SUPPORT HEALTHWORKERS 19-21 JULY 'DEATH TO ASLEF', Tory MP's in the House Commons. They show what issue is. rostering is only a smokeSHIOCT The Tory press has taken up Thatcher's cue with gusto. They are rampaging 'Luddites' and 'wrekers'. If going to tell a lie, yuu ala make it a big one.
All the facts show that it is the Tories who are destroying the rail industry. • British Rail has the lowest government subsidy in whole of Europe. underground alone has a bigger subsidy. Tory use the benchmark of the subsidy made by the last Labour government. This only proves how rotten Labour's record is.
Rail has one of the lowest investment programmes in Europe. It invests less than a half that of West Germany or France slightly more than a half that of Italy. • British railworkers work the longest hours for lower pay than their European leagues. They work twenty per cent Since 1975, railworkers have dropped from 9th to 39th in the British wages league. • There have been dramatic increases in productivity while jobs have been There were over half a million railworkers in 1960. Socialist bayed Flexible about the The Paris and only colmore hours.
38,000 more been demanded.
The the massacred. ASLEF.
Today, to Kings Cross traindrivers picket the Sun there are less than 180,000 job cuts have Labour front bench true to its record has lined up Tories against Shadow Chancellor, Peter Shore, had the temerity characterise ASLEF's Sün magnificent stand as coming from those who 'regardless of the casualties, regardless the risks, must always say "'charge".
It is the Tories who are doing all the 'charging'. ASLEF is in the forefront of the defence of the railways and defence of trade union rights of port. The nothing to Transport workers, health workers and miners by contrast have pledged their suphas done marshall these forces. If they did, we could do to the Tories 'charge', what they did to the light brigade. ARTHUR cargill's first pech as NUM leader t the miners ference in Inverness this week •owa to the Tory government and to the right wing leadership of the Labour Partv As mineworkers 'enter a new era' he called upon them to: •resolutely resist all pit o fight for a 31 per cen nav rise to bring them u from a minimum of £87.80 workers TO] Sunnace £115 • defy all provisions of the Tory union laws • push for a thorough go. ing socialist programme for the Labour Party •oppose the in the Labour Party •unite the trade union federations •support accountability of the leadership to the rank and file, and rank and file backing for the leadership •support the health and rail workers The policies outlined by Scargill sharp break his predecessor, Joe Gormley Scargill promised that under his presidency there "secre diplomacy' dealings and that conference decisions would be sacrosanct But he wanted at the end of the day the right to demand industrial action if the union's claims could not be won by negotia tions.
The accountability and democracy moves ln ln NUM are being deepened by a total reorganisation of the national executive AL ne soseE azul wus delegates come relatively small units of the NUM.
But the key task before the miners is to fight pit coures neusta ahol will be needed to , save Snowdown Colliery Kent. . Scargill said that if the NUM accepted even: partial cut back of workforce in Snowdown it would be tantamount giving the 'green light' to major closures.
He called on miners to reaffirm their solidarity rail workers 'and unanimously agree tota support for ASLEF who are under attack from the Rail Board inel ponucas pusses, unc government SIere possibility that the ASLEF dispute drags on, the NUM will find itself inextricably tied up with this dispute because we won't be able to work as we can't move the coal out.?
L as Scargill says the will be willy-nilly forced to filicis stop work as result of the train strike, if the miners decide to suppori Ine SNC L WOLKC. strike on 19-21 July and if thev continue to dely int Tory law on secondar! picketing then the government is handling a time bomb. The miners, with the traindrivers, are lighting the fuse.
THE LABOUR movement approaching its most decisive the Tories.
British Rail Board has gone for confrontation drivers; healthworkers being offered a miserable pittance. livelihood has been dismantled to 'save the industry' have been told to shed 25,000 more jobs; pit threatened.
The government pretends not to be involved - in battles which could draw in up to six million workers! The opposite is true; for political reasons, Thatcher has decided now is the time for a trial of strength with the unions.
This winter Lord instructed the Rail Board not to fight the railworkers over flexible rostering: now it is out for a showdown.
year Norman restraining Tory backwoodsmen who wanted more vicious clauses in his anti-union bill; now he backs the Lords in adding compulsory secret postal ballots for union leaders. Why the urge for a fight?
Part of the reason is an elemental upsurge of workers' struggles don't agree with the prevailing view that the labour movement is defeated and cannot resist. If anything a new spirit of unity and solidarity has been born witnessed by the tremendous support won by health workers, and the effect of ASLEF's is The the are whose closures are that McCarthy was strike call PO Box 50, London N1 2XP Phone 01-359-8189/8180 (editorial and distribution)
not the left the and policies ment, dustry, evitably hang over this struggle. The labour movement should not retreat an inch under this threat The lessons of the 1974 miners' strike have to be understood. Then, industrial struggle created the conditions for a Tory defeat at the polls bécause it proved they could not deal with the unions. Moreover, the ruling class could not immediately impose a coalition because Wilson was forced to form a minority government implement important election promises. He had no choice while the unions were still mobilised. Labour then won an increased vote and it was not until Wilson defeated the left in the Party and imposed the Social Contract that he was able to sabotage Labour's policies and its government The Labour Party should now, therefore, march hand in hand with the unions to defeat the Tories. Joint action at every level is vital to build a movement that can sweep them out ol office and replace them with a Labour government committed to socialist Defence of these socialist policies is equally vital. Unilateral disarmathe thirty-five hour week, withdrawal from the EEC, and considerable measures of nationalisation, have been won by the left in the last period. Other policies are still needed: a mandate for workers' control in inLa commitment to wilmalay NATO and renunciation of any British stake or presence in the South Atlantic. But the right wing want to reverse even the gains so far made.
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Miners Tories bho, Dt NT( Socialist Challenge