SUPPORT THE STEEL STRIKE THE Tories are shaken. They have been shaken militancy of the steel strikers.
Shaken as well by solidarity shown to strikers by workers all over the country; by those like miners who have joined them on the picket line; by transport and dock who have refused to handle scab steel.
The result? First, steelworkers have victory in their sights. The leadership of the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation still about settlement, but the cry from picket line after picket line is clear, simple and without any hint of concession "20 per cent, no strings'.
At the start of the strike that demand was almost a whisper, today Il Is a roar defiance against the steel bosses and the Tory government; a roar of warning to Bill Sirs and others in the ISTC who might be thinking of selling out.
Laws Result number two is to found in the very heart of the Tory government, whose leaders now battling in public about just how the working class can controlled and whether the Tories' proposed union laws are tough enough.
The row between Chancellor of the Exchequer Geoffrey Howe and by the the those the the workers the compromise a roar or Industry Secretary Keith Joseph on the one hand Secretary Jim Prior on the other is not about whether the traditional be union rights of the working class should be attacked, but how they should be attacked.
Prior remembers
be most the Heath years and how the strength of the movement swept from the statute book the last attempts of a Tory government to savage union rights. VICTORY! Steelworkers outside the Hadfields private steel plant when news came that the mass picket had won a walk-out by the workers inside.
and Employment LICaSUICS promise better than disposal. trade way misnamed He wants to be a bit more subtle this time, but his target is the same. As Thatcher said about Prior's weekend they very considerable restriction on the right to picket.
And that in a phrase is why these proposals have to be fought by every means at the trade unions?
The steelworkers have shown by developing 'secondary picketing' into a campaign in itself and by the type of struggle she will face if she goes ahead with her plans to outlaw such effective picketing.
But exemplary as the action of rank and file steelworkers has been, it will not in itself be enough to smash Prior's plans. For that, fighting response from the entire working class is needed.
The first chance is on 9 March, when the TUC is organising a demonstration in London against Prior's Bill. That protest can be a start, and should be built for by every trade union militant. Memory But again, one march on a Sunday afternoon in London won't by itself force the Tories to retreat.
Only when demonstration is followed by one on Monday, and then Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday, and then Friday - and every day of the week until the Tory offensive is smashed -Prior's law be no more than a bad In other words organise for 9 March, but note well that tens of thousands of Welsh workers following the call of the Wales TUC by planning take general strike action the following day.
That is a lead that followed. Organise for 9 March, but organise demands to be shouted at the leaders demonstration. particular should be in the forefront - a general strike against the Tory choose.. page 6 to 10 has People... page 11 AFGHANISTAN The road to civil war... page 12 Sunday ...page 13 ZIMBABWE then will Jim of Socialist different from usual -indefinite could be have that demand in the past week. The man who turned an imperialist war into one of socialist revolution... page 3 Holding out for 20 per cent and against the Where should we go from the campaign against Corrie? On to a woman's right to BLACK LIBERATION The 1.75m black people in Britain are chang ing the face of politics here. We examine the major task for socialists - helping to build a united black liberation movement... pages 7 Yet another of Britain's solutions to its war passed away. Obituary of the Peace Learning to spell 'revolution' and 'libera tion'. Nicaragua's mass literacy campaign.
As the British governor does his best to eliminate the whites' opponents, Zimbabwe lurches towards civil war... pages 14 and 16 This week's issue READERS might note that this issue Challenge bit we have more feature material and less news than normal. This is because most of us who write, design and typeset the been attending the of the International Marxist Group during A full report of the conference will be in next week's issue.
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