The Next Step: No. 24, May 1982

the next step review of the Revolutionary Communist Party r r Stop British war moves! No to Labour's patriotism!

Inside: Women - Rulecan fight for jobs Unions - NUPE, AUEW, CPSA, Tebbit Ireland - Kincora, Pope, PTA and IFM Racism - WAR, theTUC, NHS and US Plus Reviews, letters

No next step... no comment What are the prospects for victory in the NHS?

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Contents Editorial Where will Britain strike next?

The Falklands crisis: Argentina and the West The peaceful road to war Labour movement NUPE workers face the big stick ten years wasted Who needs the Tehbit bill?

CPSA

for a new course Women for communism The Rulecan dispute Don't turn your back on Istep. Subscribe today! For a year'sl f4 to send I subscription

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I WIN 3XX.

lame Address Trade Union Health workers face the big stick For the most part the Government has got away with making derisory pay offers to public sector workers. It has managed to dissipate rank and file anger by resorting to arbitration procedures in the case of civil servants and teachers. But in the NHS, the 4 per cent offer has infuriated health workers and even moderate trade unionists are talking of taking action. It is this mass discontent which has forced the leaders of the main unions involved - COHSE, NUPE and NALGO - to talk tough.

Ireland 3 Labour hacks the PTA Scandal at Kincora Rome rule and home rule Defend Father Fell Youth for Irish Freedom A disgrace to the cause Racism 13

WAR

Wreck the NIIS checks Black America the next Junius London 10 10,11 12 15 what's in a name Why we're marching to the TUC 16 16 17 THE GOVERNMENT IS out to get the NHS. The capitalist class no longer needs and can no longer afford even the basic services provided by the NHS during the The long-term strategy is past decade. straightforward - reduce the NHS to an institution that only the most desperate and needy would want to use and force those who can afford it into the private health sector. During the past year the privatisation of the NHS has been stepped up. In London several hospitals are to be sold off; in Chelmsford NHS premises are to be turned into a private clinic for sports injuries. Last month Tory health minister Norman Fowler announced that would explore the he long-term arrangements' for the private takeover of NHS facilities.

The state wants to cut the NHS and it wants to make sure that its workforce works harder for less pay. Every NHS worker has his or her story of understaffing at all levels. The Government is confident that it can tighten the screw because it reckons that NHS workers have no industrial clout. They are also counting on the inevitable media hysteria that follows every attempt by health workers to strike for a decent living standard. Just in case anything goes wrong, the Government has sought to divide the nursing staff from the staff. In March the Treasury found £63m to boost its offer to nurses from 4 to 6.4 per cent. The union leaders have proclaimed their determination to fight the pay offer.

Reviews Tom Wolfe -not our houses Philip Bagwell - NUR The Politics of Health Group liz Curtis plastic bullets Letters

NALGO

St Pauls Activities Workers Against Racism Irish Freedom Movement

RCP

the ne initiative. want. possibilities of group of ancillary and ambulance Pat Roberts board Mike Freeman 18 Editorial board 18 18 19 James Wood 19 19 16,20 20 5,20 Unfortunately the action proposed - two hour stoppages by COHSE, 3 day stop pages by NUPE and variations in between - are ineffectual and a recipe for defeat.

Selective action has only symbolic value It does nothing to hit where it hurts. It drags out the dispute, demoralises workers and allows the employers to retain the action at best can Selective only achieve the intervention of a 'mediator', which is what the union leaders really There is real danger that the thousands of health workers who want to fight will be paralysed by the wheeling and dealing of their leaders. Unless rank and file workers strike out on their own now the momentum of struggle will be lost. A campaign of indefinite industrial action should be launched against the Government's offer. This campaign should be organised through committees of workers from all health unions. The rigid structures on which bureaucrats thrive divide one The workers from another. strike committees should not only put a stop to the rivalry between NUPE and COSE but take over responsibility for negotiating with the bosses.

During the strike there should be emergency cover. But every effort should be made to paralyse the NHS bureaucracy.

The strike is against the state and not the patients. And only the most resolute and militant tactics will force such a resolute employer to cough up the money we need Editorial Tony Allen, Nick Jenkins, Judy Harrison Sabena Norton, Marcelle Reynolds, Frank Richards, Helen Simons, Published by Junius Publications Ltd BMC JPLTD, London WIN 3XX Printed by Morning Litho Printers Ltd. (T.U.)

Typeset by Junius Publications Ltd (T.U.)

ISSN 0144-350X May 1982

BRITAIN STRIKE NEXT?

LAST OCTOBER the next step carried a front page photograph of a British soldier in action, with the caption: Tony Benn says Britain is a colony - where will it strike next?'. We rejected the commonplace of the Labour left that poor little Britain had become 'a colony' of the USA, and insisted that it was still a imperialist power. We have rapacious consistently pointed to the growing trend for imperialist countries to interfere militarily in the backward capitalist world to preserve their interests.

Many thought our cautions against labour movement support for British militarism ill-timed and overstated. Yet as we go to press barely six months later, the Royal Navy has been put on full alert in the South Atlantic and hostilities against Argentina seem inevitable. And those in the labour movement who in the past defended Britain against American domination have turnedinto staunch defenders of Britain against Argentina, whether in the form of Michael Foot's flag waving jingoism or Tony Benn's more discreet backing for imperialist diplomacy.

Many commentators initially regarded the despatch of the fleet for the Falkland Islands as a joke, like something out of Gilbert and Sullivan or an Ealing comedy.

But, as time passes, Britain's offensive against Argentina looks less like the last act of the imperial drama and more like a dress rehearsal for more serious conflicts to come. The Falklands crisis, like the skirmishes that preceded both World Wars, has turned into an important test of the balance of power among the leading imperialist powers. It is an important test, too, of the labour movement's preparedness to follow the British ruling class into the mass slaughter of a third world war.

Gunboats into the 'eighties There is nothing 'old-fashioned', 'Victorian' or obsolete about Britain using military force to safeguard its interests abroad. Since the Second World War, British troops have invaded Malaya, Borneo, Indonesia, Cyprus, East Africa, several countries in the Middle East, and, of course, Ireland. The world recession brings more poverty and hunger and more intense repression to maintain the imperialist order throughout the Third World.

It gives rise to deep-seated anti-imperialist sentiments among the masses of Africa, Asia and Latin America, which threaten the stability of pro-Western regimes and the system of world capitalist whole domination. Whatever the intentions of the junta, the Argentinian takeover of the Malvinas (Falklands) is a frontal challenge to imperialism and not only in South America: If such barefaced attacks were allowed to achieve their ends, then the consequences would be grave not just for one or two remaining British outposts, but for peace in many areas.' (Financial Times, 6 April) It is this fear, that if the Argentinians are not taught a lesson, then, as defence secretary John Nott put it, 'someone else will have a go somewhere else in the world', in Africa perhaps, or the Middle East, that has sent the British task force on an 8000 mile trip to the South Atlantic.

Britain is not alone in its concern over the Argentinian seizure of the Malvinas.

All the imperialist countries have common interest in deterring regimes like Argentina from challenging Western power the next step from them. As the Financial Times commented, the Falklands crisis soon became more than a bilateral dispute' between Britain and Argentina: it was turned into a test of the international order'. Thus the Security Council of the United Nations voted with only one dissenter to condemn Argentina's action.

And the 10 countries of the EEC, incapable of a united policy on Afghanistan or Poland, unanimously agreed to impose sanctions against Argentina. Government all Western leaders countries have 1n railed against Argentina's defiance of international laws, conventions and agreements. The imperialist powers are keen supporters of these rules and regulations, and institutions like the United Nations that supervise them, because this framework stabilises and legitimises the system of world imperialist control.

At the same time the Falklands crisis has brought to the fore conflicts among the imperialist countries, particularly between the USA and Britain. The problem for the US administration is not so much in balancing between its traditional allegiance to Britain and its developing alliance with the Argentinian junta, but more in reconciling the position of the USA since the Second World War as the supreme guarantor of the world order and its particular interests in Latin America.

As the dominant power in NATO and the force behind the United Nations, the USA has to take a hard line on any backward capitalist country that challenges imperialist law and order. However, Reagan's regime has special problems in Central and South America.

The President's plans for drawing Argentina, Guatemala and other countries into an alliance against the anti-imperialist movements that are a growing threat to American control in the region are likely to be set back by any military conflict between Britain and Argentina. Hence Secretary of State Alexander Haig's shuttle diplomacy. Labour's disgrace However the Falklands crisis is resolved, it has revealed the forces driving towards another world war. It has shown the determination of imperialist powers like Britain to go to any lengths to safeguard their capacity exploit and oppress backward capitalist countries. And it has revealed that, while the Western nations are united against any threat to imperialism from the Third World, they are deeply divided amongst themselves, each guided by its own particular interest in any new carve-up of the world. And whatever the final outcome, the initial response of the British labour movement has been a source of great comfort to the ruling class. There have been, broadly, three positions put forward on the Falklands.

The dominant view within the labour bureaucracy is straightforward support for imperialist war. This position has been advanced with varying degrees of jingoist fervour by the leaders of the Labour Party, Michael Foot and Denis Healey and by leading trade unionists Moss Evans and David Basnett. It enjoys the support of all but a handful of Labour MPs, not to mention the SDP, Tribune and the New Statesman. It is a disgraceful capitulation to chauvinism. It was

WHERE WILL

predictable. The Falklands crisis drawn out the logical consequence of the labour bureaucrats' opposition to nuclear their support for the developweaponry ment and deployment of stronger conventional forces. The alternative military policy now being pressed on the Tories by the Labour Party proposes scrapping Trident and building up the fleet: the likely result is we will have both.

The second position substitutes support for imperialist diplomacy instead of open war. This is the view of Tony Benn, Dame (Commander of the British Empire) Judith Hart, a few pacifist Labour MPs CND and the Communist Party. They the dispute be want resolved by negotiation, preferably through the United Nations, as an alternative to a shooting war. This is a tactical difference masquerading as a stand of principle. The British ruling class negotiates with countries like Argentina using its economic power and military might as bargaining counters. And as the Government knows, there's nothing so effective in speeding up talks as despatching the fleet: this is what is called negotiating from a position of strength'. The threat of war is simply another step on the road that leads from diplomatic pressure, through economic sanctions to full-scale war. •War', as von Clausewitz wrote and every bourgeois politician understands full well, *is a mere continuation of policy by other means'. But the pathetic Labour left pretends there is some fundamental difference between imperialist war and imperialist diplomacy, and, reluctant to accept the consequences of the former, it takes refuge in the latter.

Chauvinists at sea While the left talks about making a negotiated peace, in practice it ends up supporting the war. This is evident in its confusions over the Navy. Tony Benn thinks it ought not to have been sent; Joan Maynard it withdrawn; Frank Allaun, however, insists that it should stay somewhere in the mid- Atlantic while negotiations continue; Labour's elder statesman Lord Noel Baker proposes 'the peaceful cooperative action of United Nations navies', a proposal that corresponds with Benn's notion of a UN 'peace-keeping force'. The left's faith in UN intervention simply reveal its illusions in what it calls the "international community', ie the imperialist powers. It is ironic that for all its customary anti-Americanism, the British left should look to an institution backed by US imperialism to get Britain out of a sticky situation in the South Atlantic.

What if negotiations fail to produce a solution begins? The left's and wal position can be predicted with certainty: it will inevitably fall in line behind the Labour leadership, no doubt regretfully and critically, but nonetheless fully behind imperialist intervention - British or United Nations - against Argentina.

Finally, there is the position that Lenin characterised before the First World War as 'imperialist economism'.

This view ignores the critical distinction between imperialist powers such Britain and countries like Argentina that are dominated by imperialism. By condemning Argentina and Britain equally stridently, it adapts to chauvinism in the imperialist camp, disguising this reactionary stand by talking in radical terms of the common interests of the working class in the two countries. The Militant Tendency provides the clearest expression of this outlook over the Falklands crisis, though it is in fact common to the British radical left. If Argentina is ruled by a repressive dictatorship, the responsibility is largely Britain's (see page 4). Whatever the crimes of the junta in Buenos Aires, as a force for barbarism in the world it is way behind Britain. The key point, however, is that any criticism of the Argentinian regime, at a time when every bourgeois politician is ranting about 'tinpot fascist generals and Argentinian footballers are booed every time they touch the ball, can only indulge and reinforce the wave of anti-Argentinian hysteria sweeping Britain. The British left affects a concern with the problems facing the working class in Argentina, issuing advice on the class struggle there as though it were writing for the Argenla bour The movement. left's advice has no consequences in Argentina; but its adaptations to British chauvinism undermine the efforts that must be made to rally the working class in Britain to support any attack on British imperialism in the Third World. Some radical left groups - the Socialist Workers Party and the Workers Revolutionary Party - have coupled concessions to British nationalism with repudiations of the jingoism of the Labour leadership and of the Benn/UN position. However, these groups' formal restatements of the Leninist position on imperialist war are rendered inconsequential by the narrow anti-Tory emphasis of their response to the Falklands crisis. The problem is constantly redefined as one of the Tory Government, not the British imperialist state. Thus, both Socialist Worker and The News Line attribute British militarism to the subjective needs of Margaret Thatcher to 'save face' or, more vacuously, to her lunacy. But the British ruling class would not go to war to save Thatcher's face; it is crucial to identify the vital interests of the British state in hitting back at Argentina. If Thatcher's face (or her psyche) is the problem, then what is the solution? Obviously, a different face and a different government, a Labour government. This is the only conclusion that can be drawn from the left's hysterical anti-Thatcherism and its bemoaning of the lack of dynamism of the Labour left in giving a lead on the issue. Our conclusion is different. We appreciate the vital necessity for the British state to go to war against Argentina to defend its interests overseas. We deny Britain's right to the Falkland Islands and we oppose all attempts - by dip lomatic negotiations, economic sanctions or military adventures - to regain them We reject all concessions to British imperialism We the lahour movement welcome any setback to British imperialist interests in the South Atlantic as a blow against the state that dominates the work.

ing class in Britain. Our enemy is not just the Tory Government but the British state: our task is to mobilise workers not for the return of a Labour Party with a more chauvinist outlook than most Tories to government, but for the overthrow of British imperialism and its state May 1982. 3

The Falklands crisis BRITISH CAPITALISM relies on countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America for raw materials, markets for its products and outlets for its investments. Britain's overseas investments - at around £49 bil- - are the second largest in the world.

lion Of the f24 billion it invested directly in factories abroad in 1980, 20 per cent went to backward capitalist countries.

Britain's profits from capital exports are essential for its survival as a viable capitalist world power. In 1980 the repatriated profits of industrial and commercial £4.8 billion, companies amounted to 20 per cent of the total gross trading profits made in Britain (calculated from CSO, Economic Trends Annual Supplement, 1982). The sun hasn't set yet Britain was the world's leading imperialist power at the end of the nineteenth century. Then it controlled a vast empire through which it raped and plundered, murdered, exploited and tortured and oppressed people in every corner of the earth. The rise of other capitalist nations Germany and the rest of Europe, the USA and more recently Japan has gradually squeezed Britain out of many areas where it once held sway. Two world divided and re-divided the wars have backward capitalist world up among the leading imperialist countries, and Britain has found its empire steadily shrinking.

