That is, with the
class oI the
proletariat. revolu-
tions of the old type were
led by the liberal bourgeoisie.'
What role did he
envisage the liberal
bourgeoisie, Lasked: "They
will still be progressive, but thev will have the political hegemony. They do not have the political ideological organisational leadership necessars to cope with US imperialism.
'There are four forces
the Philippines today. First, WOrKeIs wIlO represent about 15 percent. Then
ocasdills ICOresenting 75 percent. Thus the workers and peasants make up 90 percent of the population. This is the basic foundation ot the united front necessary to win victorv. hen there are additional forces in this united tront the urban pettybourgeoisie (the small
the DIODCELY owners. educated people) and lastly there middle bourgeoisie.
The class enemy is the comprador bourgeoisie those who control the banks, the analoras and so on. The old Filipino revolution was unable to liquidate this layer.
Sison what he
l asked thought the role Australian imperialism is in the Philippines. the United States is pushing Australia
counter-insurgency responsibility, sald 'The main projects military oriented. On LUCI surface the aid looks like simply. economic aid. But in fact it is used to creates a psychological effect to , discourage the revolu-
movement to liulial y create infrastructures, just for the landlords, but also for the military, like roads for example.
'The Philippine government also receiving direct military aid Irom Australia,' Sison said.
revolutionary, popular government came to power in the Philippines, I asked, did he think the United States would respond the same way it did in Grenada with an invasion? an invasion?'
'Grenada was a small replied Sison. "If COUnIrV.
decided entire system, I think the United States would hav great difficulty over-
throtecause of wee
secause OUE rageous abuses the Marcos dictatorship the
Los hond ornited ven
COme aDOul ishi theremisa disunie clique itself nere There is a scrambling for foreign exchange. Export earnings and foreign loans are dwindling. The United States wouldn't be able to intervene. It is a declining power as the
Central America has shown.
*The fighting in Central America is a prologue to a bigger revolutionary up-
the whole of Icanal ll Latin America. There are several candidates for this revolutionary upheaval -Brazil, Chile, Argentina.
'The Americans learned a lesson from Vietnam. It would be quite a change of policy for the United States send LOOD. overseas again.' he stated in answer to a question about the possibility Washington sending troops to Central America
I asked how he saw the development of the struggle in the Philippines
'The maturation of the Filipino revolution will come about in five to ten years. I am considering the decline of the United States and its lack military capability the Filipino revolution,' Sison said. ne American DeoDit will not permit Reagan to launch new adventures expect the Filipino revolu-
alongside WIl several other revolutionary advances.
"Today, the much weaker. regime The 21 August raly (lo commemorate the versary ol ine assassilla tion of oppositionist Benigno Aquino) was un precendented in militance and magnitude. American policy-making bodies couldn't help but be impressed this demons-
of Marcos' isolation from the people.'
Could this the United Mareos ed States dump
Dalance. peared that Reagan would prefer a slow process of phasing out Marcos, but 1 think this will be acceler-
ated now. Of course, I'm not relying on the United States The US Government will decide to dump
first if the legal democratic mass movement continues to grow in strengul and secondly, with the growth of the armed struggle. These two factors will decide Marcos Tale
'There is ralre New
The staiemalt People's Army (NPA) has
reached the stage of wiping out V. The PA is now on of the army.
own counter-offensive
hitting smaller military cerachmenl The military's blind by one.
larger commu nities and the bombing of
villages only ocasall increasing support for the
NPA
What were the chances further military crackdown in the tuture, wanted to know?
'A military crackdown or takeover that continues
long, answered "There may bo minded group. that would pave the way for a civilian
happened government,
Argentina. Or there
International
PSIS P
might be a transitional oo vernmen support from the left Therę are several possibilities.
Finally, I asked Sison
prison. read and write and now can talk to the two other detainees. By shouting Commu nicate with two others over a wal. i can reau anylhin. that is legally available for instance l read dratts o opposition documents anc published materials of the National Democratic Front. But am no allowed CPP material. now have over 500 books in my norary. l am redall; slowly these days.
When I asked Sison about the present state of his trial, he explained, 'We play for time, so that some day Marcos will weaken and so that the commission will not have a chance to convict us. If we were to be convicted, it would be Chin: would be implic
This would embarPhili Manes Marcos because the
depends on China for 20 percent of its crude oil and also for rice imports.
Page 9 scan of this page
Bolivia on the brink
International
ingly endless death agony of Brezhnevism is finally over. The Soviet Union, whatever the intentions of the new general secretary, Mikhail Gorbachev, is entering a period of greater change and flux than at any time since the fall of Khrushchev 21 years ago.
