Continued from Page 1. country, faced with their region being turned into an industrial wasteland now under the Tory axe.
The TUC decision to promote a series of regional rallies - of which the Liverpool to London march is the climax - was only undertaken because of the groundswell of opinion building up among the grassroots.
POLICIES Even these actions have been given no real cutting edge. There has been no attempt to unite workers around a fighting plattorm that could challenge the Tories head on. Their leaflets have had, as their major thrust, the call for import controls.
Import controls won't protect jobs. They will merely provoke similar action by other countries, creating a trade war in which all workers will suffer, as happened in the thirties.
There is no mention at all of the need to fight for the 35-hour week, even though this has been official TUC policy since 1972 and was reaffirmed at the last Labour Party conterence. No call is issued to workers to fight redundancies by work-sharing with nọ loss in pay. Equally, no call is made on Labour which have created thousands of redundancies. On the contrary, while deploring the cuts, the TUC advises local government unions to meekly go along with them.
ACTION It is the lack of class-struggle policies - and a willingness to fight for them - that gives the Tories the chance to get away with their jobless drive.
The miners' strike, which stopped the pit closures, shows what can be done when a sector of the labour movement takes action in a determined way to protect jobs. It shows the Tories up for the paper tigers they are.
If the TUC were to take a leaf out of the miners' book, there is no doubt that they could stop the Tories' attacks in their tracks. would be guaranteed a mass response from the grassroots who have turned out in their thousands in the protest rallies in Liverpool and Glasgow recently.
START The action on May 31 will undoubtedly attract a mass response The TUC must not be alarailt. lowed, however, to consider this as a one-off protest which can then last November.
They carefully be forgotten.
Wing it as the start of a mass camits insane policies.
that can protect jobs now.
For the 35-hour week!
announced last month.
working people.
Iner HARSH On Liverpool unemployment march one basic alm lower wages.
They have to be forced into seepaign against the government and INDUSTRY They have to be forced to use it as a stepping stone to other actions around clear class-struggle policies No cuts - no rate increases!
APRIL 1981 Continued from Page 1. Black people and - as in Deptford socialist