Since the Second World War Britain, in common with other Western powers, has modified its relationship with coun under its influence. It has pulled tries back from direct colonial rule and installed sympathetic regimes in countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. These countries have never become genuinely independent: the frequency of British military intervention in them is testimony to the provisional character of imperialist withdrawal. Britain maintains armed forces on a grand scale to protect its overseas holdings from popular uprisings in its old colonies and Britain's from imperialist competitors.

gunboats have not however been able to prevent uncompetitive British firms being displaced by more dynamic American, EEC and Japanese entrepreneurs in many parts of the world. product of Argentina is a particular Britain's imperial traditions. It was never in fact a British colony. It became an independent country in July 1816, taking Malvinas, over territories, including the formerly ruled by Spain. Britain attempted, unsuccessfully, to seize Argentina, but it managed in January 1833 to grab the Malvinas, which it has clung onto ever since. In 1851 the British Government granted the Falkland Islands Company a virtual monopoly over the economy which has also been sustained to this day.

Although Argentina kept British troops off its mainland, it could not withstand its economic power in the region. From of the nineteenth century the middle Britain exerted a dominating influence on the development of Argentina.

A corner of some foreign field Agriculture and industry in Argentina developed under British control. British companies built the railway system - and owned it until the 1950s - to facilitate the export of agricultural products through Buenos Aires at prices regulated from London. Many of Argentina's wealthiest families have English names; they shop at Harrod's branch in Buenos Aires and send their children to English-speaking schools geared to Oxbridge entrance examinations. Britain exerted its customary civilising influence in Argentina. In 1860 it pushed Argentina into a war with Paraguay -to destroy its developing textile industry: virtually the entire adult male population was also wiped out. Argentina's rulers faced little domestic opposition to their 4 the next step, May 1982 Argentina and However enfeebled it has become, Britain remains a major imperialist power. Argentina, for all its industrial development, prosperous bourgeoisie and well organised working class, remains a backward capitalist country, dominated by imperialism. This is why, whatever the character of the regime in Buenos Aires, we support Argentina in any war with Britain. ambivalent position on the Second World War: it was not that the people had much sympathy for German fascism simply that they hated British imperialism.

Since the inter-war period Britain has been displaced as the dominant power in Central and South America by the USA.

Other imperialist powers have also extended their influence in the area. Direct foreign Argentina now in vestments in amount to nearly $5.5 billion, of which some $2 billion comes from the USA, $1 billion from Japan, $500m from West Germany and $350m from Britain. Thus Britain still has an important stake - and 17000 expatriates in Argentina. The supply of armaments of all sorts by successive Labour and Tory governments to the Argentine regime was not some quirk of policy, but the natural continuation of a long-standing relationship.

Britain welcomes the generals The political regime in Argentina is a product of imperialist domination. Argentina is one of a number of backward capitalist countries in which the weakness of the bourgeoisie has led to the elevation of a charismatic leader or a military clique to exercise power seemingly above the class struggle (see Revolutionary Communist Papers, No 6, for a discussion of 'Bonapartism in the post-war world'). In post-war Argentina, Juan Peron mobilised the working class with national and antiimperialist rhetoric to stabilise his regime and support its strategy of independent capitalist development. Peron did not go far enough for the masses, but he went too far for many Argentinian capitalists and their foreign backers.

He was ultimately obliged to crack down on the working class and was finally ousted by a military coup. Social stability has been maintained in Argentina through a series of military dictatorships. Authoritarian regimes have curbed trade unions and political organisations to create ideal conditions for foreign investment. As the world market expanded the Argentinian economy experienced record growth rates to become the most industrialised country in South America. The most recent coup in Argentina, in March 1976, marked the demise of the last revival of populist Peronism and its the West replacement by the present military junta.

It led to the violent repression of all opposition groups, the massacre of trade union militants and the virtual liquidation of the Monteneros guerrillas. British government officials have lately discovered a distaste for the generals, but this is how a former British diplomat in Buenos Aires welcomed the new regime, and the economic minister who led the offensive against the working class: 'Dr Martinez de Hoz and his highly capable team have wrought marvels. now 1 leave Argentina firmly convinced that this rich and varied country has an especially bright future ahead of it...and shall do all I can to spread this message in London on my return.' (cited in Unity is strength, Latin America Bureau, 1980, p35) The message spread in London and beyond. Capital exports to Argentina accelerated: between 1977 and 1981 more than $1 billion flowed into the country. In the same period Argentinian debts to Western banks rose from $10 billion to $32 billion - a large proportion transacted through the City of London and by British banks, such as Lloyds.

The Argentine junta has been sustained by the imperialist powers that dominate the country. Its repressive rule has been financed and encouraged by the USA and Britain. The world recession has revealed Argentina's subordination to the imperialist world order. Last year Argentina's debts amounted to 30 per cent of GDP and merely servicing these debts took up 85 per cent of export revenues. The regime's economic crisis has led to the further impoverishment and oppression of the masses. Over the past two years real incomes have been cut by 17 per cent and unemployment is soaring. Earlier this year President Galtieri ordered a wage freeze for public sector employees - at a time when inflation is put at 150 per cent a year! No doubt Galtieri has ordered the recapture of the Malvinas to take the pressure off his government at home. But past experience has shown that manipulating the anti-imperialist sentiments of Argentinian workers is a dangerous game for the junta. The heckling of Galtieri at Buenos Aires? the recent mass rally in when he announced acceptance of American mediation shows that the workers will not easily be satisfied by any compromises the regime may seek to make with the imperialist powers. Argentine workers will soon extend their hostility to Britain to include opposition to a junta whose fear of the masses greatly exceeds its reluctance to make deals with its old friends in London and Washington Workers in Britain do not need to be told about the record of the Argentinian generals it is well known and little different from that of scores of military British and dictatorships sponsored by American imperialism around the world The crucial point is that the record of the generals is much shorter and infinitely less bloody than that of the British ruling class: their potential for militarist savagery also bears no comparison to that of Britain.

Beyond the South Atlantic The Falklands crisis confirms a point that we have made in several recent issues of the next step: that the tensions leading to a third world war are to be found, not in the relations between the USA and the Soviet Union, but within the imperialist camp itself. The seizure of a heap of rocks by poor Argentina from mighty Britain has led to the launching of the biggest war fleet since 1945 So desperate are the Western powers to maintain the fiction of impending East/West conflict that attempts had to be made to invent Soviet involvement where none existed. But even tales about Russian spy ships could not obscure the fact that the Royal Navy was en route for the South Atlantic and the USA was in a what to do about it. serious quandary The Falkland Islands dispute has shown that the conflicts that really matter in the world today are between backward and advanced capitalist countries and among the imperialist nations themselves The USA condemns Argentina's occupation of the Malvinas but it is fearful of the consequences for the Pax Americana in Latin America if Britain goes to war to regain them. A full-scale shooting war would rally Peru, Venezuela, Bolivia and Argentina's side. Guatemala to Even Brazil, although hostile to its neighbour, would come under pressure to support it against Britain. Reagan would then be obliged to scupper his Latin America policy and back Britain in the cause of maintaining the line that countries like Argentina cannot be allowed to break the rules of the imperialist order and get away with it. The USA has also to consider the danger of losing a valuable ally in Europe. Already in conflict with its NATO allies over issues of trade, foreign policy and defence, the USA is keen to preserve its friendship with Britain In Europe itself the united stand of the continental powers with Britain seems unquestionable. But the most enthusiastic, France, is the one with least to lose in terms of trade and the one that feels most threatened by this outbreak of lawlessness given its many colonial possessions and dependencies throughout Africa and the rest of the world For Japan, there is nothing to gain politically by supporting Britain's call for trade sanctions. Premier Zenko Suzuki warned Argentina to negotiate at the United Nations, but refused to jeopardise important trade deals or the status of its large investment projects in the country.

Why should it endanger economic links with Latin America when Europe is threatening sanctions against Japanese exports? As for Britain, it has everything to lose no matter what it does. Invade, and become embroiled in a debilitating war 8000 miles away. Or compromise, and suffer humiliation, feeling still less secure about its future in a volatile world.

Socialists in Britain can only welcome the slap in the face suffered by British imperialism. Our job is to halt the war drive and work for Britain's final defeat.

Tony Allen

TROTSKY ACCURATELY perceived the servile patriotism behind the Labour leaders' pacifism, a patriotism that can turn them from disarmers into war-mongers virtually overnight. He reckoned, however, without Michael Foot's jingoistic fervour - the merest slight to his Crown and country, never mind the roar of cannon, sufficed to make him denounce Thatcher for her lack of preparedness' over the Falklands. Foot's transition from inveterate peacemonger to staunch militarist in response to the Falklands crisis is an important reminder of the way in which the antiwar sentiments of the labour bureaucracy have twice this gone a similar transformation as conflict drew near. It is a useful warning of the clangers inherent diarmament movement. Virtually every conference of the labour international in the decade movement War passed First World against reso umoRs ment and consumption. for example, a joint Independent Labour Party/TUC rally in Trafalgar Square heard ILP leader Ramsay MacDonald condemn the naval arms race that was then on, before the London Socialist shortly Sunday School Union Choir of Girls, dressed all in white, sang 'Angel of Peace'.

After 1911, when Morocco, sections of the press began to for conscription. Camodel response of ILP MP Philip Snowden: to oppose it as entirely contrary to the national interest'. Thus was moral disgust for violence mixed with chauvinism right up to the declaration of war in 1914. And then.. workers volunteered to die in their millions in the trenches.

After the war a superficial calm in international relations led to the decline of pacifist feeling in the institutions of the Leading working class. pacifists such as George Lansbury failed to oppose the 1929-31 Labour Governdefence expenditures ment's their faith in the newly-formed imperialist talking-shop, the League of Nations.

Events, however, soon revived anti-war sentiment. Japan's invasion of Manchuria in 1931, Hitler's accession to power in 1933, Italy's invasion of Abyssinia in 1935, the Spanish civil war from 1936 onwards - all these stimulated the formation of a mass pacifist campaign.

The Reverend Dick Shepherd's Peace Pledge Union, whose 140 000 signatories pledged never to use force aggressively, was formed in May 1936. But even before then the 1934 Labour Party conference came out against rearmament and reaffirmed its faith in the 'collective security of the imperialist countries organ- League ised through the Germany's occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1937, however, made war seem inevitable, and the Labour Party conference that year went over to full support for rearmament. From then on it was downhill all the way: nated and by the time Britain went to war in April 1940 the labour movement was an enthusiastic supporter of British militarism. How can mass anxiety about war so easily collapse in the face of direct battle?

The answer becomes clear take a look at a number of themes common to the disarmament movements of the past - and those of the present.

Some day, over the rainbow The labour movement anti-war campaigns before 1914 and 1939 showed a concern to prevent war breaking out in the future.

They emphasised the dangers and horrors of a war that was always some time away, often, as it turned out, many years ahead. In the present, politicians got on with the day to day business of negotiation century underin today's nuclear majcr national and before the resounding militarism, rearma- In July 1908, Germany invaded The suppression colonies. When socialist engagement. and put very well: however, once neutrality, guns was of Nations. together for peace. any discordant change from British pacifism stagthe Second complete. once we anti-militarism military and in particular from pacifist Labour with and accand to war be transformed into the most servile patriotism.'

(Leon Trotsky, July 1982) deliver the working class to fight for British imperialism in the Third World War.' (the next step, No 19, November 1981) ommodation to the British state. Their increasing identification of the interests of the labour movement with those of the British state was indicated by their acquiescence to the government's broader political objectives. Thus a labour bureaucracy opposed to militarism in the future came to endorse Britain's oppression of large areas of the world and large sections of its own population (women, immigrants, the unemployed) in the present.

Similarly, the official labour movement proclaimed its pacifist convictions at the same time as it sanctioned the brutal of revolts against British rule in India, Egypt, Ireland and other war became imminent the Labour leaders' loyalties to the British state and their commitment to preserving it outweighed their fears about military could not but drop They their pacifist rhetoric: to be pragmatic, they had to accept the inevitable. The Times put the stark choice before them *The instinct of self preservation, which is the strongest factor in national life, therefore compels us - i1 the eltorts or our government should fail - to be ready to strike with all our force for our own safety.' (30 July 1914) ILP leader Keir Hardie explained that he had opposed Britain's war against the Boers in 1899 - because then 'no national danger of any kind' was at issue. Now, the situation was different: Germany had violated Belgium's the boom of the enemy's 'within earshot' and decisive action was called for. On 1 August 1914 Hardie had appealed for workers to stand Three days later he told the House of Commons: The lads who have gone forth to fight their coun try's battles must not be disheartened by notes at home. The pacifist opposition to support for war was less dramatic before World War, but no less The war to end all wars A second feature of labour movement is its narrow focus on which it isolates technology from other aspects of imperialist strategy, diplomacy. In 1905 Britain launched the first of its Dreadnought series of battleships. Many on the left saw this fearsome vessel as the cause of Anglo-German antagonisms and felt that it made a qualitative dif- The ference to the nature of warfare.

use of poisonous gases in the First World War produced a similar response; so did Germany's development of massed tank blanket-bombing techniques before The peaceful road "The pacifism of social democracy at the first roar of the cannon will 'Today "inveterate peacemonger" Michael Foot prepares the way to the Second World War. The labour movement has always concentrated its condemnation on particular weapons whilst approving ference table as a legitimate of waging war. In July 1914 the ILP organised hundreds of rallies calling on the Government to avoid war by talking things out with its abroad. Once opponents radical ILP MP Fenner Brockway's pamphlet, How to end the war, called for peace 'by negotiation'. Later in the war, the ILP leaders turned for help to US President Woodrow Wilson, who urged without victory' *peace combatants. Their enthusiasm for American mediation sinking of the US Lusitania by a German U-boat, the USA itself entered the war.

However, it was Wilson's proposal for a League of Nations that provided the left with its favourite forum for the resolution of inter-imperialist conflicts 'thirties. The failure of the League to prevent Mussolini's invasion of Franco's air blitzkrieg on firmed that negotiation is just one level on which conflicts can Once deadlock is reached, it is obvious that recourse to the battlefield is necessary. The bourgeoisie never has any difficulty making this jump; and nor, when it comes down to it, do the labour bureau- Thus when crats. down, they follow the logic of their support for the bourgeoisie iations through to support for it in war proper. Mobilising for power Despite all the capitulations, there has always been a certain ambivalence about the labour bureaucracy's the British bourgeoisie in war. This reflects the difficulty it inevitably has in reconciling workers to their own slaughter in the preservation of British cause imperialism - in which they have no interest whatsoever. Naked jingoism can always be used to rally the most backward sections of the working class, but its value for the bourgeoisie is strictly limited. It has never appealed to the more conscious workers, yet it is these * Preparing for Power in Europe.