Constantin Chernenko's seemingly eternal moment of power only reinforced the certainty of future turbulence inside ine ruling elite, for the simple reason that Chernenko did not do anyuning. halt Andropors plans: not a single new policy initiative, not a single new appointment to the top leadership. This was lo be expected
By Oliver MacDonald
from a man whose base
within the apparatus didn't
stretch much beyond the
breznnevite malla the often very corrupt network
brought into leading Brenneypositiass during
years
Chernenko did what they
required, toning down Andropov's anti-corruption
drive and postponing a leadership purge
As Chernenko sank
matia seems to have sought to rally around the Moscow party boss, Grishin, a man who had himsell been increasingly threatened by
drive azallist ruption Andropov's time. But the move to draft Grishin was evidently flop and Andropov's own protege, Gorbachev, was
the central Collilice.
This ends a period of immobılisation within the Soviet leadership that stretches back to the end of the 1970s. At least for the last five
veals. LIC MOTO alert and aware of the younger generation of the party elite have been daily wits or Breze spot witnesses the
policies: in both industry and
• CLUTe declining growth and stag nation; in foreign
poncy.
search for en agreemeht
search as coachil WITh the In Soviet sater, rod disenchant- demoralIsaulot ment amongst workers and young people, and spreading cynicısm and corrupuon witnin ine middie classes the bureauCal V. Calastroonc failure Brezhnev's management of the East European satellite belt, demonstrated in Poland; growing centritugal pres-
throughout the
halt the trend; China policy that had dısa s trously backfired since it UlLY made sense on the basis relations with the USA; a seemingly endless struggle in Afghanistan; the almost complete loss of genuine ideological authority within the world Communist movement, not off-set attempt to
enhance Soviet security
Nith the exception of the Polish crisis, none of
A new period in
the Soviet Union
WITH THE burial of Constantin Chernenko, the seem-
these problems has posed a
direct threat to the Soviet
slalc anu party oureaucrareaucrats life coulding Clay. For the
less undis-
turbed, and people coming
Torward witn and
therefore dangerous ideas
ting Chernenko into office
But the
perspec-
tives and strategy has had
the effect of radicalising
the thinking of some sec-
tors the elite, Dal-
ticularly within the intel-
ligentsia.
Voices have been
raised, declaring that the
problems go beyond this or
that of policy and
ivolve une enure structure
of the Soviet
LIve sysicIn was
formed in the 1930s under
Stalin. The idea has been
put forward that the roots
of the economic stagnation
are not economic at all but
political: the workers' lack
of control over any part of the political system and
une conscoven cenora-
isation and alienation. has OCCO suggested that the party and elite has acquired a set ot
social interests different from, and potentialiv antagonistic to, the inter-
ests of the workers and that consequently any reform
of the system will require
mOle SOme decrees
from above: there must also be a movement from below.
It is. oi course. Impos. sible to know how far ideas
these nave penttrated within the middle
ranks of
LIlC colmunisI Party, They were being voiced party meetings under Andropov as intellectuals hoped he might turn out to be the sort enlightened despot who could force through change. The likelihood thạt Chernenko's tenure has Turther radicalised such thinking.
also, . now, strong evidence of factional groups operating within the leadership, with some elements clearly alligned with the Andropovvorbacnev circle over ine last couple of years, and others lined them. The extent to which these factions
alc ulcallised around elaborate sets
policies much less clear, although in the field of external policy, Andro-
•Gorbachev have evidently been associated with a drive towards major improvements in relations
When will la enernenko became general secrelav inere was some sort of deal within the politburo to contam LOS tional struggle, but with Chernenko® gone. the logjam has been brokent.
Gorbachev's recent speeches have indicated bulls ot the
ways in which he will res-
pond to these conditions.
First and foremost, he is
stressing party discipline:
in other words, warning
inc trustralca raulcals
lower down the apparatus
not to step out of line bv
alempung any authentic
movement from below tor
reform. Gorbachev is any-
thing but a radical seeking
undermine the power
and privileges the
bureaucratic caste.
Secondly, the old stable food supplies, and price controls.
The 'democratic' SUU posedly left wing UDP
it can't
deliver. Instead it makes noises about an imminent
coup from the right.
By Stuart Piper
The economic chaos in Bolivia is hard to imagine.
If the most recent rate of price rises was to de continued over the year it would
come out at 118,000 per
cen audi clace.
Speculation and hoarding have uruuuceu acule shortages of food, cooking gas and other basic necessities. Many factory workers have not been paid for five months or more, whilst long before the strike began most buses had been taken off the road for lack of spare parts.
