strike committees. future.
Q: Apart from WSK Mielec and ZM URSUS, have strike committees or workers' commissions been set up during the recent strikes?
JK: There is that much organisation if one takes into account the total number of factories on strike. But in certain strikes delegates have been ciccica In mass meelings and this has been a great success.
For example at WSK Swidnik the elected delegates tained the assistance of the official trade union lawyer to help them in their negotiations with management. This is an aspect of the protest that we have not seen before.
The memory of the repression which struck the 'ringleaders' in 1970 was break sel. organisation; there are some factories where the strike committee, elected shop by shop in ballot, doesn't show itself openly. This is the case in the huge 'Stella' stocking factory Zyrardow which employs a majority of women, many of whom are single mothers.
Factory For this factory we have begun to take up a collection because the workers there are paid on the 15th of the month and we beleve that because of une strike their pay will be delayed to force them to give We've reached a higher level of organisation than in 1976, but there aren't strike committees everywhere. URSUS is a shining example of self-organisation for the rest of Q: You talk of the need for a national discussion as one of the conditions for carrying through structural reforms. At the moment is this only a policy on paper or are you in a position to organise, for example, a national meeting of representatives of firms on strike?
JK: No, not yet. We think that in this wave of strikes we can gain experience, popularise. and this is most important the most advance experiences. And expect hot we think that inere will be then a generalisation of workers' self-organisation, self-organisation of the whole of society, but in the first instance of the workers. Jacket Moreover it is a unique lifejacket for the country, and even - although I'm not keen on saving it, but that's the situation ment. But that's for the future.
Besides, when we discussed it with the comrades from UR. SUS they said to us: 'You talk about the autumn but it's taken us four years to develop and be capable of this level of organisation!' Well CLUC that the climate is more propitious today, we can populanse forms of organisation by pointing to concrete examples. For example, in the last issue of Robotnik, number 57, we published, together with the 11 July KOR declaration and a calendar of recent events which lists strikes, claims, and so on, a very detailed report of the birth of the workers' commission at URSUS. We are going to continue to do this in the hope of treblwin their 10 to 15 per cent demands.' ing the Porescil print-run (30,000) copies of Robotkin. Q: What is your prediction for the present strike wave? Is it going to continue?
JK: It will end when workers everywhere win their 10 to 15 per cent demands. For the mothe authorities are retreating before the workers • an open invitation to strike! But at the same time there are lay-offs; all of Lodz (the second largest workers' town in Poland) is going to be laid off because, as a result of the economic crisis, they are having to stop production.
They have drastically cut back on imports to pay back interest on loans, and it is only thanks to the slow rhythm of JACEK KURON: 'The strikes will end when workers everywhere economic life that transport and energy production are continuing.
At the same time the situation is deteriorating, inflation is going to swallow up the wage rises. Even so the increases won in the last days have been important: at the beginning of July the 'Cegielski' workers at Srem won 7 per cent and within Smidnik returned to work with davs WSK workers 15 per cent!
The only solution is a major reform, self-organisation, but the workers aren't ready for that yet. When they go back, faced with new difficulties, the working class will be stronger, more conscious of what it has won. That will be the difference. Turkey friendly... the f goes a long way in Turkey!' Israel Literature. censor 1S The Shakespeare.
Palestine in 1946. South Africa of King William's Town last Wednesday.
were treated for less serious injuries.
ed their school boycott.
West Germany 'education officer' for the Nazis.
'Stop Strauss' button.
portrait of the great leader.
the youths off to a police station. AN estimated 800,000 workers took part in a general strike in Turkey last week. The stoppage was over the murder of Kermal Turkler, one of the country's most prominent trade union leaders. Turkler was shot by a gang of right wingers.
The strike was in defiance of martial law imposed by the right-wing government headed by Sulayman Demirel.
Meanwhile the Turkish government continues to place advertisements in the world's press aimed at encouraging tourists to visit Turkey. A recent one in the Guardian reads:
"There is still time to enjoy an inexpensive Mediterranean holiday! Why not enjoy a country that is peaceful and THE Israeli government has just banned several hundred books from sale or distribution in the occupied Arab territories. Titles include The History of Jerusalem, Islam and Western Civilisation, Palestinian Poetry, and Modern Arab But the really subversive work spotted by the Merchant of Venice by one William The legislation under which the bans have been imposed was originally drafted by Britain when it was in control of POLICE wielding clubs injured at least 160 boycotting black students when they attacked a demonstration outside a high school in a black township near the eastern Cape city One press report said that 58 youths were taken to hospital with broken limbs and head injuries. A further 100 Last week mixed-race students in South Africa suspendTHE former political affiliation of Franz-Josef Strauss, the Christian Democratic challenger in the West German elections, is beginning to make itself felt. Strauss was once an First there is the case of 18-year-old Christine Schanderl who last week was expelled from Regensburg high school in Bavaria, a part of Germany already controlled by Strauss. Christine's crime was that she came to school wearing a Second, the case of four Munich youths aged between 15 and 18, who, one recent night, were the subjects of a 'citizen's arrest'. In fact they were kidnapped by six Strauss supporters after they had been seen standing near a defaced The youth themselves claim they didn't apply the grafitti but being in the vicinity was enough for the modern version of Hitler's brownshirts. The six, one of whom was armed with a club while another had a walkie-talkie, frog-marched Third there are the more official activities of the Strauss campaign. Remember how in Hitler's day the Nazis claimed they were fighting a great conspiracy involving everyone in
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ONE of the most exciting developments of the wave of strikes in Poland against the increase in meat prices has been the appearance of elected The French Trotskyist paper Rouge asked JACEK KURON, a leading member of the Polish civil and political rights organisation KSS-KOR, about these committees and prospects for the