WCIN 3XX

the class by In the First left-wing MPs lished in 1914: tives of imperialism. function ideology. to threats over the con- Germany, means against fascism. Germany war began, sequent working class. Europe's on cooled when, after the in the on Abyssinia or Spain conbe resolved. people war is already apparent. In every present negotiations break increasingly strident negotgrowing 1n leading the backing for national own the For the past two years, the next step has held major conferences in September. The first, attended by more than 200 people, examined various aspects of imperialism around the world. Last year's, twice as big, concentrated on the problems facing the working class This year's conference will have a wider focus, taking in developments in the world economy, the labour movement in Britain and abroad, questions of women's oppression and militarism and pacifism.

Write now for full details to preparing for power, BM RCP, London The Falklands crisis whose influence over the class as a whole is of decisive importance in mobilising labour movement for • But war. it is precisely to do what jingoism cannot that anti-war movements are about They get workers to fight for the ruling putting the issue of national survival in working class language.

World War the rightwing Labour leaders stood out for a British victory over Germany. But more called for • victory means of ending carnage in Europe for all time. Here's how Ramsay MacDonald presented his case in a pamphlet pub- First it is imperative that the war, once begun should be prosecuted to a victory for our country. Secondly it is imperative, while we carry on the war, to prepare for peace.'

This approach, combined with constant criticisms of the Government's unpopular conscription and factory legislation, allowed the labour bureaucrats to reconcile the more militant workers to the objec- In the Second World War the same served anti-fascist was by This appealed to workers, not fight for British imperialism against but to defend democracy The influence of antifascism was so powerful that it led the labour movement to assume the role of the most consistent fighters against - unlike the upper class appeasers. And it also allowed the labour bureaucrats to lead millions of workers to their deaths and to claim the conof imperialist reorganisation relations as a historic victory for the A cautionary tale Today's nuclear disarmament movement seems destined to repeat the mistakes of the past. It campaigns against the prospect of a nuclear holocaust in the future; but it is silent about British oppression in Ireland and elsewhere today. It focuses Trident and cruise missiles, while inviting imperialist diplomats to solve the Falklands dispute. The anti-nuclear war movement is the most dynamic and rapidly growing campaign among young throughout Europe. Yet its potential to turn into a mobiliser for European country the disarmament campaign has acquired a distinctive nationalistic outlook; this is at obscured by a common and anti-Americanism. This hostility towards the USA corresponds with the rivalries that are already between the importance EEC countries and the USA.

The Falklands crisis has revealed some of within the NATO. The strains of a deepening world recession tend to drive its members into conflict with one another. In the event of deteriorating relations between the USA and Europe, the European anti-nuclear movement could play an important role in rallying workers to the side of their bourgeoisie against American enemy. This is the danger of peace movement in Europe today, of which Michael Foot, one of its founding members, provides a clear warning.

Mike Freeman

Labour movement

MANCHESTER CONFED.

THEIR RICEST MISTAKE

WAS EXPECTING US TO

BACKEN

ROBSON ?

One view of the AUEW - from the Laurence Scott strike bulletin.

YEARS

the AUEW. AT THE BEGINNING of March 1972 the Manchester District Committee of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions presented identical claims to 1000 employers of 200000 engineering the Manchester Workers unions demanded a f4 across the board wage rise, the introduction of a 35-hour week and four weeks paid holiday. This claim was the final act in a long drawn dispute out the engineers' 1971 pay demand which itself followed a three-year deal on wages and producwhich had resulted in the dettivity erioration of the position of workers in the industry. His master's voice were ready for a fight and so We If the unions are were the employers. out to test the fibre of our unity should leave them in no doubts as to its durability, declared Bamford of the Engineering Employers Federation. The next three months were a testing time indeed for the fibre of the AUEW under its Broad Left leadership.

The Broad Left, an electoral alliance of Labour left and Communist Party officials, had won control of the AUEW in 1968. After many years of campaigning, the Broad Left won a series of key Scanlon became posts: Hugh Secretary, Ken Brett joined Ernie Roberts as an Assistant General Secretary and Bob Wright won a seat on the Executive. Brett was the Broad Left's national organiser, Roberts the editor of its paper Engineering Voice. The prestige of the Broad Left took an immediate knock as a result of its endorsement of the 1968 three-year productivity package. It did not recover 6 the next step, May 1982

R.I.P

1883 - 1982

LAURENCE SCOTTS

HERE LIES THE JOBS

OF 650 WORKERS WHO

DIED BEFORE THEIR TIME

THEIR CRIES FOR HELP

WENT UNHEEDED

NO TEETH

The Broad Left in the AUEW

TEN WASTED

Ten years ago this month engineering workers in the Manchester area occupied their factories in a militant fight for higher wages and shorter hours. Manchester engineer and Laurence Scott worker Dave Hallsworth looks back at the sit-ins, after a year in which every fightback by engineering workers has been outmanoeuvred and broken by the combination of the employers, the leadership and the Broad Left of much as Scanlon Tory opposition to laws and as Engineering Voice turned from being a critic of the bureaucracy into its mouthpiece. The prosecution of the 1971 wage claim was decisive for the The Broad Left Waterloo. When the EEF took a hard-line stand against the unions, the AUEW bureaucrats simply abdicated the leadership of the struggle. Fearful of a head-on confrontation with abandoned negotiations at the national level and urged their local officials to the claim pursue bargaining. They also control of rank and file militancy in an industry-wide conflict, so they restricted action to the district level. Scanlon himself insisted on imposing a secret ballot we on the Sheffield district when a meeting of 45 000 militants at Sheffield Wednesday's football action. This device ensured that Sheffield workers remained isolated from those in Manchester and the whole struggle was fragmented. Manchester sit-ins In Manchester, however, even the Broad Left could not stop us taking action.

General Three days before 27 March, the official date for industrial action, 1650 workers were already occupying their factories and 7000 more had undertaken some form of sanction against their employers.

Workers at James Mills (part of GKN) kicked off on 15 March; Laurence Scotts and Davies and Metcalf joined in a week later. After 27 March, the vast majority of Manchester's engineering workers took

COMMUNIST PARTY

DID THEY MAKE

ANY MISTAKES

BROADL

ied. The reached a peak in his equivocated in anti-trade union and Manchester was its in 1971 on conditions. Yet the they the employers, stake, by plant by plant raised f2 million feared losing ground pressed for and less. during the members in solidarity with allowing LO situation. the Engineering LO that cost division

AUEW

strike action of some kind. By the end of the month a dozen factories were occup- Manchester sit-ins, the most concerted series of occupations in the history of the British labour movement, mid-April, when 27 factories were in the hands of the workers.

By the time the last of the sit-ins came to succession. an end in June they reckoned that around 25 000 to 30000 workers had participated in this remarkable challenge to the authority of the bosses and their property rights. There had been occupway the ations before - notably at Upper Clyde Shipbuilders and at nearby Fisher Bendix - but these had been in defence hypocrisy of jobs: in the Manchester sit-ins we were the attack for better and wages Manchester sit-ins were ultimately a failure. The unity of the EEF proved more durable than the fibre of our Broad Left. Realising what was at the employers chipped in and to bolster up their represent stand. The Broad Left led from behind and undermined from below. The officials' most damaging tactic was agreeing to problems. secret deals in each plant. Their strategy was to press large firms to settle and thus weaken the resolve of the (majority of) smaller companies in the EEF. But this seriously underestimated the unity of the EEF against rank and file militancy: the only result of the secret deals was to anything. deepen divisions among the workers. Laurence Scotts, for example, settled for £3.50 and no shortening of the working week; Ward and Goldstone got f4.00 and a promise of 35 hours; as the weeks dragged on others got less There was only one meeting of all engineering shop stewards in Manchester And this whole dispute. was called by Scanlon for the purpose of dropping the 35-hour week demand to allow negotiations to reopen. Far from considering a national strike, he even refused a national levy of AUEW the sit-ins. Local Broad Left official John Tocher curbing concentrated his energies the more militant shop stewards, while the influence of notorious right-wing officials like James Brennan OBE to grow. For Tocher, like Scanlon, the only purpose of the sit-ins was a lever encourage the resumption of talks.

their speciality. Left lets in the right By the middle of the summer, when all the Manchester factories had returned to work, we were in a position to assess the Engineering workers had won the lowest wage rise of any major group of workers in 1972. An EEF spokesman commented that the employers had given unions a mauling. The Broad Left tried to absolve itself of all responsibility: Voice pointed the finger at the local leadership. But we knew who blame. Many workers, realising that the Broad Left had led them into battles them hard and won them little, turned towards the right wing. In the 1973 elections, Broad Left candidate Bernard Panter was defeated by right-winger Brian Mather for the post of district secretary. Tocher scraped in as organiser. But it three was years - and many more betrayals - later that the Broad Left reaped the bitter Bob fruits of its years of collaboration.

Wright, widely tipped to follow Scanlon, was defeated by the rising star of the right, Terry Duffy, for his place on the Executive Committee. Duffy consolidated his supremacy over the Broad Left in the when he decisively defeated Wright in the 1980 presidential election.

No vote for Brett! Where are they now, those Broad Left leaders of ten years ago? Scanlon is in the Lords, Roberts in the Commons, but Wright and Brett got left behind.

They are still slugging it out in the factional strife of the AUEW, now working against a solidly entrenched right wing.

The retirement of general secretary Sir John Boyd has opened up a struggle for his The contenders are his heir apparent, the right-wing odds-on Gavin Laird, and Ken Brett. In Manchester we recall the sit-ins and at Laurence Scotts we remember the Broad Left helped Boyd and Duffy to isolate and sell out our fight for jobs last year. Workers here have seen the and ineffectiveness of the Broad Left's radical class collaboration, and they can't see it as much of an alternative to the up front collaboration of the right wing with the bosses. When one of the radical left activists tried recently persuade Laurence Scott workers that electing Broad Left candidates would for engineering VICTOrY workers, they laughed with scepticism Changing a few faces won't solve our The biggest danger to us is not the right wing, but the left. It is the left that leads workers into fighting battles with tactics that disillusion and dishearten the class. The right is open in its collaboration: it rarely leads workers Workers' own experience in struggle exposes the right wing: the treachery of the left wing leaves workers thinking that they have lost owing to the inadequacy of the working class.

The Manchester sit-ins and the - show the Laurence Scott occupation potential in the working class for seizing control. We have to reject the fear of confrontation of the Broad Left and sweep the compromisers aside. A revol utionary party grounded in the factories will show how factory after factory, and • one group of workers after another, can be drawn into class-wide actions directed towards the overthrow of the rule of capital.

WOMEN AGAINST UNIONS

AGAINST WOMEN

AS SOON AS Rulecan took over the Runcorn from Courtaulds, factory previous owners, in December last year, the workers knew they trouble. Management's first move was to withdrawal of the £50 announce the - a minimum guaranteed fall-back pay times when wage in Then Pat Roberts, the new boss, demanded that the workforce step up production work through breaks. and calculated that wages could drop to £30 a week, even for workers working flat out for the longest possible hours.

didn't stop there. When a new product was introduced, an Indian cotton line dress, the machinery had to be stripped down to handle the different materials.

As this operation women had to sit idle at their benches which meant they lost money because they're paid on a piece-rate system.

Afterwards, the stripped-down machines worked much more slowly than before, so wages were cut further.

women called in their union The The NUTGW called in the Wages Council to demand a return to the old level of fall-back pay. The boss said 'Up yours!', and declared Rulecan a non-union firm.

When the workers struck in protest, they got the sack. Rulecan's next priority was to break the picket line and get the factory making profits again. It advertised job vacancies in the three local newspapers, and in job centres, offering a new guaranteed wage of £55 as an incentive. From the existing workforce, only the women supervisors and the men (van drivers, labourers) returned to work. But the company could rely on scabs women, desperate for a job - to get the machinery moving. That's the situation so far. The 60 strikers face women employer who is prepared to go all out to smash union organisation.

see what can be done, let's look at the reasons for the management's hard line.

• Rags and riches Like most British capitalists, the textile and clothing manufacturers having a hard time over the past few years.

As recession engulfed the economy their profits and production levels fell. What made things even worse was an inability to compete with their rivals overseas. So they took it out on the workforce, determined to make workers pay for the crisis.

For example, Courtaulds, Britain's biggest textiles company, in two years has cut jobs by 25 000 to just 61 000.

in the clothing trades have also been heavily hit by closures and redundancies.

Attacks on the workforce, however, are nothing new. The rag trade has always depended upon sweated labour particular the exploitation of women workers and the ability to push its according employees around seasonal demands of production. That's why there is even more than the usual bosses' intolerance for trade union organisation and activity. Particularly in the On 9 February the for were - 110 work was slack. The union was carried out, the mostly young intransigent Before we have heen Courtaulds Workers lucrative investment a healthy in competition Eastern to the The Rulecan dispute Rulecan Liverpool, sacked its 60 women workers who went on strike for trade union rights and a guaranteed minimum wage. For three months the women, members of the National Workers (NUTGW), have been on the picket line fighting for support.

Carol Taggart of Manchester Women for Communism looks at why the outcome of the dispute is so important.

RULECAN

Dol

WORKEDS

SUPPORT

RIGHTS!

suppo Women for Communism supporters picketing C&A, Oxford Street - Rulecan's main customers.

fashion clothing sector, to which Rulecan belongs, trade unions are anathema.

ditched its Runcorn factory as part of an overall rationalisation plan to concentrate on more profitable areas of the market. Rulecan, a midget by comparison, only took over the plant because it thought it could make it a smashing project: the union is its first objective on the road For the profit margin. Runcorn outpost of the company's tiny empire to survive the recession, and the from South East Asia, Europe and the elsewhere, workers must take a hammering.

Getting stitched up To fight back against the bosses at Rulecan, the workers didn't just go on Ltd, a clothing manufacturer in Runcorn, Union of Tailors and Garment C+A

RULECAN

SO% HIRE:

the picket line but also sought solidarity action from other trade unionists. The local NUTGW

USDAW

unions, Kay's and Grattan's Catalogues, two firms supplied by Rulecan, to refuse to handle Rulecan's goods. This hit the company - in the pocket. where it hurt management quickly retaliated and issued an ultimatum: call off the blacking, get dragged through the courts under the conditions of the 1980 Employment Act which makes 'secondary' action illegal.

The threat of legal action had the desired effect. When news of the impendcourt action reached the NUTW ing headquarters London, panicked and lifted the blacking. Thus they abandoned the only effective action that the Rulecan strikers could take. Now Women for Communism courts. action today. sympathetic of Kay's, Grattan's, and the all labour recent National unism supporters unanimously. and 88 per cent of whose women Rulecan can win! Hanging of activities. *Join and Saturday. official got two other and the GWU, at Cheshire. NUTGW local fund). But Coming soon

WOMEN IN THE CRISIS

crisis has analyses failure of the labour the leaders women and to reverse this the bureaucrats are waiting for the verdict of an Industrial Tribunal, hoping that it will rule in the union's favour.

How to win The women's case will not be won in the Even if the Tribunal backs their claim, a boss like Roberts will take no notice. He has the backing of the police for breaking up the picket on the factory gate and prosecuting the strikers for trying to stop the scabs from getting through.