The exact course new strike is hard to ge clear as there are no normal
communicato! working between Bolivia and the outside world. Only sporadic agency cables are coming out. However, a high point was reached last week when over
He then through Bolivia's capital, La Paz, demanding bread. work and freedom', led by 12,000 miners wno nad come into the capital from outlying pit villages • cariv me lue surike
A rally in the capital's San Francisco Square rejected the government's offer of a 165 per cent rise in the minim um wage and a month's price freeze on four basic commodities. Instead
denounced the Men commend dea with the country's problems and called for its immediate resignation.
At the same time, the Confederation of Peasant Unions, affiliated te the CÓB, issued a statement making clear that the government could not rely on buying off the peasants to break the strike. Tens of thousands of peasants,
Andropov slogan of cracking down on corrupt ele ments has been revived and
mafia by the police will be aimed both the more radical elements and Casulle that change in personnel firmly controlled from above.
Gorbachev's background suggests that his horizons are limited to technocratic solutions will alter nothing in the way of basic BOLIVIA'S miners are at the head of an indefinite general strike which has totally paralysed the country since Friday 8 March. Facing ferocious attacks on living standards and a near collapse of the economy, the workers, led by the Confederation of Bolivian Workers (COB), are demanding a minimum living wage with automatic wage increases to compensate for inflation,
claimed, were already blocking roads In the countryside and were ready to march on La Paz to support the miners and urban workers.
In the course of the week the COB's demands broadened to include a state takeover private transport and suspension payments on the foreign debt to international private banks. All these demands are central planks of the COB's 'Emergency Programme'.
This is effectively a tranSilonal orosramme cluding workers' control in public and private industry; majority participation via the COB of workers in the government; direct popular astrucon or pascreces sities controlled by the neighbourhood women's committees to combat speculation and hoarding; Bolivian miners are leading the general strike
structures of bureaucrati rule. He will have to mov swiftly to prepare the renewal of both policy and personnel before the next
party congress at the end of the year, and he can be expected then to be tested by those 1n the middle ranks hoping for some sort
Soviet revival. If this fails to materialise by the last years of the decade, the
USSR will be plunged into
late 1920s Is DIsgest cuss since mn and a series of measures
Rate rest imperialist capital installed in Bolivia.
However, all is not simple. At last September's congress of the COB a left
wing coalition, the United Revolutionar, beauership (DRU), ousted from execulive committe LeD resentatives of those parties who the
SUJJULI UDP government, prin cipally the Bolivian Com munist Party and the official MIR rightward
social democratic Both the LyNc latter parties had lost much credibility the labour movement through their participation in a governmell which for two year has been un-
' policies.
The trouble is that the UDP government took power as the left alternative to the utterly corrupt and incompetent, cocainetrafficking military dictatorship of General Garcia Meza. For very many une UDP's failure has caused demoralisation and illusionment with the left as a whole. So whilst the DRU
Gorbachev may have gained a majority amongst militant workers and peasants, it certainly didn't have majority amongst the population as a
On the contrary, signs that dis illusionment with the chaotic UDP administration has strengthened support for the far right, and inal a coalition right-wing nationalist (MNRH) and quasi-fascist military (ADN) parties was heading for a victory in elections due on 16 June • This is
US certai Cure government has been bank-
It is not clear how far the revolutionaries will have been able to shift this underlying balance of forces
strike.
Worse still divisions are aboarell DRU leadership of the COB. Such divisions seem to nave been responsible for ending we orevous benera surike last November
Early the
presen strike Walter Delgadillo, general secretary and num ber two in the COB, said the workers would increase
Socialist Action 22 March 1985!
Lted pressure on government every day until let demands weremer
Thursday, he said the
should fight
WOrKer. establish a socialist govern ment in Bolivia
On Friday, Juan Lechin. executive secretary and his toric leader of the COB, as well as at least nominally a fellow member of the DRU told a rally of 10,000 miners that, effect, this rubbish. He declared the
workers could panguard, which they didn t power without armed have
UDP President Siles
Zuazo clearly aims to play
these divisions On Friday evening he met COB delegation and off ered co-government WIl the unions to resist jointly
of fascist coup. No malori itself a tricky enough slogan, incorporated the COB's emergenc programme which the DRU endorses — and as such it is
between the programmes of differen organisation the leadership of the COB
Siles Zuazo will certainly not willingly permit that. But he may negotiate miners or brennie t2s
means breaking hack of the strike and un loading partial responsibility for mess onto the unions. Lechin, historically, been associated with min. ority co-government.
