unions offer solutions that are in the interests not of the workers hut of the capitalist class.
Socialist Challenge believes thar the ise vital tasks confronting socialists ar:
• To hund broad-based class Strupee lendencis in labour movement.
grouping engether militants holding i wide range of political views.
• To begin to fighi crealion unified democratic revolutionary socialist organisation which can, through application of united front tactics, begin to be seen as an thousands workers engaged in struggles.
Such an organisation should be based on the understanding that:
The striggle for seeks to unite the fight of workers aeainst the bosses with that of other oppressed layers ef society - women, black penple. gays strugkling lor These should Tories, trying to ease membership.
events are moving today.
when the Labour Party enough.
socialism also being their general strike, given that virtually every right-wing trade union luminary has been hinting at the same ching over the last week (see page 5). For them it's a way of trying to get small concessions off the the pressure from their They won't call a general strike.
Instead they issue calls for days of action like confetti. But it's not just empty talk. real tendency towards a general strike in the way For a start, craft and trade divisions are being overcome in the struggle against closures and cuts. Divisions between the role of the trade unions and that of the Labour Party were also given a knock called a demonstration against the cuts last year after the TUC had failed to fulfil its congress mandate on the cuts quickly The boundary between legality and illegality is tested on kev issuer affecting working class. The very right to take solidarity action, picket and generally pursue a trade dispute effectively has been exposed as a nakedly political page 4).
There is a TUC, by the trade union leaders.
the persistent might enquire. enough.
Yorkshire and the South the Finally there is proof in South Wales from the 200,000 workers who stopped work on 28 January.
Ah, some scepties might say, but that wasn't a general strike, that was only a day of action. True enough - but that limitation was not imposed by the Welsh workers, it was imposed by the British But still, wasn't it only a regional development, Once again, true But then the day of action in South on 18 February wouldn't be just a regional development if the TUC had obeyed its mandate on the question of action against cuts.
The current programmes of the Wales TUC . Yorkshire Trades Councils are palliatives in the current crisis. In particular, the Wales TUC's call for postponement of the closures for two years is worse than useless, as a Corby correspondent pointed out in this paper last week.
But no matter what the particular starting point for a general strike, it inevitably poses the question of power. And power, in the first instance, means demanding limited the ruling class to accede to them.
closed down by steelworkers are already using with their pickets. 10 halt the Tory offensive.
has been their endorsement.
engages and and the rest are doing now.
class halted. the existence of the Tory government. So while not that every struggle should stop and change its demands to calling for the downfall of the government, socialists have to explain that this is inevitably where a general strike leads. Even if a government were to cave in completely to the . demands of one general strike, then inexorably the working class would step up its demands to the point where it would be suicide for Such a call therefore also means preparation a the rank and file level of the most effective precautions to ensure that the whole economy is the same means that the flying But between then and now the pressure should go on those who are in the position to call such strike action, the TUC leaders: resolutions should go to trade union bodies demanding that the TUC fully support the action of the Wales TUC with a general strike called throughout the rest of Britain The apparatus of a totalitarian state, which the bogey of right-wing politicians, is taking shape in Britain — with While the mass media lengthy investigations into the possible identity of secret service "moles" over 30 years ago, no inquiry is made into what MIS.
The files of the government and its various agencies would make fascinating reading. Their secrets are not kept in the interests of the working class, but of our rulers. They should all be exposed, and the surveillance of the working having a child by themselves.
Whether or not Corrie's Bill is carried it's high time the pro-choice kind of law it would like to see that does allow women to choose. • The Labour Party and the Trades Union both committed • to request?. build on' the victory of trade union and Labour. support for the anti-Corrie and force the labour movement to debate out what kind of law it should sponsor. supporting a woman's right to choose.
The labour movement conference on abortion planned for the autumn and the national conference of NAC should debate out the terms of such a bill. The Labour Party must make a commitment to pass such legislation through Parliament in its cannot be sure that anti-abortionists will stop at Corrie. If his Would see even greater restrictions i Doctors and clinics that have been willing to give women as as possible under terms of the 1967 Act will very likely But one thing is absolutely clear, Whatever happens in the Houses of Parliament over the next few weeks, will be prepared to meekly accept John Corrie's attempts take control of their bodies.
Labour and. Tory MPs who dare to vote for this bill had better watch out because they'll have thousands of angry women at their heels Mixed Feelings, published by Brent c/o Brent Womer's 138 Miner Avenne, London NW10. 30p plus postage.