Women for Communism isn't hanging around for the Tribunal in mid-May. We demand the women's right to work for a decent wage now. And we're organising Already got wenave support for the picket from Laurence Scott workers, the unemployed and from We women's groups. have put out leaflets calling for the boycott Mothercare, C&A and other companies taking Rulecan's products. In Manchester, Sheffield, Covof C&A's London pickets stores are underway to win support for women at Runcorn. Leafleting of local factories employing women has been organised and collections held at At the movement events. Students Union of women's conference, Women for Commmoved resolution backing the strikers, which was passed We see the case of the Rulecan women as vital. In the recession employers are attacking the rights and living standards of all workers. But women workers are particularly vulnerable. In the clothing industry they face appallingly low wages harsh conditions of employment, which beleaguered capitalists are determined to make worse. The NUTGW members are must stand up and fight, not abandon the women's cause. If we lose this one, we'll be in retreat everywhere But if we build up support the women at *Contact Women for Communism, Box 33, 164-166 Corn Exchange Buildings, Ditch, Manchester, for details of C&A, the regular pickets Arndale Centre, Manchester every Friday * Join the mass pickets at Rulecan.

Transport from Manchester to Runcorn *Send donations to the strike fund to Joyce Clare, 6 Portland Street, Runcorn, (Cheques made payable to Revolutionary Communist Papers No.9 Last year more school dinner ladies were made The capitalist redundant than steel workers.

led to vicious attacks on women workers. This forthcoming theoretical journal looks at the these recent assaults, defend movement to needed the strategy examines Order your copy now. Send f1 to Junius Publications JP LTD London WCIN 3XX.

the next step, May 1982 7

Ireland Another conterence policy bites the dust Labour backs the PTA solidarity with the Tories' Irish policy.

newal of the PTA reveals that bipartisanship is as strong as ever.

THE NUMBER of Labour MPs voting against the PTA has increased steadily since the Act was passed without a single vote against after the Birmingham pub 1974. Last year 46 MPs, bombings in many responding to the pressures of Irish voters in their constituencies, opposed the renewal of the PTA. After October's conference decision that the next Labour government would repeal the Act, there were predictions that up to 100 backbenchers would vote against the PTA when it came up for renewal in March.

In the event only 53 MPs including Gerry Fitt (Belfast Independent Brit), Michael O'Halloran (Islington SDP mafioso) and Daffyd Thomas (Plaid Cymru) • entered the lobby with the Noes'. What happened to Labour's stand against the PTA? Call for a cover-up! Home Secretary William Whitelaw neatly undercut Labour's opposition to the PTA by the simple expedient of appointing a judicial review of the operation of the Act. Extrovert and hedonist Lord Jellicoe was summoned from the quiet corner to which he had been despatched by former Tory premier Edward Heath for his minor part in the Lord Lampton prostitution scandal in 1973. As godson of George V and director of Tate & Lyle, he is ideally qualified to investigate terror and counterterror. Labour's leading opponent of the PTA, Roy Hattersley, was in no position to object. As Whitelaw was quick to remind him, he had suggested just such an in last year's debate. Then, Whitelaw had refused. Now, anxious to maintain the widest possible parliamentary consensus behind the Government's machinery for repressing opposition to its agreed. Irish policy, Whitelaw And Hattersley was obliged to concede that it would be 'churlish' to repudiate his own suggestion, now served up by the Tories.

The left, usually known for its hostility to "Tory Law Lords", kept its silence. An inquiry was all that Labour wanted.

The noble Lord could investigate, hear witnesses, consult widely, consider the evidence, ponder his recommendations, and, after as long a time as possible, produce a report white-washing the Act and its operation. Meanwhile the PTA would continue to be enforced, day in day out, against Irish people in Britain.

Lord Shackleton had, as Whitelaw pointed out, fulfilled just such a purpose for the Labour Government in 1978. On the one hand, Labour MPs could hold up the inquiry to their Irish constituents and socialist critics as evidence of their concern about state harassment of Irish people and their commitment to the wider Irish cause. And, on the other hand, Labour's loyal allegiance to British imperialism be would manifested in its continuing approval for repressive legislation. 8 the next step, May 1982

THE

Last year the left acclaimed the Labour Party conference's endorsement of the repeal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act and the end of Labour This year's debate on there- The rest of this year's PTA debate covered familiar themes. Labour speakers complained about restrictions on civil liberties. They claimed that the Act was unnecessary as the War was now on the wane and that there were plenty of other laws under which enemies of the realm could he locked away. And, most serious charge of all, they maintained that the PTA was counterproductive, encouraging violent animosities against the state instead of suppressing them.

The Tories swept these feeble points aside.

The Tories wipe up Whitelaw agreed that the Act 'makes a considerable inroad into the civil liberties of which we are justly proud', but declared that this was regrettably necessary to counter 'terrorism. As every Labour MP agreed that the suppression of republican resistance to British rule was the Government's top priority, Whitelaw's straightforward assertion torpedoed all the civil libertarians. As for the Act being no longer necessary, the Home Secretary had only to point to the IRA's pre- Christmas bombing campaign in Britain and its recent successes in Ireland, to win the agreement of the House that continued vigilance was essential.

The policemen's MP Eldon Griffiths took up the argument that the PTA was not a successful weapon against the Irish freedom struggle: The figures quoted by the Home Secretary of the dramatically falling number of people who have had to be detained or to be subject to the powers in the Act is an eloquent demonstration that the Act has achieved, and is continuing to achieve its purpose.'

Labour Party politicians think that the declining numbers of PTA arrests and the low rate of convictions show that the Act is redundant and obsolete.

The Tories understand that the statistics reveal the opposite; that the PTA has proved highly successful in achieving its real object not catching terrorists, but in isolating and intimidating opponents (especially Irish opponents) of Britain's war in Ireland. The collapse of Labour's opposition to the PTA confirms that bipartisan agreement between Labour and the Tories on the conduct of the Irish War is as solid as ever. Whitelaw's concession of an inquiry shows how dear this consensus remains to the British ruling class. The ease with which this token was accepted by the Labour opposition indicates the superficiality of its criticisms of the Government's Irish policy and of last year's much vaunted departures from bipartisanship. . This year's renewal makes it even more clear than before that the fight against the PTA has to be fought against the Tories and against the Labour Party and its apologists in Irish solidarity circles.

Jackie Jones Gays under attack Scandal at Kincora already heavily oppressed homosexuals.

IN JANUARY 1980 the Dublin based Irish Independent published allegations about the Kincora House boys home on Newtonards Road, Belfast. The reporter, Peter McKenna, claimed that in 1979 a senior social worker had suppressed a report on hoinosexual activities between boys and staff at Kincora House. The junior social worker who had prepared the report was ordered to destroy it and told to mind his own business. It emerged that homosexual relationships between adults and children in care were not confined to Kincora House. Staff and boys involved at Belfast's were Williamson House children's home and at Bawnmore boys home, Newtonabbey. The allegations and the evidence also involve men who were not employed in any of the homes and go back at least to 1958.

Can of worms Investigations mounted by the Royal Ulster Constabulary rumbled on for more than 18 months resulted in the conviction, in December 1981, of six men for gross indecency and indecent assault.

Those found guilty included a former warden, a former deputy warden and a former housefather of Kincora House, and an Anglican lay monk who had at one time been the Principal of Williamson House. William McGrath, a housefather at Kincora who was among those jailed last year, was a co-founder of Ireland's Heritage Lodge. Members of the Lodge were also members of Tara, a paramilitary organisation founded by McGrath in 1969. The 'scandal' lies in the fact that all this had been known in military, police and Loyalist circles for years. The Loyalist establishment had not pursued the matter. Leading members of Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party had actively suppressed the story. Whether sexual relationships between children and the adults responsible for them are defensible or not, such relationships are illegal. Under any type of law reform being promoted by the gay movement in Britain or the Six Counties they would remain so. The DUP politicians who have so eagerly backed Paisley's Save Ulster from Sodomy campaigns have been caught in a cover-up. This is not a coverup of homosexual relationships involving boys of 16 or over, but one involving boys of under 15. In such circumstances not even the Northern Ireland Gay Rights Association would defend homosexual men involved. The cover-up In 1975 Official Unionist MPs Harold McCusker and John Carson broached the subject of Kincora with lan Paisley.

McCusker told Paisley that he had become aware of rumours that a prominent member of the DUP was involved in homosexual relationships with boys. Mc- Cusker told the Irish Times: lan Paisley exploded, so much that it shattered me.

He said: "This is all lies and I warn you if you ever repeat this, court proceedings will be started", or something like that.

On top of the claims of McCusker, Carson and Wallace, Roy Garland, an The British authorities have allowed the exposure of homosexual activities at the Kincora boys home in Belfast in an attempt to discredit lan Paisley and his Democratic Unionist Party. The real victims, writes Don Milligan of the Revolutionary Gay Men's Caucus, will be Ireland's active Unionist a decade ago, says that he had informed Paisley and a number of other politicians about McGrath and Kincora. Early in February this year a government ordered inquiry collapsed and the Eastern Health Board, the body responsible for Kincora, was asked to resign en bloc. After the collapse of the inquiry a squad reopened the file on the death of dered in 1973. His body was found in the River Lagan, partially dismembered and badly burned. The Government has responded by bringing in Sir George Terry, said that the investigations now in hand will be followed by a judicial inquiry However, on 1 March this year RUC connection between Kincora and Brian's The question that still remains to be answered is why is there a scandal? Why has so much come to light in the last two years? All the essential details of this grizzly affair were known in ruling circles long before 1980. Why was the protection afforded to McGrath, the Heritage ists withdrawn? Certainly it had nothing to do with protecting working class children from sexual manipulation or violence The British occupation forces and the RUC are clearly not interested in the In January 1980 the British Government's constitutional conference opened at Stormont. For the first time ever the Unionist Party was being credibly challenged as the major voice of Unionism. came from lan Paisley and the Democratic Unionists. The SDLP and the Alliance Party agreed to attend the conference. It was turned into a propaganda platform Unionist leader, refused to participate.

Tory Northern Ireland Minister Humphrey Atkins attempted to get round the deadlock by instigating meetings outside the conference with the Official Unionists and the SDLP. But Paisley rejected 'outside' talks and the DUP went on to ensure that the conference petered out without Whether the Kincora scandal is the result of a systematic plot' against the Democratic Unionists or not, it has been of great value in undermining Paisley's pretensions to supremacy in the Loyalist camp. Kincora has worked to the advan- SDLP. Both parties want to find a way of stabilising British rule in Ireland and Paisley's fundamentalism does not help. The struggle for political consensus is vital for Britain in the war against the nationalist communities and their fighters.

Kincora is already beginning to pay Unionists could reasonably have hoped to take the seat of Robert Bradford who was killed by the Provisional IRA in November last year. Shortly before his death Bradford had been considering defecting to Paisley's camp and the Democratic

POPE-

constituency as good as theirs. However, the Kincora trial opened soon after Bradford's assassination. On 16 December the convictions were in and reporting restrictions lifted. Paisley's opposition to the Anglo-Irish talks and his raising of the Third Force resulted in his American visa being revoked. Things were beginning to nounced that they were also looking into the death of Brian McDermott. Six days later, McCrea of the DUP was defeated election won by the Official Unionists.

Most of the 300 spoiled votes had 'Kin- In this sordid struggle to save the political mask of Britain's military rule, the real Prior's commitment, made on 24 February this year, to introduce a law legalising sexual relationships between men of 21 or over, Kincora has resulted in mounting repression. Police investigations will put jeopardy. As the Northern Ireland Gay Rights Association recently stated: The population in Belfast has viewed the and the possibility of a witchhunt of homosexuals in social work with horror'. Attendance at NIGRA's Carpenter Club and at the gay workers prepare to resist this latest The real lesson of Kincora is that intimidated and used by the state in its Gay people are once again being used as the hammer and the anvil. The rotten desire of closet-homosexuals in the ranks of the Presbyterian churches Orange Orders to manipulate children is It is also being used to intensify the suppression of children's sexuality. The response of communists and gay workers to Kincora must be to step up the fight people in Ireland and in Britain.

The papal visit to Britain Rome rule and home rule diversion like the Royal Wedding or the World Cup.

could easily spill over into Britain itself.

THE BRITISH RULING class has welorthodox views on contraception, divorce and homosexuality are regarded eccentric; but the Pope's broadly as conservative message, his promotion of the family and respect for authority these are themes close to the heart of the bourgeoisie in times. The Pope's 1981 encyclical Laborem Exercens spirituality of the subordination of wage labour to capital, while encouraging trade unions to collaborate with employers and repudiate politics and 'the class struggle'.

And the Bishop of Rome has won the plaudits of the British press for his condemnation of IRA violence at Drogheda in 1980, his hostility to 'Soviet totalitarianism' in his native Poland and his discouragement of clerical involvement in guerrilla war in Latin America. The Pope's recent take-over of the Jesuits to curb curriculum vitae which makes John Paul Il a guest deserving of a royal welcome in Yet the road before the British Popemobile (a BL prototype) is not without its potholes. For a start there is the legacy of Henry VIII and all that; the English Church broke away from Rome in the sixteenth century and the Queen is still its head. However, the steady decline of the Church of England has encouraged moves towards reunification with the report by the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission, published March, attempted to obscure all the old controversies about predestination transubstantiation in a welter of theo- But no amount of Mccourse waffle and Greek can reconcile Catholic independent traditions of Anglicanism, vested in the sovereign, and jealously guarded by Enoch Powell. The Times pondered these matters and other important questions about priority in seating time was a suitable hour for His Holiness Scotland: its conclusion was a sanctimonious warning that the Pope should tread carefully lest he tread on Anglican corns.

However the problems caused for the papal visit by the established church are small compared with the troublesome potential of the nonconformists, especveins and the fire of Protestant funda- There are around five million Catholics in Britain today; they make up almost ten per cent of the population of England and Wales and more than 15 percent of distribution of Catholics in Britain reflect When it was first mooted, the Pope's visit to Britain seemed a harmless response from militant Protestants and British Orangemen, even before the Pontiff's arrival, is causing growing concern to the British establishment. The prospect of sectarian riots in Glasgow and Liverpool is a grim reminder of how conflicts resulting from Britain's occupation of Ireland the pattern of Irish immigration. In 1780 England: by 1840 there were 500 000.

The famine years in Ireland increased the number by half in the decade up to 1850.

Catholicism in Britain since the nineteenth century has been strongest where Irish immigrants were most concentrated, in the north-west and in western Scotland; its urban strongholds have been Liverpool and Glasgow. Catholicism that gives the papal visit its most disturbing political undertones. It was in Ireland - at battles at the Boyne the claims of Catholicism to the English crown were finally repudiated. Backed by Orange defeated the Catholic James II and seized the throne. Ever since the Reformation, Catholicism in England has been associated with treacherous alliances with foreign enemies - Spain, France and with domestic plots to overthrow the monarchy and restore the authority of Rome. However, as a result of the Irish the disloyal traditions of English Catholicism have become firmly identified with the recurrent revolt against British rule in Ireland. In recent weeks Cardinal Basil Hume has been working hard to allay deep-seated suspicions of Catholic dis- *I think for my part and for most Catholics they have two loves: one is their Church and the other is their country and the visit or the Holy Father to the Queen is important and The British ruling class, however, knows that the country to which many Catholics owe their first allegiance is Ireland, not Irish immigration to Britain was by no means exclusively Catholic. Ulster Protestants have also crossed the Irish Sea, especially over the last hundred years of industrial decline. Many set up home within easy reach of Belfast, in Glasgow preserved their animosity against Catholics and their memories of battles past better not out of any particular Ulster perversity, but simply a response to a long-established pattern of British rule in Ireland that guaranteed jobs and status to Loyalists and kept Catholics down. The divisions created by the British in Ireland made a lasting impression on working class life in In both Glasgow and Liverpool there are football terraces Rangers and Liverpool draw Protestant support; Celtic and Everton traditionally rely on Catholics.