The COB was due to discuss these proposals last week, and at the writing no news of their decision had come through. One thing, however is clear. this crisis is real. Neithe side can on in the old
, and the right is only waiting for convenient moment to step in. It would rather wait and win the elections, but it is quite capable of trying to establish its rule by force if need be
The coming ; days (perhaps s weeks) will be a supreme test for the maturity and initiative of Bolivian revolutionaries Not least amongst them are the revolutionary Marxists of the POR-Unificado, who
Photo:
i play a central role in the DRU and in the COB
Page 10 scan of this page
Round the YS regions
10 Socialist Action 22 March 1985 FOR THE present leadership of the LPYS, the Southern Region has always been one of their strongest areas. But doday the opposition journal Activist has supporters in 13 LPYS branches. It has a majority in East and West Sussex. In these areas, branches are growing and new ones being established.
In comparison thereare k• branches in Kent this
cil tlal t. despite twing a mining area and a
for Militant. None olieTIl y e: :he YSs Militant set up in
Villages attended 1985 regional conterenie. The only miners and tomen from mining communities present were
miner paseo ma bazalo
supported Labour Brieting. and who spoke to the conference, and those invited from Aylesham and Betteshangerto the Activist fringe meeting
LPYS's failure to respond adequately to the •?i-Orodso• or wonicı and black people during the
Lake the debates on a strategy for victory, and to organise any national focus for youth, has meant it failed to grow.
Trere were 57 delegates from 35 branches this year, compared with 72 delegates from 11 branches last year.
nas also been
Cops - strike
breakers!
I) A survey from the
Commission for Racial
Equality last week, white
vouth were shown to have
caught up with their
black brothers and sis-
ters in their attitude to
the police.
ner cent of 18 pear old blacks and whites
arle neweu lel larasseu Dy
the police, disliked their
attitude and thought they
kad too much
During the miners'
strike, the role of the police
their outright violence on
Kn e picket ilhe.
aitempts to
tesl HEUM alea alea.
their baton and riot-shield
devastated by the political developments auring ine dispute. Tony Benn spoke to une conlerence emonds' ising the need to organise the lett in the Labour Party in defence of the miners, to defend the YS against witch hunts, the importance of the selt-organisation the oppressed, and the impor-
of international lance struggles. These were the same questions the six-page Activist bulletin had taken up.
Activist supporters at the conference took state violence in Ireland and the mining
kulti munities. Militant told conference that Sinn Fein were
National Front, and opposed drug pushing ony to keeo inel pouca. monopoly.
Women's liberation and positive action were mennoned Conference's full support was pledged, nowever. TOT regional *jobs bombs' demo
CND
charges: all methods tested
out in Ireland and on the
black youth in Brixton and
Hoxtetn brought
home to many working
benoe mne voren taeue u
the state. Now they under-
stand why black vouth took
to the streets in 1981.
The solidarity black Peo, has laid a firth basis showed with
for fighting Tory attempts
to bolster up the police still
further. Next year's survey
should show a much higher
Jeicenlane youth
happy with police 'atti-
moes as pease anev understand that a d.
policeman isn't just anther
working class lad in uni-
form, but a strike-breaker.
called by YCND.
Activist held well fringe alleluca mccull with speakers from the NUM. YCND. Women Against Pit Closures, Activist, and a young Sandinista.
was impossible TOI Militant to marginalise us ana present something 'outside the LPYS iner usua rIck
The regional committee asked conterence to dror an emergency resolution on the witch huntintavourot a regional committee statement. Eventuallv the statement was amended to include attacks on Vauxhall black section.
Chris Woolls, an Activsupporter from
Worthing YS, was elected to the regional committee.
Since the conterence we have been discussing the way forward. We recognisè we need to continue working with the Labour left.
In many areas Activist supporters have been involved in initiating miners support committees, demonstrations and meetings. We nave made steps linking up with further and migner caucanon students
In collaboration with Labour Briefing, have organised 'Which Way Forward?' meetings eight towns.
We see the urgent need thạt has been obvious throughout the strike for a national focus capadie oI organising all those forces who have been leading support for the miners. We are organising a daily bulletin for YS national conference
callng OLIC bulletins black sections and Lesbian and Gay YS for support.
We want to build a YS that will actively defend the interests of the workers and the oppressed. This means a national conference of YS activists to launch a newsva el organise these forces.
Acorerence: ohe sas
our conterence.
las a key role to play in th jett of the Partv. We mus put all our efforts into that tight it we are to buld on the radicalisation of the last ycal.
year's.
hall.
The region of course includes Militant's powerbase: Liverpool. Although there aré sèveral indepenoenu YSS, re w Dolne coming to regional conlerence ine arenaa anl resolutions had been carefully doctored to stifle any real debate on the way forward for the LPYS
By Bernard Gibbons, Gorton LPYS
Gorton YS had their resolution on lesbian and
Bay liber agn na noor ted
the agenda second year running. And the miners' strike was dealt with under the rubric of 'policing and the state'.
