PAT Hickey's report (5 March) of the conference organised by Liverpool, Newcastle, North Tineside and Coventry trades councils misses the point, purpose of the conterence was to organise the fightback against the and hen slags it off for failing to do that.
As if anyone would imagine that the organisbasis for that fightback was four trades councils!
The trades which SOONOCU the conference al cas Socialist Challenge 19 March 1981 has had a devastating imareas with tradiDall, tionally strong trade and where the unions have failed provide overall perspective for tighting unemployment The fact that the successfully defended their jobs and humilated the ment was welcomed by all delegates at the conference. But the miners' does TOI jobs Coventry, Merseyside or mesee any the short term.
The idea of counterposing the social need of. the to profit and the "logic' of the market is nothing new. It is one of the fundamental aspects of socialism. The conference was an attempt to expiore ways in which concrete expression can be given to these local vacuum, but in the conof developing an LUAL alternative way forward to that OI the Labour idey the basis for a fight wnien also within that party.
If the conference showed anything, it was the search for that ...Political There is a vacuum on the left and the danger is that that vacuum will filled by the Labour Party and the Alternative Economic Strategy.
It was always likely that the conference would have a tentative, exploratory charadict The four trades councils will themes of the int the the inquiry, developing specific Intitiatives.
It is to be hoped that the International Marxist Group will be more fully involved in these future activities:
WILL REESE, Coventry
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maKf vie right