Religious differences affect working class voted for the Irish Nationalist Party, Ireland which became the second largest party in the city council in the early 'twenties before going into a fifty-year rotten bloc with the Labour Party which is only now coming to an end. Protestants in working class areas voted for Tory and Orange councillors right up to the 'fifties and 'sixties (see Merseyside Socialist Research Hillhead by-election in Glasgow the fact that the Tory candidate was a In the nineteenth century anti-Irish/ anti-Catholic riots were commonplace in British cities: Manchester, Leeds, Bradford and London all witnessed ugly incidents As late as 1909 sectarian rioting raged for several months in Liverpool's north end passions have cooled in Britain. Blacks have displaced the Irish at the bottom of the pile and the Irish have been largely (even on the Sabbath) with dwindling numbers attending their annual 12 July commemorations. The Pope's visit, coming in the thirteenth year of the Irish War, conflicts submerged in British society for many years There have long been signs that the Irish War could lead to civil disturbances in Britain's substantial Irish community.

Loyalist paramilitaries in the Six Counties British state has had to move in on several occasions to curb gun-running activities.

Only last year 19 Scottish Loyalists were quantities of firearms, ammunition and detonators destined for the use of the Recent pro-republican demonstrations in Glasgow have provoked violent Protestant reaction, culminating in several near-riots: all marches were banned in the area during the hunger strikes. A Liverpool hunger strike solidarity march was routed by 1000 Orangemen in collusion with the police. And now the Loyalists The antics of the British fundamentalists in disrupting ecumenical church services and planning demonstrations against the Pope have attracted widespread bourgeois condemnation. But they have also struck a sympathetic chord in British society. A weekly, The Universe, revealed that only half the people interviewed approved of the papal visit and one person in eight 12 per cent - disapproved. The most common reason for disapproval was that 'it would cause more trouble or aggravate the Irish problem. The Protestant campaigners against popery have made no secret of their Irish Loyalist connections.

Orange Order; Pastor Jack Glass is a long standing ally of the Rev lan Paisley and the Rev Cassells is related to the Big Man by marriage. The blend of anti-Catholicism with hostility to the cause of Irish national freedom is one with a powerful The, papal visit and the controversy it has aroused are important indicators of could unleash within the United Kingdom. The continuation of the British occupation is vital to the ruling class to Counties. As long as British forces remain in control in Ireland they can keep the explosive mixture of Irish politics out of Britain. The reaction to the Pope's visit is a chilling reminder to the British government that if it lost its grip in Ireland, it would face violent disruption in several the next step, May 1982 9

Defend Father Fell NEWSPAPERS IN COVENTRY have launched a vicious anti-Irish campaign.

'IRA priest plans to return' screamed Evening Telegraph the big Coventry headline (9 April). Father Patrick Fell, convicted of 'cona Coventry priest and spiracy to commit arson criminal damage' in November 1973, is due to be released in July. The issue that the Telegraph pretended to be concerned about is the possibility of Fell continuing his career as a priest. But the real purpose of the article, which was packed with words like 'evil', "terrorist' and 'criminal', was to give a boost to the Telegraph's long-running campaign to stir up hatred against supporters of the Irish liberation struggle. Coventry's 'independent' newspaper, the Weekly News, followed in the Tele- 'Forget it", graph's footsteps. was front page message from 'the people of Coventry' to Father Fell's plans to return to work in the Midlands. It quoted 'leading Coventry businessanonvmous men' as organising a petition to protest against Fell's hopes of returning April 1982). Fell convicted with five other men: it was alleged that he took part in the control and management of a local IRA unit, a charge he has consistently denied. His arrest gave the police pretext for beginning intensive harassment of Coventry's large Irish community. addition, local newspaper editors In opportunity seized the spew their anti-Irish prejudices.

In the Coventry prison, orisoners Frank Stagg, continued to suffer abuse.

one of the six, died in Wakefield prison at the end of a 61 day hunger strike in February 1976. Fell himself lost remission for taking part in a protest against the ill-treatment and bad conditions inflicted on prisoners in English gaols.

Coventry Irish Freedom Movement has responded to the current press offensive by organising a counter-petition to the businessmen's. We say that anybody who has been by the incarcerated state because of his opposition to imperialist rule in Ireland should be supported, not witchhunted. We are campaigning in the local labour movement against the anti-Irish hysteria now being stirred up against Fell. We'll be joining with Sinn Fein and others in action to support the Irish prisoners still inside English gaols.

Mike Wall 10 the next step, May 1982 cause • ireland * the Labour Party which is against violence in its 7 April) 0000998888898888888 Jeff Rooker, left-wing Labour MP (5 the Beltast out Sunday Times, 11 April) : Oak (Birmingham Post, 7 April) 42242284222223 organiser British have BBC Midlands Today, 7 April) the Six Counties. : Don Concannon, chief Labour spokesman on 'This trip has absolutely nothing to do with Northern Ireland. I am sad that some gullible youngsters have been talked into taking credence (sic) to the murderous policies of the IRA. It is a warning to us that the devil will find work for idle hands.' (Birmingham Post 'If the argument is going to be used, that we're taking mainly unemployed people over there to see the sight of the war and to convince them that the war is the only solution, then, quite frankly, I find that completely repugnant, especially at Easter time when we're always told the Irish people are so religious.'

(interview on BBC Midlands Today, 7 April) 8888888988898888888088888888888988588 Gerry Fitt, Independent pro-Brit MP for West 'The people on this visit couldn't even begin to understand the 500-year-old problem.' (The Anthony Beaumont-Dark, Tory MP for Selly I wouldn't put it past the IRA to take these children on one of their murderous trips.

Tony McNally, Communist Party West Midlands 'They are a small, insignificant, but provoca- :tive group whose record has been to incite :: hostility on several issues. No responsible section of the labour and trade union movement should anything to do with it.' interview or Youth for Irish freedom Over the Easter weekend 100 young people from all over Britain crossed the Irish Sea to attend marches commemorating the 1916 rebellion in Belfast and Derry, and to see for themselves the reality of British rule in Both Tory and Labour MPs had appealed for the British authorities to ban the delegation. The Communist Party and other factions tried to sabotage support in the labour and trade union movement. Yet the delegation went ahead with the backing of many trade union branches and other labour movement bodies. These included several local Labour Parties and a few branches of the Socialist Workers Party. And the delegation returned with most of its members more committed than before to the cause of Irish freedom, and more determined to build the Irish solidarity movement in Britain.

THEY MAY KILL

THE

REVOLUTIONARY

BUT NEVER

Irish Freedom Irish Freedo Movem

TROOPS OUT NOW

SELF DETERMINATIC

RISH FREEDOM

MOVEMENT

EASTER 1982

The war in Britain Many young people in the Six Counties are curious about British attitudes to their struggle.

They are particularly interested to know how respond to. IRA bombing campaigns in we Britain. They are resentful at the way the British labour movement always lines up with the Tories to condemn the IRA. For us this is the key problem revealed by the youth delegation.

Our aim is for the delegates to take the message back to workplaces, union branches, unemployed centres, that the Irish struggle for freedom is one that deserves the unconditional support of every British worker.

n NI A rebel crossing Travellers on the routine Sealink ferry had their crossing livened up by the Bobby Sands Memorial Flute Band from Glasgow and the IFM chorus: nobody objected and many joined in the singing. We knew we had arrived in Britain's police state when the RUC and the Special Branch held up our coaches for a couple of hours to search everybody and scrutinise our luggage. They confiscated leaflets, posters and papers Painting Derry's walls The delegation split into two parties — one made for Belfast, the other for Derry. Both were welcomed by Sinn Fein representatives (including former blanketmen Kieran Nugent and Fra McCann in Belfast) and accommodated in community centres. Delegates spent their first evening in Ireland having a look at the features of life under British occupation - the forts, the foot patrols, the cruising armoured cars, and the devastation - and meeting the people of Andersonstown, Beechmont, Turf Lodge, the Bogside and Creggan, In Derry IFM supporters joined local youth activists in refurbishing the anti-British murals for the Easter march.

PROVISIONAL

SINN FEIN

A terrible beauty The IFM contingents joined the Easter marches in Belfast and Derry. Thousands thronged the streets behind IRA colour parties flanked by drum and flute bands. People of all ages marched in the traditional three-line formation in silence.

They had an air of seriousness and determination that was an impressive statement of the commitment of the nationalist community to freedom from British rule, after 13 years of war, and 66 years on from the Easter Rising.

War politics The high point of the Easter commemoration is the message from the IRA, the reading of the roll of honour and the firing of the salute to those who have died in the fight to free Ireland For us the best part of the weekend was the opportunities it opened up for political discussion. We were amazed at the intense interest of people, young and old, not only in the politics of getting the Brits out, but in wider issues of women, trade unions, Poland and Argentina. Formal discussions arranged by Sinn Fein were complemented by many more informal conversations.

YOU

ARE NOW

ENTERING

FREI DERRY

VOL

TH DN

VOL

7Sh Freedom

AND POS

MER GAMBLE, BALLYNONEY

CEO DICKSON, CRUNLIN

SAMUEL BUNLOR, BALLYMONEY

the next step, May 1982 11

A disgrace to the cause Ireland 'WHERE IS TOM?' is a question often supporters of the Irish liberasked by struggle in Britain. ation ities are a well kept secret. By all accounts, they consist largely of internal meetings and closed conferences. To keep up with TOM action you have to be in the right pubs or go to the right parties privileged with access to its regular and voluminous internal bulletins. rarely seen in the streets or at public events. Even at the conference on Ireland organised earlier this year by the Labour Ireland in Committee conference attended by virtually everyone involved in Irish solidarity TOM's presence could be detected only by people gifted with a good memory for old faces. TOM's quiescence at present is all the more surprising because some months ago it decided to call a national demonstration on 8 May to commemorate the death of hunger striker Bobby Sands. Having taken responsibility for an event of such political importance, TOM might be expected to throw its weight into making this a big and memorable demonstration.

The truth is, that while Bobby Sands' anniversary draws evidence of TOM's efforts to build the march remains very scant.

- since TOM announced the commemoration, its public presence has, if anything, declined even further. On Easter Sunday, when anti-imperialassembled in ists traditional Republican memorating the 1916 Easter Rising, TOM was noted for its absence. After some intensive searching around pubs and tube exits, a grand total of eight TOM supporters was spotted on one of the two While never reputed for its processions. dynamism, TOM in the past could always mobilise a hard core of supporters for such an important day of solidarity. This Easter, with its own national demonstration only weeks away, TOM virtually boycotted the Sinn Fein march. What is going on? Shame again? Last year the British Government, backed by the Labour Party and the TUC, Bobby murdered brutally nine other Irish freedom fighters. The 12 the next step, May 1982

LET'S LOOK ON THE

BRIGHT SIDE

...•SOME VERY

EMINENT PEOPLE

HAVE SPOKEN OUT

ABOUT CONDITIONS

IN THE KESH AND

-ARMAGH.....

TOM's activor hunger strikers TOM is class could strikers London, even those on the left work, Labour Party appreciate that the of opposition closer and closer, the against government. Worse still shows we London to join the marches united display murderers them. crush country. ersary and shows memorated. but permits Sands and revive its

YES, IT'S

START ... AND

EVENTUALLY THE

GOVERNMENT WILL

BE FORCED TO...

The Troops Out Movement On May 5 last year, Irish prisoner Bobby Sands died on hunger strike for political recognition of the national liberation struggle. However, the Troops Out Movement has learnt nothing from this setback. Instead of persuading workers to join the opposition to British rule, its own stagnation and inactivity has led TOM to launch a sectarian slander campaign against the Irish Freedom Movement.

died in the fight for recognition as political prisoners of war.

The main reason why the British ruling prevail over the hunger and refuse to concede their demands was the lack of any action in support of the hunger strikers from the British labour movement. Worst of all, - including TOM who claim to support the cause of Irish liberation, made no real attempt to win workers' support for the hunger strikers. Instead we had a feeble, and ultimately fruitless, campaign imploring MPs and other public figures to call for concessions to be made to the hunger strikers to get the Tory Government off the hook. Many people may not share our view that this was a fatal error. But hardly anyone can fail to British left proved unable to organise even a coherent voice never mind action of the British barbarism This is all the more reason to build a commemoration for Bobby Sands that are never going to let this happen again. To honour Bobby Sands and the other hunger strikers means organising a protest that is more than a routine anniversary. To have any political consequence it must be a forceful and of our hatred for his - and our determination to A commemoration that falls short of this would be a disservice to the Irish cause and a demoralising experience for anti-imperialists in this TOM unfortunately appears unaware of the political significance of this annivlittle for concern the spirit in which it should be com-

TOM

From the moment announced its intention to hold the march it has behaved in a manner that conclusion. Its first one concern is not to build a mighty protest but rather to use this anniversary to and moribund organisation restore its tarnished reputation.

THAT'S TRUE...

.•A FEW POLITICIANS

COUPLE OF

•• • A

BISHOPS.... IT'S NOT

ENOUGH BUT IT'S

START....

AH! DOES THAT

MEAN THAT WE

CAN

NOW RELAX AND WAIT

FOR THE INEVITABLE

Backroom politics From the start TOM excluded the Irish Movement and Freedom anisations from the national committee organising the march. At TOM branches were instructed to refuse to cooperate with the IFM. These bureaumanoeuvres were followed by a cratic national TOM conference, held in secret in London on 3 April, which decided to adopt a formal policy of non-cooperation with the IFM. Only now, with the march barely weeks away and as a result of considerable pressure from the IFM and others, some TOM branches have begun to modify their position.

Yet the TOM national leadership holds firmly to its sectarian and divisive course.

Rather than put its energies into mobilisfor 8 May, ing campaign of slander and denunciation against the IFM but also in Ireland. A week before our youth delegation arrived in Derry, a party of TOM members arrived in town and circulated slanders and allegations that IFM supporters were "sectarians". fusion among Derry youth - they expected us all to be virulently 'anti-prod'.

In Britain, TOM members got up in union branches up and down the country to oppose motions of support for the IF youth delegation on the grounds that. it's the IFM'. The logic of TOM's political position on this initiative was summed up by a TOM member in Leeds TGWU who, when called upon to conthe debate, stated: tribute to support the IFM? There's TOM!'