This meant that most of the debate was taken up by Matan supporters denouncing the bourgeois courts and calling for the police to join the TUC Taner nanny dasCuSSon on why the Labour Party youtn secuon naal t growl in this region during the strike. Needless to say, no miners got anywhere near the platform!
miners' strike disposed of, delegates pro_ceeoe• lo more pressing matters, such glue slung ana loe neco to. more customs officers.
I he conterence livened up the debate on 'oppressed minorities' Supporters of Youth Action, a new bulletin of independent activists in youth sections in the North West managed to get some real debate going on black sections, the Sam BONG affair in Liverpool, and lesbian and gay liberation. Aler sma kinicock. , to the latter, John Youth Action supporter, and delegate trom Corton was physically threatened ov wo ooservels al llccoll ference. Eventually delegates voted to expel them from the hall, against the advice of the platform who had tried to minimise the incident. Probably the only time platlori mendation has been de-
THIS YEAR's North West regional LPYS conference was a dispirited, low key affair, visibly smaller than last There was little indication that there was a miners' strike going on outside the Blackpool conference
teated at North West region LPYS conference.
The brightest spot of the weekend was Youth Alhon s linge meeling on the alliance of the oppressed built in the course ot the miners' strike. It attracted about 25 people.
Speakers included Colin Lenton from Bold NUM. Lorraine Johnson, a miners' wife active in the women's
support group, and Debbie
Whithali from Lesbians and Gays Support „Tne Miners. Following up suggeston Hom unal meeling, a joint Bold NUM. Youth Action da vschoo will be held in Bold on 30 March.
will focus on the lessons for the LPYS from the miners' strike, and looks set to be a bigger event than regional conference itself. It will certainly oe lot more relevant politically.
Gillick
attack on
fundamental right, their sexuality.
The state has always
had some control, so have
parents. they have
total control in law.
Anne McCuleary, Joint Coordinator, Scottish Abortion Campaign.
Since the Gillick case in
December young women
navo committed suicide
thas ha despot pregnant-
olds got pregnant
waited until they were 16
and then tried to get abor-
lons, ana books on leen
age sex have been removed
trom sale.
These are the things we know aDoul But
must be thousands of cases of young women who have
been having sex and risk geben reg tey w , pregnant. It and
when
all go to get help from doc-
tors. It is invitable that
they end up in the :back-
streets again to try to get abortions.
fightback has
started. The case will be
going lo une House of
Lords for the DHSS to
appeal, and if the ruling is
apheld then Jo Richardso
LITTERICK MP is putting an early-da
motion to have it reversed.
In Scotland, where the law does not yet apply,
Victoria Gillick came in Photo: TRACY February lobbying. She do spoke some at
Glasgow Universitv but had Io walk through _picke 100 young
people.
There is a growing list
TIONAL UNION OF VINEWORKERS
TINERS
MARCH
CASHEN
ITIONAL TALLY
young women
IF YOU are a woman, under 16, and live in England or Wales, you've got no rights. Your parents (if you have any) and the state have complete control over you. This is the result of Victoria Gillick's victory in the courts. depriving young women of any control over their most
of organisations opposing the rullng DILIS!
Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing: most organisations concerned with the health and welfare of ish Ls s haes Scottish passed a resolution conthe decision has the Women's TUC conference.
NAC has produced a
Youth
NATION MINE
NATIL
RAL petition, and a press statenicl has been released which has the backing of many youth organisations. It is essential that the fight against and recent anacks or I WolCH. rights to control their own …oooles l. lanci uu , even more broadly.
• More information can be obtained from The Children's Legal Centre (who have produced a briefing on (llCK) comolor Terrace, London NI ZUN; from Wesley House, 70 Great Queen Si London WCIV SĂX
ND RETURN IU
BACK STREET
APARTIONS
: WE WAN!
AROKTION FREE Of
FREE !
ABORTIÓN
ON DEMAND
NOW
Page 11 scan of this page
Local government Colman
News
THE BRITISH Rail Board has come up with the grand sum of two per cent in the current wage round in the railway industry. The Board is out to make railworkers work harder in exchange for the shrinking value of our pay packets. That's nothing new. But lne twist in this year's wage round is how the Board is tying its offer to the effects of the miners' strike.
Board puts the price tag LOR sondarily action taken by rail-
£230 workers and insists it's up to railWOrKerS to make this Accept two per cent, the Board is saying, or we'll lose coal traffic for good and that will involve enormous oo losses
Nothing could be further from the truth. Ihe fact is that the Board's most recent corporate pial for the industry had already slated (all overall increase in jobs of 1l to 12
unions in
front line
IT IS OBVIOUS that the local government fightback, widely hailed by some on the left, is falling apart at the seams. Just what went wrong!
option developed by Ted Knight and Ken Livingstone was flawed in two major respects, which were exposed immediately in the absence of any leadership prepared to fight.
it split the two tiers of local government in England, putting the GLC and metropolitan counties in the firing line, while the rest looked on from the sidelines.
