more struggles? argued out, on the shop floor, that stoppages take place. This has been the approach of the At the heart of the left's political alternative k the 'Alternative Economic Strategy'. munists and the Morning Star have played a big part in developing and winning support for this DAVE COOK the trade unions? strategy. What is needed now is massive argu ment and initiative to turn the many hopeful signs of rejection of Tory policy into positive support for the Alternative Strategy. Com- The launching of a major campaign for selective import controis, several trade unions, is important in this context.
The policy document being presented to the special Labour Party conference contains some elements of the alternative strategy, but in some ways it is woefully weak. ment to reject incomes policy and the need fo free collective bargaining. pledge on selective import controls. Only small cuts in arms expenditure are proposed. There is inadequate recognition of the need for higher wages to power expansion of the economy.
On domestic issues there is no clear commitment to repeal racist immigration laws; no mention need on devolved Scotland and Wales; no proposal to break with the shameful bipartisan approach on Northern Ireland. Intimately connected with defeatingthe Tories is the need to ensure that a future Labour government begins to operate radically different policics.
In achieving this, the fight for democracy in the Labour Party is very important. What is also crucial is the degree to which the Labour Party and the trade unions are won to developing the overall political alternative they offer, and make them issues of mass politics. Communists work with the left to help this happen.
Socialism, descri. Our "The alliances between the various parts of the working class, as building a as part of the AES, by be so transformed.
Union's national There is no commitThere is no clear However, wrong shopfloor. For Leyland stewards by assemblies right wing has made.
is particularly important.
unity can stop this.
Road If it happens, , describes this difficult task of forging Broad Democratic other than electoral ones.
cerned.
Labour the advances conférence, feltiance. No other section of the left has this ob.
Without the contribution of an independent, revolutionary party, rooted in the working class, and based on the revolutionary ideas of Marxism, the labour movement will not There has been a highly organsied, relentlessly executed, media-backed campaign to reverse the previous left majority on the Engineering committee. The right-wing advance reflects in some measure the debilitating influence of years of social contract.
I think it is important to guard against final judgement with this union, and it is to assume that the irresolution of its leadership necessarily reflects the mood of the example, the sell-out can precedented number of branch protests. producea an unl effectively.
But we have to work to reverse the gains the The defence of union democracy through the process of rules revision The inner right-wing caucus is out to eliminate the many democratic active features of the AUEW constitution. Maximum Some of the points made by Bob Wright about the Broad Left in Marxism Today seem to be significant; in particular, the need to broaden its concerns to include wider political questions.
As far as Peter Hain's proposals go, 1 ve heard the idea that the Labour Party should organise factory branches for a number of years.
great! The problem is that the dominant reformist trend in the Labour Party is bitterly opposed to any conception of politics, that. ERIC HEFFER MP UP UNTIL now the Tories have done much better than they ought to have done. Unfortunately they have been reasonably successful in dividing the working class.
Their wages policy in particular has succeeded in dividing the working Class dividing private sector public sector works, and creating divisions within the public sector according to the relative strength of the workers conWhat should not be underestimated is that the Tories' biggest weapon is unemployment, which is bound to have an effect on the working The opposition has been better than the media has given it credit for, but one of the pro blems is that the alternative strategy which the Labour Party executive is putting forward is not supported by everyone within the Parliamentary Party, therefore the lead the parliamentary leadership has provided has not been as effective as it should have been.
Again in the trade unions, the lead there has not been as effective as it should have been There is no doubt that the shift to the right in the Engineering Union can be a real setback to made at last year's Labour Party but it's still early to • say categorically that the proposals on the manifesto and re-selection will be defeated because of the AUEW's position.
The Labour Party special conference is a very important development, because it gives the op. portunity for the Labour Party and the trade unions at the conference to organise around a very progressive, socialist and radical statement.
It's surely no accident that it was the biggest union, the Transport Union, which asked for such a conference to be held At the Tribune meeting at last year's Labour Party conference I said that there had to be considerable work done in the trade union movement over the coming 12 months, and that if we were going to win it would depend on that.
We have to build on our contacts, and that's precisely what we have been doing, although it and should be done more The Parliamentary Labour Party meets top leaders, but the real work has to be done among the rank and file in order to win support for our policies The rank and file in the Labour Party are all Thousands thousands of party members hold positions in the unions. Many of them happen to be local councillors. They're interchangeable; all part of the same thing.
But there has to be greater concentration. The left in the party has to fight for its policies in It wasn't the constituencies which swung the vote at the last conference, it was the unions. The right-wing leadership in the unions thought they had it sewn up, but they were wrong. Now there has been a setback for us, there's no doubt about Socialist Challenge 15 May 1980 Page 9
THIS weekend sees the first national conference building a youth organisation.
Revolution newspaper. Colin Talbot interviewed terview, together with an article by Ann veteran Trotskyist, Harry Wicks, on why he is Henderson from the National Committee of going to the conference and on the early history Revolution on the significance of the launching of the revolutionary movement's approach to conference this weekend. of revolutionary socialist youth organised by Here we reprint some excerpts from that intion technical labour to come to London to go into domestic service. And if it was not that, it was into nursing in the Poor Law Institutions.
The young workers were doomed, if they left school at a period when there was no work, to unskilled labour for the rest of their lives. That's worth remembering in the current situaWith the cuts in education, the closing of colleges, the reducing of apprenticeships, it's necessary more than ever for the
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tional organiser of the STEVE POTTER, a onal Marxist Group's ar have the Tories suc- y against the labour a has been the opposi- ent?
What's the significance of the shift to the right in the Engineering Union, and the fact that the Labour Party's special conference has been called at the instigation of the Transport Union? And what of Peter Hain's proposal that the Labour Party should organise its supporters in
'The left in the party has to fight for its policies in