When IFM members approached Leeds TOM, some time before Easter, to discuss the mobilisation for 8 May, Leeds TOM spent more than an hour hurling abuse at our supporters. TOM has adopted the habit of 'warning' trade unionists and Labour Party representatives not to have anything to with the IFM. Hackney TOM cirdo culated a letter to local Labour councillors, telling them not to support an (Acknowledgements to Cormac and An Phoblacht/Republican News) hold obtained for a Hackney other orglocal level, more Backroom for the RCP.

IFM,

TOM has launched a in joint activity in - not only in Britain eration struggle and This caused some conconvince sectarianism the solidarity about TOM. Why of the bureaucrats members who to join us. IFM petition calling on the council to for Bobby commemoration Sands on 8 May. Leading TOM members spread the story that signatures the IFM previous petition to Council were obtained 'under false pretences' (see "Labour's hypocrisy', the next step, No 20, January 1982).

A clique TOM's conduct is a disgrace. It can only give comfort to those who fear nothing than the growth of support for Irish liberation among British workers. manipulation and scandalmongering are the methods of a clique consumed by petty self-interest.

These methods are profoundly detrimental to the cause of Irish solidarity in Britain To justify its conduct TOM suggests that the IFM is 'sectarian' and a front The RCP has made no secret of the fact that it launched the as it previously sponsored the Smash the PTA Campaign. The IFM is supported by many non-RCP members - it is open to all who accept its objectives and want to work towards them And the IFM is prepared to participate the cause of Irish At the freedom with any organisation.

same time, we make no secret of our concern to build the RCP. We see this as a vital contribution to the Irish libwe are eager to through activity and others, propaganda, that this is the case. We urge TOM members who really wish to combat and petty-mindedness in movement to consider seriously whether they can say the same For us, TOM's recent conduct is not just a bizarre aberration. It reflects a defeatist and inward-looking mentality common on the British left. That TOM expresses this outlook in an extreme form is a consequence of its political orientation. It has adopted the culture Labour MPs and trade union whom it has spent year: unsuccessfully trying to coax into 'doing something' for the Irish struggle.

The IM was formed because an antiimperialist movement cannot be built in this degenerate tradition. We urge TOM want to see British imperialism defeated in Ireland and at home

THE RESPONSES OF two of the most the TWU and the important unions

AUEW

- to fundamental attacks on the welfare of their members are symptomatic of the paralysis afflicting the trade union bureaucracy. In early April the strike of 1700 British Airways ramp workers at Heathrow was completely The Financial Times called it smashed. 'one of the most embarrassing six months in the 60-year history of the TGWU.

Why? Because traditionally the ramp workers have been one of the most militant sections of the working class. Through their strong organisation they excellent working managed to wrest conditions from their employers and they won a considerable degree of control over the way they worked. But times have changed. Management moved in to eliminate shop floor power at Heathrow and it succeeded. It succeeded because union leaders did next to nothing to win the dispute. The half-hearted gestures of TGWU officials meant that the ramp workers were easily isolated. In the end, the employers mobilised clerical staff and other airport workers to scab and carry out the jobs of the striking ramp workers.

It was not, however, management that defeated the ramp workers, but their leaders' reluctance to risk a fight under present conditions. The AUEW is no more prepared to take any risks in defence of its members' interests than is the TGWU. Recently the executive of the AUEW approved a draft agreement which further weakens the position of workers at BL. The new BL deal eliminates the last vestige of shop floor power and gives management full scope to pufsue its objectives. Under the new procedure management acquires the right to impose 'productivity changes' after 10 days of 'consultation'.

The agreement includes disciplinary measures designed to assist in the victimisation of militants. The new agreement limits the mobility of shop stewards by restricting the time available for them to perform

AUW

their union duties. executive member Ken Cure had the gall to go to BL shop stewards to sell the draft agreement as the best possible deal. BL management got the message and on 15 announced that another 1000 April workers will be made redundant.

Shadow boxing The paralysis of the union bureaucracy is particularly striking in its response to the new anti-trade union legislation currently being steered through Parliament by Employment Minister Norman Tebbit.

The TUC leaders have correctly identified Tebbit's Bill as the greatest legal threat to With union leaders like ours...

Terry Duffy and Moss Evans - they sell BL jobs faster than Michael Edwardes sells the cars.

Who needs workers up fightback. the position of the unions this century.

But what have they done? A number of tough-talking union leaders like Arthur Scargill have made the now customary threat that they are prepared to break the law and go to prison. The TUC is good at talking tough but very poor at acting tough. In February the TUC could not even bring itself to boycott the National Economic Development Council and other tripartite bodies. The TUC's employment policy and organisation commitee voted eight to five not to boycott the NEDC in protest against Tebbit.

True, the TUC did organise a special conference on Tebbit's Bill on 5 April.

True, the special conference overwhelmingly approved an 8-point plan to fight the Bill. But this 8-point plan is nothing less than a charade. The TUC's bold strategy amounts to an education campaign to warn union members of the grave consequences of the new employment legislation. According to its official report, the General Council of the TUC is prepared to organise mass not even action against the Bill - all that it promises is that it will keep under review the scope for taking demonstrative action against the Bill'. Forget about the TUC's rhetoric.

Its real strategy is to do everything it can to prevent the new legislation from being tested. It desperately wants to avoid conflict, for it feels that any mass showdown will undermine the position of the bureaucracy. That's why union leaders are prepared to sign agreements like the one at BL. By accepting local agreements along the lines of the new employment legislation they hope to avoid a head-on confrontation with the Government, the courts and the police. So the TUC's the Tebbit Bill? In recent months trade union leaders have watched one group of after another go down to defeat. Their reaction to Tory anti-trade union legislation is to cooperate with employers in tightening discipline on the shop floor. The official trade union leadership, argues Frank Richards, is now the biggest obstacle to a working class watchword is this: We'll outflank Tebbit by signing local agreements which make his legislation redundant.

And indeed Len Murray and his colleagues have gone a long way towards making Tebbit redundant. In one dispute after officials have used another unior the employment legislation as an excuse for limiting the scope of action. And this has happened even before the Bill has been enacted by Parliament.

The TUC has decided to vacate the industrial battlefield For the

TUC,

the official institutions and organisations of the labour movement are too precious to risk in the hurly-burly of the class struggle. Instead the TUC has embarked on one educational campaign after another to teach workers that the unions still count for something. The union leaders see this strategy as a temporary holding operation. Once a Labour government is elected in the future, the TUC hopes to regain its rightful place in the corridors of power and its affiliated bodies can begin to function as trade unions once more. We can't wait! Labour bureaucrats can afford to sit back and wait for a future Labour government.

But millions of workers have not got much time left. Moreover there is no guarantee that the TUC will change its ways and act as the combat organisation of the working class in the future. On the contrary, the longer that the TUC operates as an education institution, the more rigid and bureaucratic it be- The longer it sits on the sidelines comes and concerns itself with the interests of a narrow layer of bureaucrats, the more Labour movement remote it becomes from the shop floor.

Workers have to decide what is more important their class interest or the preservation of an institution and a body of officials that seeks merely its own long term survival. For us there is too much at stake. The present strategy of the TUC leads the trade unions to become more and more the agency of the employers and the state. As the experience of BL shows, the union leaders are prepared to sell their members' jobs in tens of thousands, their wages and conditions, and even their shop floor organisation all to save their own skins And BL is not an isolated example.

Similar procedures have been accepted in the civil service, the steel industry, on the railways, and by unions in many other sectors. Reports reaching the next step indicate the reluctance of union officials to give their backing to their members in any struggle. Recently, union bureaucrats have used the employment legislation as an excuse for not making disputes official - lest they be taken to the courts.

Workers have to fight to reclaim their unions. There is no point in paying dues to a paper union. We have to destroy all the bureaucratic devices and red tape that turn unions into institutions remote from the working class. That means that right from the beginning the conduct of every dispute has to be taken out of the hands of union officials. Rank and file representatives must be in charge of all negotiations. Industry-wide solidarity action has to be organised through rank and file delegates, regardless of the attitude of the union leaders. If the union officials are prepared to help, well and good. But the defence of our jobs and livelihoods cannot be made conditional on the attitude of union bureaucrats. Too many disputes have been lost because of bureaucratic inertia and indifference. The employers have ruthlessly pursued their class interests. They have torn up one agreement after another. They have imposed crippling procedures at the point of a gun. The only consideration that means anything to them is how to increase their profits. Workers have to adopt the same spirit of determination. At present, the institutions of industrial relations are designed to slow us down, drag out negotiation and defuse militancy. The new procedural agreements aim to tighten the chains that enslave us to capital.

These procedures and institutions im posed from above are no use to workers in struggle. If we baulk before a scrap of paper then we lose the right to have any say in determining the future of our class. the next step, May 1982 13

Labour movement THE FIRST STEP in the Tory Government's drive against the civil servants was last year's suspension of pay research, the traditional forum for pay negotiation.

This was a prelude to fixing tight limits on the amount of cash available for the pay of non-industrial civil servants. The unions wanted a rise of 15 per cent to keep abreast of inflation; the Government offered seven per cent and then dug in for a protracted dispute. Round one All the main unions in the civil service were pledged to some form of industrial The union leaders were outraged action. at the suspension of pay research they saw the scrapping of this institution as a direct threat to their own position. The forms of industrial action adopted by the civil service unions reflected the "moderate' stance of the bureaucracy. The high point of the action was a token one day strike on 9 March. The union leaders were reluctant to launch an all out strike lest they lose control over the rank and file.

Instead they opted for a series of small scale stoppages of key workers such as This inconclusive computer operators. dragged strategy out the dispute over several months. The employers were surprised at the high level of militancy and the strength of support for groups of workers threatened with disciplinary measures. But they were confident that a lengthy dispute would allow the moderation of the union leadership to sap the confidence of the rank and file. And that's exactly what happened. As the dispute dragged on demoralisation set in and the leadership called the whole thing off under the cover of reaching a compromise. For the Government however this was just the first battle; with the CPSA leadership on the run, the Government was now ready to press on with the Raising the stakes The 1981 strike concluded with an undertaking that an inquiry chaired by Sir John Megaw would come up with an acceptable November the Government's evidence to this inquiry clarified the shape of things centre on the theme of bringing 'market means was revealed by the Government's latest pay offer: an average increase of four per cent on last year's wage round.

Not only did this amount to a cut in real wages across the board, it was also blatantly divisive. The lowest paid and those under 20 years of age were to get nothing.

For the rest, a rise of between 2.5 per cent (for the lowest grades) and 18 per cent (for those at the top) - with •Market forces' means that the lowest grades and the youngest workers are to be disciplined by the threat of unemploy- Although the final arbitration award went against this strategy rises of between 4.75 and 6.25 per cent - it is likely to be confirmed by the Megaw report later this year. High rises will be given to buy off those with The Government is also putting the boot in against union organisation.

March the Cabinet put forward proposals for ending the arrangement for deducting union dues from salaries during industrial action. The Government has also moved against the agreement that allows union representatives paid time off for union work. Under the new proposal, paid time off will be limited to 25 days. In addition union activists will be closely scrutinised and kept under tight management super- The employers have also set about put forward a package for improving efficiency and standards of service through cracy is a luxury that civil servants can no longer afford.

the use of new technology. The unions the introduction of new technology. The terms of the new deal accept that jobs will be lost, but the Government hopes' that transfers, redeployment and natural wastage will minimise redundancies. It is estimated that the introduction of new technology will lead to the loss of 50 000 The Government has also forced civil servants to become agents of its racist social security policies. Checks on the racial identity of claimants have already been introduced in several dole offices in a pilot run for the implementation of routine checks later this year. The pilot checks are designed to test the water. The state wants to ensure that the apartheidstyle measures of the Nationality Act are implemented without trade union resistance. Thousands of civil servants will be turned into immigration controllers. Civil servants will be obliged to play a more direct part in the enforcement of capitalist On every crucial issue the union leaders have already given up the fight. Their typical. The paltry and divisive offer was rejected on 25 February. But instead of turning to their members for support, they immediately turned to the established procedure by putting the union case in the hands of an arbitrator. The CPSA bosses know that the Government has openly declared that it will not be bound by the ruling of the arbitration board.

They also know that arbitration helps defuse the immediate anger of union members, and leaves the bureaucracy in CPSA in conference For a new course Civil servants will bear the brunt of the Government's offensive against the labour movement in 1982. Members of the biggest civil service union, the CPSA, face a savage attack from the Government - and they also have to contend with a leadership which has a long record of compromises and betrayals. The delegates to this year's CPSA conference in Brighton have seen over the past 12 months that the CPSA bureaua position to retreat on the grounds that the membership does not want to fight.

The union leaders have also accepted the Cabinet's proposals to scrap the old union facilities agreement.

argued that the proposals for reducing paid time off for union work still leaves civil servants better placed than many workers. They forgot to mention that their swift acceptance of the agreement was motivated by a desire to limit the scope for union activity by rank and The CPSA leadership has done nothing out against the racist checks in the dole offices. Instead they turned a blind eye to the pilot schemes and limited response to token statements of The CPSA bureaucrats' contempt for the membership was particularly striking over the new technology agreement. The CPSA leadership came out strongly in favour of the two-year deal, overturning past conference decisions against accepting They never even contemplated consulting the membership over How do they get away with it?

The union leaders in the CPSA have become used to a quiet life. Over the past 50 years various institutions - the have safeguarded the bureaucracy from rank and file pressure. The rigid institutionalisation of all matters relating to terms and conditions of employment and the role of centralised bargaining has left the leadership in a position to exercise continuous control over the rank and file. In the CPSA, struggles between left and right, particularly in the 'forties and 'fifties, were conducted through bureaucratic channels and left the membership relatively untouched. Even the more recent rank and file of the left have involved movements themselves in committee and election work and have done little to activate the membership. So-called left gains have been achieved by radical activists working as good trade unionists, not through any real attempt to win political support amongst the rank and file. As a result, the moderate policies of the bureaucracy have gone unchallenged. Thus the CPSA leadership can take their stand on the "high professional standards' of the civil service instead of fighting for the interests of civil servants. Thus while the Government was busy selling its insulting pay offer, the union leaders were declaring their commitment to the fine traditions of the civil service: 'In spite of this treatment, the British civil service is the finest in the world and deals with more activities of the government than any other comparable civil service. Continue to treat it as it has been treated during the last three years and it will soon be unrecognisable from the organisation it is even today and the country will be a great deal poorer and far less civilised. ' (Red Tape, February 1982) Rank and file civil servants should tell the CPSA bosses to stuff their 'civilising mission' and fight for their jobs, wages and conditions. Opposition to the moderate CPSA leadership is a precondition for fighting the Government offensive. This battle to turn the tide discrediting those must centre upon upon which the institutions authority of the bureaucracy rests. All these instit- - from Whitley Council to pay utions research - turn the union into an appendage of the state rather than an instrument for defending the interests of workers. The way ahead Free bargaining isn't an end in itself. It merely provides the grounds for workers to fight for whatever pay increase they need. The current CPSA/CCSU claim is designed keep pace with current rises in the cost of living. It's the basic starting point. The claim does not require a spurious 'scientific' investigation by third parties; it's the only way in which civil service workers on all grades can avoid a further erosion of living standards.