Second, they fell straight into Jenkin's trap by looking only at councils threatened witn ratecapping, and ignoring other Inner-cIll councis who were just as badly hit by financial penalties.
Basically, the no-rate tactic, by focussing only on
ate-capper authorities,
tiled. It concentrated on: orun ol councis manv ol whom were not prepared o fight back
The base line for th united front was being prepared confront government and face illeg-
ality. I Party Readership:
Labour Kinnock wavered between sell-out and luke-warm support. with Cunningham his shadow environment
explain the real leader. ship line of 'make cuts and stay in office.
Among those Labour leaders associated with the
none can have calvan. been so ruthlessly exposed
Ken He
Livingstone. must shoulder major for the GIC deadle share of the ponsibility
With most of the public
unton caders strangely silent, it was left to Arthur Scargill to the only clear political lead. At the Chesterfield rally on International
Rail pay battle
er cent by 1989 - abou
1,000 jobs - even before the miners' strike!
ring for an battles pre-
battle railworkers. The very day after the miners union decided to return to work, Fleet Street confidently
rail predicted thal LOC unions were next in line for conronlalon WILl •LIC government. Media reports are claiming regularly that much coal traffic has left the railways for good.
By Doreen Weppler, NUR guard
The behind
Talondie this scheme? It is a pure and SIlEDIC political cision to put a stop to the close links between railworkers and miners.
Behind this campaign to make railworkers think that any loss of traffic their responsibility, there is
poorly paid workforce which puts in long hours of work. This year's pay claim tries to tackle these problems.
The tactics adopted were disastrous. The no-rate
Women's Day he called on women from the mining communities fight to save the cities.
Apart from isolated acts defiance from Labour councillors, the trade unons must now step into the front line to defend jobs and services. The importance of joint union organisation, such London Bridge and Liverpool joint shop stewards committee, will become ever more evident.
By Bill Hamilton, Newham NALGO
The call by these two bodies for a national combine of local government shop stewards should be supported by all public sec-
trade union activists. This will be launched at a conference Saturday 30
We Marca erpool. need to inter-union link level.
The reality is that there will not be any sackings or obvious large-scale service cuts this year. But that does not mean no cuts in jobs and services
It will be the unions' job to expose the hidden cuts and the hvpocrisv o Labour councillors to WOe! audience We musi understand that those who want to fight the lories all the way are a minority -but a bigger minority than Kinnock and Cunningham believe.
The priority over the next months must be strengthening and building
the Federation of ASLEF and the National Union of Railwaymen, it calls for a
Increase bring railworkers for tio0 basic 1975 levels; wage; for a 35-hour week; and for five weeks' holiday.
Most grades in the industry would need 25 to 30 per cent increases if our
purchasing power to be In fact
Prade. nOW find themselves week worse off than the notoriously low paid agricultural workers!
Overtime plagues the industry as a direct result of the low Railworkers warts. 51.2 hours each week, with over 80 per cent of the LOTCO working overtime regularly.
Strong feeling exists in the industry that these conditions can't Most railworkers are disgusted with the 4.9 per awarded last year. it's true the Board backed down on tying pay to productivity then, we • were
that minoritv. For a start. local government unions must develop strong organ isation capable of exposing all cuts to union members and the wider community.
This campaign must be taken into the Labour Party. where there large core of party activists who want to fight back, but who find it difficult to develop the arguments against councillors who are backea up by senior management in attempting to confuse and distort the cuts taking place.
important remember that in London every borough councillor is up for election in May '86. We need to develop new candidates for council elections who will be accountable party policy.
Those councillors who will fight must be ported and brought into joint activity with party and trade union members. The role of the Campaigr Group of MPs should be developed to bring pressure to bear on the party leaders have less than a
We year to turn the minority into a majority to save the cities.
refusing to set a rate.
badly let down leadership who failed to hold out for a decent living wage
This year British Rail is pushing forward range productivity measures.
Railworkers have made
Fastners -
it's official!
THE PAY battle at the Manchester firm of Colman Fastners took a new turn last week.
One hundred and fifty engineering workers have now been on strike for two weeks an attempt improve appalling wage rates. Skilled engineers at the firm £103.50 per week, while machine operators get just £88.60.
But when the company called for a meeting at the offices of the Engineering Employers' Association last Friday, it wasn't to improve on their miserable 5 per cent offer. Instead, the company talked in vague terms about the damage the strike was causing to the business and ahout the possible loss of jobs that could ensue, withdrew their original offer and made a thinly veiled threat to use the law against the strikers.
Under the Tory government's trade union legislation, unions lose their immunity from legal suits TONY Benn joined Liverpool city councillors and Merseyside county council leader Keva Coombes on the / March democracy dav demonstration in the town. Over 10,000 turned out to show their support for the city, which is standing firm and
UNITED STAND
SOL10W 1HE99 SINING EXAMPLE clear their opposition to ally necolalons wilalsoever productivity dational umon conlerences for the past two years running. If the executive holds the line on these decisions, industrial action could well occur on the railways. for damages arising out of a dispute if the workforce fail to have a secret ballot. But the position of the TUC and
the strikers' union, the AUEW, is not to cooperate with this legislation.
The workforce at ColBetter to load
North West
Labour
conference
THE GENERAL atmosphere of the debate at the North West regional Labour Party conference which took place on 9-10 March was lacklustre — the outcome of an apparent lack of interest in regional organisation.
for example. BP Don the North West region and sitting vice-chair of president of the North West recently confidenced' area of the NUM, wasfirmly reelected to regional execu, tive committee.
By Claire Bacha
The NUM had passed the no confidence motion for his absence during the miners' strike. 3120 unfortunately forgotten to remove delegation leader.
emercency motion demanding the NEC support a full amnesty for the miners was passed. But politically,
floor focus emerged around Women's Action Committee motions.
Militant spoke against motions guaranteeing debaling ume lor three resolutions submitted from reyou womens comerence So much so, they failed to speak in favour of their own motion which was supported by WAC, which called for man's upheld this policy and voted to
strike at a mass meeting. Their action was subsequently endorsed by the local district committee. and has now been made omicial the national executive. So the possibility of legal action is a real one.
The employers have been encouraged by record of AUEW executive council when confronted by legal action
the strike at BL's Longbridge plant. Then, the union leadership refused to make the dispute official.
It's vital that this time round, union leaders give full backing to their members in dispute.
Certainly, the strikers
getting tremendous backing from the local labour movement. Money is pouring in from factories
ike GEC Traction, Massey Ferguson, Mirrlees Black-
John Doherty, the convenor Mirrlees, member of the national committee and d candidate for regional officer in elections currentl taking place, addressed a Hilass meeting to give n support to the strikers and
Socialist Action 22 March 1985 11 three women's seats on the executive to be elected bi women's conference.
As a result. all the reso lutions supported by WAC fell. Militant's resolution fell on a card vote of 450,000
607,000. The TGWL alone contributed 250,000 of those in favour.
meetings went definitely the highlights of une conierene
WAC spoke thể platform organised by Campaign Group • of MPs and 'CLPD. Eric Heffer made a fighting speech o behalf 01 the
, but the meeting did not address itself to the tast of organising the left in the region on an ongoing basis.
van chester cv coun cil's fringe meeting, entitled Which way forward for the Labour Party in the North West' brought together the left from across the region. Hardly surprising, since the council involved struggle against the government.
Speakers Bob land MP, Graham Stringer (leader, Manchester city council), and John Nicholson (deputy leader) talked of
more seriously and the nees
bring together the lett across the region.
If the left can success fully organise Gunny lik year, next year's conference could be more exciting.
A.U.E.W
SUPPORT
OUR
STRIKE
NOW
their refusal to hold a secret ballot.
But most impressive of alt has been support from the miners at the local pits
response of the miners was shown by Jean. a miner s wife, and a mother of two.
show solidarity that has inspired
all over the las 12 months. Jean donated f7 out of her husband's firs wage packet after returning to work, with the simple message: 'We must all stick together.
Correction
LAST week's issues carried
article Manchester
council entitled Mancheste
stands firm' (page II). We
were in error to report tha
ine cly council nassed a
budget. In fact only a res.
olution not to levy a rate was
Dassed
The resolution referred
to policies the Labour Part!
is committed to implemen 2,243 new jobs and creating
Page 12 scan of this page
budget
ON QUESTION TIME immediately after the miners' Strike Tony Benn said that the miners had lost the Tory Party the next election. It was a bit too optimistic but he truth of the incredible damage done to Thatcher's economic policies by the strike did begin to come out
ato the open with Nigel Lawson's budget on Tuesday.
For the first time, the increase government borrowing to finance the strike was admitted to be E=: billion. The increase ir government spending to finance the strike was £2% billion. The loss to the
£4 . alance billion. The difference between the government's spending and its income overshot from planned
In short, the strike shot to pieces the government's tionomic policy not only forger. The 1 billion Cost for the next
A thur Scargill, and the £5
City analysts, were shown to be ta: closer to the mark thar
£3 billion claimed by tire
So one of the first casualties the giveaway lax culling bliciget
gel Lawson had planned
revive government's sagging
•pulanity. in une arve to smash the NUM the chan-
LOSE more than halt £1½ billion tax cuts he *wu oro culcu last aulumn.