Even more significantly, to reject arbitration is vital as a first step towards undermining the authority of the bureaucracy over its own members. This is the prerequisite for any rank and file in trying to begin the long task of re-establishing the ground already given away by the technology agreement.

This year's CPSA conference is a crucial one for the rank and file. It could provide the starting point for a genuine fightback. A fight must first take place within the union against the positions adopted in recent months by its own leaders. The call from the platform will be for a closing of ranks, unity around policies of moderation and common sense. Such unity will provide massive job cuts and a decline in living standards for all CPSA members. It will leave those who still have a job in the civil service as the passive agents of the state attacks against other sections of the working class enforcing racist checks, cuts in social security benefits and sick pay. Unity that counts requires the coordinated efforts of workers from all unions in the public sector. Effective opposition to the Government's pay offer means an end to arbitration and a presenof the to the tation case members that a defeat on pay will also mean a severe weakening of any opposition to job cuts, productivity schemes and new working methods. Mick Kennedy

VARI

wno revolt against to * Worked

WORKERS AGAINST RACISM

LEEDS SUI

WAR

against ism What's in a name? Racism

FREE THE

BRADFORD

ACK COMMUNITY G

Way means

Why we're marching to the TUC

LONDON TO BRIGHTON 4-8 SEPTEMBER

IM Racism Join us 1/we want to march on/sponsor/make a donation to the WORKERS MARCH AGAINST RACISM, London - Brighton, 4-8 September. Name Address Tel No TU/Organisation No of marchers f enclosed (Make cheques/POs payable to 'WAR') Send to WAR, c/o Box 22, 136 Kingslan High Street, London E:8. Fight Health Service Racism CPSA Conference BRIGHTON - 10-14 May

WORKERS AGAINST RACISM FRINGE MEETING

Boycott ethnic monitoring!

Speakers from CPSA, WAR, claimants groups and black organisations. Tuesday 11 May 7pm Conference Room, Apollo Hotel, 135 Kings Road, Brighton (5 minutes from Conference Centre, on sea-front).

16 the next step, May 1982

WORKERS MARCH AGAINST RACISM

Javaben besa 1 want to be the first to sponsor this march. I want my name at the top of the list!'

JAYABEN DESAI

GRUNWICK STRIKE LEADER

Every year the Trades Union Congress discusses 'race relations'. They might as well not bother. The more the bosses use racism to divide the trade union movement, the less the TUC does about it.

This year though it will be different.

Five hundred marchers will be descending on Brighton to make sure the subject of isn't relegated *Any Other TacisT Business". We'll be demanding: • industrial action against passport checks, fishing raids and deportations

WRECK THE

Anwar Ditta • an racist hiring, firing and end to practices - no more colour promonon bars! • direct action against fascists at work and on the streets - the sacking of all racist union officials • a trade union campaign to stop the criminalisation of black youth.

When TERRY WOODS (COHSE executive committee member and Leeds 221 branch secretary) heard about the march, he put his money where his mouth is by pledging that his straight away branch would sponsor two marchers at €30 each. Terry has been involved in fighting the introduction of race checks at St James' Hospital in Leeds. He said at

CHECKS!

WHEN THE QUEEN visited the London Hospital, Whitechapel, recently to open a new wing she got a nasty shock. Expectgreet her hand-picked loyal subing lo jects she instead got a noisy reception from over a hundred local demonstrators.

They were there to make the point that from 1 October over 40 per cent of the London Hospital's will be Damens lucky to step inside the flash new wing without paying f130 a day. The demonstration called by ELWAR, and actively Bangladeshi organsupported by local isations, clearly upset the local constabulary. They couldn't restrain themselves from arresting three demonstrators as Her Majesty's limousine approached. NHS race checks LOUISE WHITE is a black nurse at Newton Green Hospital in Leeds. She's an active COHSE shop steward who's figh ting for the 12 per cent NHS pay claim.

NUPE Conference * SCARBOROUGH - 23-28 May

WORKERS AGAINST RACISM FRINGE MEETING

Racism and the NHS Support United Manchester Hospitals' motion calling for industrial action against the checks.

Sunday 23 May 7pm Golden Ball Pub, Sandside, Scarborough (near the "Spa' conference centre). a recent WAR meeting there was no way his members would carry out such work.

ANWAR DITTA'S response to the march was 'I think it's really great you're organising it. The unions have got to fight for black people, particularly to stop all these deportations. I won my case but thousands of others didn't'.

DENIS BARRY (Laurence Scott's convenor) said 'If this march puts James Anderton in his place it will have done a good job. He masterminded the police attack on our picket lines and now he's out to get the black youth'.

Support for the march is already building up. From NASIRA BEGUM, CYNTHIA GORDON and REGGIE YATES - who've all experienced Britain's racist immig ration laws first-hand; and from black trade unionists like BERNIE GRANT

(NUPE

official and Haringey Labour councillor) and NESTA MOODIE (EET- PU member recently victimised by Lambeth Council). Latest sponsors include Tony Benn, Ken Livingstone and Paul Boateng. They're all saying the unions have got to stand up and fight for blacks.

DON'T BE LEFT OUT. Add your name to the list of sponsors. Get your organisation/trade union to support it. SEND US MONEY (it will cost £30 to get each marcher on the road). And most important of all, JOIN THE MARCH!

Here's what she thinks of the DHSS race checks: I think all nurses should take a stand against this racist scheme. A lot of my workmates are really angry about it. Some say they're not going to have any.

thing to do with such a thing.

What does Fowler think he's doing anyway - he's not going to get us doing his dirty work.'

One for Jimmy Saville? FRANKLIN HANSON is a young black man who's lived in Britain most of his life. So when he was seriously injured recently - resulting in paralysis from the waist down - he was surprised to learn that getting on the waiting list for a bed in Stoke Mandeville Hospital would cost him £25 000. The hospital adminstrators tried to tell him he 'hadn't been paying into the system' so he wasn't entitled to free treatment. Is this a new Jimmy Saville fundraising gimmick?

ALTHOUGH THEY WERE living in a society at the height of its power and affluence, blacks in the had little to show for it. In the South they lived under conditions which in the early "sixties still generations of slavery and reaction. Poll taxes, literacy tests and a range of other legal measures passed by legislatures effectively most black people. Removed trom political power, blacks suffered segregation and inferior treatment in education, housing, health care and even transport.

In the North blacks had the vote -but not much else. Systematic discrimination excluded black people from the paid jobs and from active involvement in either Republican or Democratic politics.

Even in 1964 some 30 per cent of young blacks in the inner city ghettos of the North had no work - at a time when few whites had difficulty getting jobs.

By peaceful means Back in 1954 the Supreme Court had ruled that segregated unlawful. The decision was ignored in wide areas of the South. However black resistance grew rapidly. It reached major proportions in Montgomery, after an incident in which a woman was thrown off a bus and arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white man. The black boycott of municipal buses that followed created a new generation activists. Among them was a local Baptist minister, Martin Luther assumed the leadership of the struggle.

The success of the year long Montencouraged gomery boycott convene the Southern Christian Leadership Conference - a grouping of black ministers from Southern churches. King led numerous peaceful protests against discrimination and segregation Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and the other Southern bastions of white power. His aim was to galvanise liberal conscience of white America and rally enough support to push a Civil Rights Bill through Congress.

Unfortunately for King, white America had little or no liberal conscience. Only one significant trade union, the United Workers, supported Auto initiative - the 1963 'Freedom March' on Washington. And, as peaceful protests met with indifference or clubs, bats and guns, a growing hostility emerged within the ranks of Civil Rights activists to King's moderate strategy. Many questioned the effectiveness of a Civil Rights eventually Bill (which was Washington in 1964) since there were already laws outlawing racial discrimination and even a specific amendment to the Constitution which gave blacks the right to vote. But these meant nothing in practice. King's assassination it became After clear that the focus of the fight for black rights was about to shift from the peaceful protest of the Southern middle class to the violent revolt of the black urban working class. By any means There is a long history of race riots in the United States. Before and after the First World War and on the largest scale in Detroit in 1943, whites have violently opposed the housing, granting of any rights to black people.

But when violence again spilled onto the streets of the USA in the 'sixties - first Harlem in 1964, and then in nine 1n cities in 1965, 38 in 1966 and 128 in 1967 - it was black people offensive. ( Most directed against the property of capitalists and merchants who exploited blacks, and then at the police and whites who fought back. Growing matched inside the factories as militant workers' black organisations, United States bore the brand of white state disenfranchised all best

MAIDS

education was Alabama, of King, who King LO across Florida the Presumably the biggest mid 'sixties. baseball Union highest form passed founded in and promotion blacks community. suppressed. Many on the of the attacks were termed confidence was mostly efficiency. gave and 'I haven't a racist bone in my body' said President Reagan, as he set about dismantling America's positive discrimination laws last January.

the news. He's committed the next Labour government to an 'affirmative action' programme for blacks - based on the US experience. Stan Meads reviews that experience. It began one long hot summer in the under the umbrella of the Revolutionary Movement, sprang up in • most major plants. Black militancy reached its in the Black Panthers, October 1966 by Huey P Newton and Bobby Searle. The Panthers organised militant defence of the ghettos armed were forced to engage in conflict with the police and the FBI.

Kerner's means At a time when its involvement in the war in Vietnam was beginning to take a heavy toll, the American ruling class had to act swiftly to halt the black rebellion in its inner cities. The man called in to reorganise things was Otto Kerner, governor of Illinois, who was put at the head of a 'Special Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders'. The strategy of the US bourgeoisie had two distinct strands.

While Kerner deliberated on the social causes of the riots, the police crushed who had taken up a militant, violent stance. The Black Panthers were first portrayed as criminals in an attempt to isolate them from support in the black Then they were ruthlessly were assassinated by the FBI in carefully staged shoot-outs When Kerner reported, he recommended a major increase in spending on what was justice' figure quadrupled by the early 'seventies) and a major shake-up in the organisation of the US police force to increase its operational

BLACK AMERICA

What they what they got Shadow Home Secretary Roy Hattersley still hasn't heard When smoke the realised that liquidating the militants was not going to be enough. admitted that the events of the summer of 1967 are in large part the culmination of 300 years of racial prejudice'. Kerner proposed a series of concessions to the blacks: • recruitment of black cops insight' could aid 'early anticipation of the tensions and grievances that can lead to disorders' •a major community relations service programme creation and training schemes in major towns and cities to keep black youth off the streets •aid for black businesses - a theme taken up by Richard Nixon in his 1968 programme for minority business enterprise. Following in Kerner's wake came legislation designed enforce Rights Act. The best known measure was the introduction of 'positive action' quotas for the number of places open to blacks in jobs and education.

Who got what? Many British liberals think that the civil rights movement and street rioting forced major concessions for American blacks.

But the position of blacks improved little.

In the South, blacks did participate in elections. voters in Mississippi doubled from 175 000 discrimination' Harvard one per and Court. increased by strength of the boom years. it is invariably first. the 'sixties. rammes, that cleared, Kerner that the He himself for mass workers. whose no longer about which set up co-ops, job the Civil against its role. strategy The number of registered Racism to 350 000 in 1980. In Louisiana it increased from 243 000 to 465 000 in the same period. And in some areas 'positive seemed to work: at Law School the number of black students increased from less than cent to almost 10 per cent.

The reforms of the 'sixties increased the numbers of black professionals and businessmen and drew them into mainstream US politics. Since the mid 'sixties it has become customary for both Democrats Republicans to nominate black candidates in black areas. And just about every President has appointed a black to his Cabinet and a black on the Supreme Black workers however gained very little. Since the late sixties the number of blacks below the poverty line' has 20 per cent while the number of whites below it has fallen by five per cent. Kerner's measures did nothing to reduce black unemployment.

Today it stands at more than 50 per cent for young blacks. Even the much vaunted 'positive action' had little effect. In 1977 as few as two per cent of the jobs in many skilled trades were held by blacks.

Reagan's turn In the 'sixties the American ruling class succeeded in defusing a black rebellion with minor concessions because of the the American economy Today, the US economy is cracking under the strains of recession. Reagan's Government has been forced to take back many of the rights which could be granted in Black people have borne the brunt of Reagan's budget cutting proposals in welfare and education. When redundancies are pushed through on seniority blacks the newest workers, in the lowest grades who go Reagan has started stripping away many of the political concessions made in Department The Justice announced at the end of 1981 that it would no longer push ahead the programme of desegregation in the schools.

Reagan recently announced that the Government would no longer introduce ethnic quotas or positive action progand would no longer insist companies supplying government contracts comply with them. The most drastic threat of all is to black voting rights. Earlier this year Reagan threatened would oppose a renewal of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

This means control of local voting regulations passing back from Washington to local state legislatures. It opens the way disenfranchisement of black Second time round Time is running out for black America.

Race is once again a number one political issue. But unlike in the 'sixties the talk is 'helping the underprivileged'. Today's discussion is about 'law and order' and clamping down on illegal immigration. The Moral Majority and the New Right are making all the running - not the faded liberals of the past. Just like their British counterparts, American ruling circles are using racism and patriotism to keep American workers loyal to America. This is the background which the Ku Klux Klan has gained a new lease of life.

Positive action' played a useful role in the 'sixties and 'seventies. It kept the pot from boiling over. Now, for the American bourgeoisie, it has played out How typical of the British Labour Party to resurrect this dead-end as a solution to the rampant racism of the 'eighties. The only affirmative action we're likely to see from Mr Hattersley is the sort he tried under the last Labour government- • sanctions against firms who paid workers too much.

the next step, May 1982 17

satirica attack on modern arenitecture glass boxes. he asks wny American capitalists Bauhausmen set up Baunaus-inspired nousing ectates architecture, and the consequences here were arenitecture centain v he Kauhaus about it. the man has a point. The influence of Evenin in German after the First. its obscuranast. ПО helieved tha1 architecture over so consigning tens of thousands of railwamen even now maintains an industry wachall the cuts began. was sent to the main line ponse to the need of the capitalist class for a government imposed prescription charges or there

link practice and between opposing private

NHS.

The problem is not the transtorming private practice but the capitalist NHS.

fundamental condition for a socialist NHS is the creation of a socialist state: to succeed any campaign for better health care must therefore an anti-capitalist character, it must be have linked to broader working class struggles against the capitalist state. Linking up the campaign against privatisation with activity against the new race checks and all immigration controls is one example of how this strategy can be pursued in practice.

VAIL

RITISH MEDICAL

ISSOCIATION

YOUSE

DOCTORS

AGAINST

FREE

PRIVATE

RACTICE

NH This is anathema to the Politics of Health Group. While in theory it aims to link the campaign against the private sector with the struggle for a 'truly socialist' health service, in practice it limits its horizons to trying to make life under the present health service more tolerable for its members. This emerges clearly from the character of the Politics of Health Group as part discussion circle, part encounter group. It has weekend meetings every few months and has produced three pamphlets in five years.

While its members have supported various anticuts and anti-closure campaigns, as a group it organises no practical activity. It is more a therapeutic community than a political campaign: We are committed to a style of politics that relates to our personal experience and tries to work towards an anti-sexist socialist practice in the ways we organise and relate to each other.