Without the tax cutting acing on the cake, the harsh realities OI Thatcher's economic strategy stand out still more clearly.
In the Lawson budget there was not a hint even of kte mild reformist meas-
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Tures which Tory 'wets' and the SDP had been advocating. There were no serious measures of public spenang on investineil i the 'infrastructure' roads, railways, rebuilding the cities and so on which would least temporarily reduce unemployment.
The real emphasis of the budget was wage Cute. Above all wage cutting aimed against the paid allu against young people Chris Pond of the Low Pay Unit rightly described it as a 'disaster' for the low paid. The YTS scheme isto se extended to two years for 16 year olds, and the government is increasing Ine drive to make compulsory.
Lawson announced a continuing drive against wage councils. It will now take two years for workers to quality for the meagre protection of the 'unfair dismissal' laws. At the other end of the age scale the average old age pensioner will actually off after the budget.
The goal of the budget was vel nomer moloc screw Thatcher's basic domestic economic policies. . Her aim is to segment and Hagment lne working class by every
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type of differential within
Some workers are to be encouraged to become self-employed by £55 million of further tax concessions and the numbers of self-employed, OVCI million, are today higher In an alany 1921.
Those in work and paying tax will gain some-
of income tax thresholds. But the unemployed, the low paid, young. women pensioners will all be hit by the budget.
The aim, once more, is try concentrate resources on maintaining Tory Party support from the white, male. skilled workers, buying their own house, who Thatcher successfully attracted 1979 — and who have had wage increases of almost 10 per cent under her government. The rest of
working class will sutter further blows.
But, to return to the beginning, this time Thatcher's economic polIcy has been drastically upset by the miners' strike. The tax concessions, after the economic impact of the strike, we judge are too low to buy Thatcher the type of popularity she was seeking. The opinion polls and any by-elections, are
in the next months.
The miners have not necessarily lost the Tories the next election. But they nave done them formidable economic damage.
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Lebanon
defeat at the hands of the Lebanese Shi'a militia.
On Sunday Israeli Prime Minister Peres announced that Israel was speeding up the withdrawal
small apart of Lebanese
small Lebanese territory.
The events in Lebanon, however, once more show just how much the survival of the depends on the reactionary nature of the Arab regimes that surround it. While the Israeli ally has almost continuously defeated the armies of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. has twice sufferec severe military setbacks in Lebanon
The first in the fighting with the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) around Beirut. Despite its advance to the
Iron fist smashed
THREE WEEKS ago, in a typical display of savagery, the Israeli army announced its 'iron fist' policy in southern Lebanon. But the result has been a humiliating
Lebanese capital, the Israel army sunerca severe casualties. never ceeded militarily in taking the city and only entered it after Yasser Arafat negotiated a PLO withdrawal.
Now, in its occupation of southern Lebanon, the Israeli army has suffered completely unacceptable levels casualties in struggle WILd Shi'a militias. The 640 Israelis Kleen cedaron dre the equivalent of over 11,000 deaths in a country with the population of Britain. The Invasiol of Lebanon turned into the biggest military disaster in Israeli history.
The effect of the fighting in the soull lla. spilt over into Beirut with
the kidnappinrinthe last
week British and
busines resentatives and journa-
. Meanwhile, the Christian Phalange forces to the north of Beirut havesplit with mutineers led by Samir Geagea opposing th regime of President Gem ayel.
The Syrian regime has moved to surround the rebel forces and support Gemayel's government. Clashes between the Phalange forces and the Shi'a militias were reported in Beirut on Monday.
Syria has accused Israel of being behind Geagea's revolt, which is certainly to Israel's The Israeli has announced it is to esta bilsh a new 'buffer zone' on its northern border from which will expel considerable part of the 60100,000 sni a innabilants of the area.
DhA HADDIC
Behind the manoeuvering. however, the real
victor in lebanon is the Syrian regime. It has split the PLO and established the Gemayel regime
While Syria is prepared to use for its own ends the successes omen dorca In the south has no
whateve allowing a real struggle to spill over the border into prolonged confrontation with Israel itself. In the event of a showdown between the Shi'a forces and the Gemayel regime, Syria would undoubtedly back
right wing unristian client.
However, or israet ry
Israel southern Lebanon is great-
• to be welcomed. It Is e bloody lesson for a regime which more and more bases itself on sheer barbarity.
← Socialist Action No. 93, 15 March 1985Socialist Action No. 95, 29 March 1985 →