Within the group itself we have attempted to deal with differences of perspective in a mutually supportive way.'

This is a style of politics geared to the subjective needs of middle class individuals, not one appropriate to developing a strategy for defending the needs of the working class for decent neath care. Helen Swift Plastic arguments. Liz Curtis, They shoot children: the use of rubber and plastic bullets in the north of Ireland, Information on Ireland, 1982, pp38, pbk 50p. THIS IS AN excellently produced, but politically misguided pamphlet. It provides an account development of rubber and plastic of the bullets by the British government for use in Hong Kong, Cyprus and other colonies, and their widespread use in Britain's oldest colony over the past decade. It includes details of the 13 people - including six children - killed by these riot control weapons in Ireland and many examples of the terrible injuries suffered by hundreds more. Most of this information is derived from the more comprehensive survey by Fathers Denis Faul and Raymond Murray, Rubber and plastic bullets maim and kill, which unfortunately is not widely available in Britain. Plastic bullets reveal the brutality and the cynicism of British rule in Ireland. They are lethal and destructive weapons which can be used to coerce mass resistance to the state; at the same time they can be presented to the British public as a relatively benign means of crowd control, made from the same materials as children's toys. As Liz Curtis points out, the object is not to minimise the force used in Ireland, but to minimise political reaction in Britain. The delay between injury and death typical in plastic bullet incidents helps to lessen their impact on public opinion at home Plastic bullets are a feature of the brutality that is an inevitable part of British rule in Ireland. Exposure of the consequences of their use can play a useful part in mobilising domestic opposition to the British occupation and immediate withdrawal of support for une British troops from Ireland. This is not, however, the purpose of this pamphlet. It focuses on plastic bullets as a particularly objectionable aspect of British rule, a mockery of justice that should be abandoned in favour of less vicious forms of control. The pamphlet's most damning criticism of the use of rubber and plastic bullets is that it is an ineffective means of stabilising British rule; it increases "the alienation of the nationalist community and only serves to reinforce the belief that violence is a justifiable means of removing the regime that controls them.

Like the Troops Out Movement of which she is a leading member, Liz Curtis is a great respecter of prominent personalities and highsounding institutions. Her argument is supported at every stage by quotations from doctors, lawyers, academics and journalists, culminating in the words of Steve Wright of the Richardson Institute for Conflict and Peace Research at Lancaster University. According to Professor Wright, the use of plastic bullets has 'exacerbated and helped to destabilise the Northern conflict by reinforcing vicious conflict Irish circuits'. Liz Curtis' objective is to persuade the government that plastic bullets only make its problems in Ireland more difficult and intensify the violent struggle to force the British out.

She calls for plastic bullets to be banned, presumably in favour of some less offensive type of riot control technology. Her aim is to modify Britain's oppression of Ireland, to make it more tolerable to the liberal conscience troubled by slaughtered and maimed infants.

Liz Curtis presents the evidence on the use of plastic bullets in an appeal to the British ruling class that such techniques are neither an essential nor an efficient means of maintaining order in Ireland. They could and should be dispensed with, pending political solutions that eliminate the fundamental problems. We too expose the atrocities inflicted by the British armed forces on the Irish people, but as part of an appeal to the British working class that such incidents are an inevitable feature of British rule that cry out for workers to take a stand against the British occupation and against all British 'solutions'. Liz Curtis pamphlet brings out the fundamental difference in outlook that separates the Troops Out Movement from the Irish Freedom Movement. Jonathan Mason OL What's left of

NALGO?

I was very interested to read your articles on the public sector in the last issue of the next and in particular the comments on step NALGO's policy on the cuts. You are correct in criticising NALGO's stance on redundancies.

Full-time officials (particularly the left pride themselves on not having negotiated a national redundancy agreement - they aren't going to sell jobs! Instead they are content to let natural wastage and delays in advertising posts erode job levels throughout the country.

IT RAULS BRISTOL 1980

St Pauls strikes back! The recent beating Bristol PC lan Bennet got from black people may have been an unpleasant shock to the local city's Labour council and an embarrassment to their partners, the St Pauls 'community leaders'; but it raises no problems for class-conscious workers in the area. Bennet was a 'community' policeman and enjoyed considerable status as such among the local constabulary. The attack on him signifies a clear rejection of community policing by black youth. When the first St Pauls riots broke out in 1980 the official labour movement was quick to react. Upset by the Government's refusal to hold an official inquiry, they obliged by having one of their own. Tribune MP lan Mikardo was wheeled down from Bethnal Green to chair it. But any expectations that it might give its support to blacks in the fight against the state got no further than its opening statement of aims. To enquire into the social and economic conditions prevailing in the St Pauls area and to make recommendations which might ensure a levei of communal harmony and stability sufficient to minimise the risk of a repetition of anything like the events of 2 April 1980.

Though the police refused to work with the inquiry, the Government was so impressed by the local bureaucrats' concern for law and order that it eventually gave considerable financial support to Bristol council's Community Development Scheme, which largely implemented the inquiry's recommendations. The past year has seen a massive housing improvement' initiative. in St Pauls, the replacement of the Starsky and Hutch (copyright I Mikardo) cops who provoked the original riot with smil ing foot police intent on 'getting to know' us IM letters Unfortunately the membership generally supports this line. A recent group meeung (conference of local government branches) on 5 March 1982 was held specifically to discuss the cuts. The absence of any political challenge to national policy was obvious. Before the meeting the NALGO Action Group (SWP) had circulated a leaflet urging branches to oppose the national policy and support their strategy of working to rule, etc. There were a few red faces when the national policy was seen to be to the left of NAG: all out strike action in the event of compulsory redundancies and a compulsory levy to provide a fighting fund. NAG's leaflet highlighted the utter pessimism of the left. The Broad Left showed no more political acumen. There were 25 amendments to the national strategy: most opposing the levy and seeking secret ballots. Some of the traditionally left branches sought to strengthen the policy -on compulsory redundancies. None sought any action on natural wastage. The Broad Left organised effectively to make sure none of the amendments were debated, but also ensured there was no debate. The meeting was not used to describe what had happened in Manchester or Lothian where there had been action on the cuts, nor to explain the limitations of national policy. The statements in the press claimed overwhelming support for the national strategy but I expect the majority of NALGO branches left the meeting without any encouragement to go back and fight for jobs A NALGO member Wood Green (spying), and - most strikingly - the taking of council-funded and numerou . government 'Community Enterprise' jobs by Labour Party figures and their radical hangers-on. In fact the best way to get a job in St Pauls these days is to develop an interest in cooperatives, etc. Readers of the next step will doubtless be thrilled to hear that St Pauls now has its own CND branch where Labour Party members can mingle with radicals and vicars. All was going wonderfully until some black kids, who for some reason had never got involved in our happy community life, dropped a block of concrete on PC Bennet's head. So we're now back to where we were two years ago. Being sensible, the police have virtually dropped community policing and have reverted to tried and trusted Panda cars and meat wagons. The difference is that, thanks to the housing scheme, they have a much fuller knowledge of the area and its inmates than they once did; and that they have, if not the overt backing, at least the tacit support of the local labour movement and the left. The message from St Pauls is: "It's coming.

The police know it, the black youth know it and the fascists know it. The Labour and radical left, on the other hand, is doing its best to look the other way. Class-conscious workers in St Pauls are establishing a Workers Against Racism group in Bristol to ensure that the youth of St Pauls don't fight their enemies on their own.

We urgently need help from anybody living in Bristol who is in no doubt which side he or she will be on in the struggles to come. If you can help, contact us c/o Box 26, Full Marks Book shop, Cheltenham Road, Bristol.

WAR supporters Bristol the next step, May 1982 19

Irish people!

VICTORY TO THE

IRISH PEOPLE!

SILENT TOO LONG

* SPEAKING TOUR

around the anniversary of Bobby Sands death on 5 May.

Leeds Manchester Sheffield London Friday 7 May 7.00pm

THE SPIRIT OF FREEDOM

* EXHIBITION

Saturday 1 May Highgate School East London Phone Keith Tompson on 01-274 3951(24 hours).

badges, stickers, videos available on request) for details about transport to pickets.

* Anti-racist work in the unions

* WORKERS MARCH AGAINST RACISN

* WRECK THE CHECKS activities Tuesday 18 May 7pm Conway Hall Red Lion Square London WC1 (near Holborn tube) Phone 01-274 3951 for more details.

Saturday 8 May • London

REMEMBER BOBBY SANDS!

National March in commemoration of the hunger strikers who died last year for political recognition of the Irish national liberation movement. Join the Irish Freedom Movement contingent for Troops out now! Self-determination for the Supported by Sinn Fein, Irish Republican Socialist Party, Indian Workers Association, Plaid Cymru, Irish Freedom Movement, Troops Out Movement, Armagh Coordinating Committee, Labour Committee on Ireland and others.

Coaches will be leaving from Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Birmingham, Coventry, Bristol, Swansea, Chatham. For details and tickets phone 01-274 3951.

Silent too long is the organisation of friends and relatives of over 700 Catholics in Northern Ireland who have been murdered by the British army and Loyalist paramilitaries. In the previous issue of the next step we reviewed their publication which documents these things and the collusion between the British army, the RUC and the paramilitaries in terrorising ordinary Catholic people.

The Irish Freedom Movement has invited two members of Silent too long from Derry and South Armagh to speak in Britain as part of our week of action Tuesday 4 May 7.30pm, Leeds Trades Council Cluh, Saville Mount, Leeds 7.

Thursday 6 May 12.00am, Manchester University Students Union, Oxford Road.

Thursday 6 May 6.45pm, AUEW House, Furnival Gate, Sheffield Bobby Sands commemoration rally with speakers from Silent too long and the Irish Freedom Movement. Plus the 'Spirit of Freedom' exhibition. Holborn Library Hall, 32-38 Theohatds Road, near Holborn tube. Admission 50p.

Hunger strike exhibition produced by Derry H Block Committee.

This exhibition is showing in Britain for the first time. It presents photographs, posters and documents on the hunger strikes of 1980-81.

3 May Workers Against Racism The Mohamed family live near East India Dock Road. They've been firebombed twice in the past year, and had their windows smashed 15 times.

Female members of the family have been attacked on the streets. They and countless other Asian families in East London - need your support.

Contact ELWAR if you are prepared to join our nightly defence patrols.

BRADFORD 12 ON TRIAL

* Support the pickets at Leeds Crown Court - mass picket every Wednesday * Send cheques/postal orders to 'Bradford 12 Defence Fund', National Mobilising Committee, Box JK, LAP, 59 Cookridge St, Leeds 2 (T-shirts, * Phone 01-250 1293 (Bradford 12 Campaign) or 01-274 3951 (WAR)

CLEANSING OUR RANKS

Come to the WAR TRADE UNION SUB-COMMITTEE Brixton. Road, SE1. evening 7 May Earth Exchange 213 Archway Road N6 night. RCP Activities

SOUTH LONDON

Tuesday 4 - Wednesday 5 May Remember Bobby Sands! work? 24 hour hunger strike in commemoration of the death of Irish hunger striker Bobby Sands last May. All banners weicome From Tuesday noon to Wednesday details. noon. Lambeth Town Hall steps, South London Irish Freedom Movement activists group meets fortnightly on Monday 10, 24 May. Details from 274 3951 or the next step sellers.

POLICE

OFF

OUR

STREETS!

school :11.00am-1.00pm Sunday 9 May South London Workers Against Racism activists meeting. John Marshall Hall, Blackfriars

MANCHESTER

Women for Communism Support the Rulecan Women!

Fight for women's right to work!

Mass picket in Runcorn every Monday morning from 7.00am to 8.30am in support of the Rulecan women workers who came out on strike for trade union recognition and have now been dismissed. For details of transport phone 01-274 3951. Boycott scab produced goods!

Picket C&A, Rulecan's main customer, Arndale shopping centre every Friday 12.00-2.00pm.

Women for Communism activists group meets every other Tuesday Irish Freedom Movement activists group meets regularly every other Friday evening. Saturday 29 May 10 00am Regional conference on the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Speakers from South Africa and the British labour movement, plus films and South African band in the evening.

MANWAR activists group meets regularly every other Monday For details of all these events phone 01-274 3951 or write to Box 33, 164-166 Corn Exchange Buildings, Hanging Ditch, Manchester

SHEFFIELD

* Thursday 20 May 7.30pm Can socialism in one county Public meeting. Speaker Mike Freeman (editor of the next step).

See the next step sellers for О" ПЯТИЛЕТК! ЗА 2,5 ГОДА 10.00am Saturday 19 June Preparing for Power regional day- At a time of concerted attacks by the ruling class, workers need to be united and resolute in defence At this dayof their interests. school revolutionaries and militant trade unionists will come together to discuss the strategy and activities that put working class interests into practice. Join the debate and get into action! For further details phone 01-274 3951 or write to Preparing for Power, BM RCP London WC1N 3XX. Sheffield Irish Freedom Movement group meets every fortnight on Wednesday see the next step sellers for details. the next step is sold from 9.00- 11.00am on Mondays to Thursdays every week at West Street dole office.

COVENTRY

Saturday 1 May 10 00am Remember Bobby Sands! Support the Irish War! Public rally and street theatre in commemoration of the death of Irish hunger striker Bobby Sands Coventry city centre. 2.00pm Wednesday 5 May Wreck the checks in the NHS!

Defend the overseas students!

No to racist checks and fees!

Free health care for all!

Lobby outside Coventry and Warwickshire city hospital.

Supported by COVWAR. 7.30pm Wednesday 5 May Racism in Coventry: how to fight it. Public meeting as part of War wick University's anti-fascist/ anti-racist week of action.

Supported by COWAR. Details from the next step sellers or Warwick Students Union.

COV WAR

LEEDS

Thursday 20 May 1.00pm El Salvador RCP public meeting about the struggle in El Salvador today.

Speaker Phil Murphy. Leeds University debating chambers. Plus regular Irish Freedom Movement activists meetings Monday 3, 17, 31 May at 7.30pm, Trades Council Club. Saville Mount, Leeds 7.

EAST LONDON

Monday 17 May 7.30pm "Ireland's hunger strike Film and discussion about the hunger strikes last year in the Six Counties, and the work that we should be doing in Britain to anti-imperialist build a real movement. Hackney Town Hall, Mare Street. Monday 31 May 0omr The Creggan' Film and discussion about liTe in Derry under British occupation.

Hackney Town Hall, Mare Street.

Regular ELWAR activists meeting on Monday 10 May at 7.00pm, Dalston Labour Club, Dalston Lane, E8.

East London Irish Freedom Movement activists meetings are held fortnightly on Thursday 13, 27 May at 7.00pm, Dalston Labour Club, Dalston Lane, E8.

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NORTH LONDON

7.30pm Tuesday 4 May The SDP: what it is and how to fight it. Public meeting about the Social Democratic Party and the forth.

coming local elections Islington North Library, Manor Gardens, off Holloway Road, N7

SDP

4.30-6.30pm Wednesday 5 May Remember Bobby Sands! Black flag protest called by the Irish Freedom Movement in commemoration of the death of hunger striker Bobby Sands Islington Town Hall, Upper Street, N1.