class struggle, which never really went away, has forced itself back onto the front pages: and each militant stand adopted by one section of workers is reinforcing the anger and The reason for the rising temperature in the workplaces is not hard to find: while the dockers face a last-ditch fight to save the Dock Labour Scheme, tube drivers, bus crews, rail workers, engineering workers, BBC staff and others - even college lecturers - have been angered into taking action by the water down some more policies, telling us that collective ac- threaten to wheel out the judges once more and take the big- E D self confidence of others. ing class militancy. docks strike.
ing to the courts, and force them to wield the huge strength of in struggle is that 'new realism' can't pay the rent, and has through the old realism - collective, mass action and trade union solidarity, tapping the huge reservoir of hostility to the Thatcher government, and brushing aside those timid Labour watch jobs slashed and wages axed now, in the vague, vain hopes that this will produce an electoral victory for Labour The lesson being rapidly learned by a new wave of workers never saved a single job. The only realistic way for workers to challenge hard-faced employers and the government is and trade union leaders who would prefer to stand idly by and the union to defend their members. in the sweet by and by. placid sections of workers into angry militants prepared to take action against their employers and in defiance of an in- Thatcher's main selling point had always been the economic "miracle': but that has now gone horribly wrong. Inflation is now saoring. Petrol prices alone have gone up 30 pence a gallon (almost 20 percent) in just a few months. Figures show that mortgage payers face an inflation rate of 19 percent, thanks to Chancellor Lawson's repeated rises in interest rates, imposed to compensate for catastrophic balance of payments figures as the whole economy lurches The same basic causes could yet transform other normally creasingly unpopular government.
the new sections of militants emerging in today's struggles to Page 1 As the workers' movement beads for a summer of discon- tent, the need for a new, class struggle leadership in the unions realism in the Socialist Conference movement must link up with those already active in trade union broad lefts and with ensure that out of these experiences we build a hard left cur- rent to break the grip of the right wing in the unions. With a long, hot summer of action on the cards, the conditions are in is sharper than ever. The forces ranged in opposition to new our favour. - as a result of Lawson's successful budget moves to freeze out the public sector almost closed down, the market frozen at un- All this has helped kill off the credit boom: Access has al- ready led the pack of credit card firms by declaring 150 redundancies and predicting tougher times to come, since workers can no longer afford to borrow more. Meanwhile those caught with devastatingly high mortgage payments and looking for a way out now find the housing market paralysed first-time buyers. The housing crisis rages on unabated, with payable prices, and agony for all concerned. SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 15 Mav 1989
dispate was with them. It is clear has been introduced on the basis of the courts and the govemment can In any case it is very difficult for law. Even if the port employers against trade unionists since 1982 a precise assesment of the balance that each new extension of the law of forces - a judgement on what a dock strike to be kept within the fail to win a decision to outlaw the The dock strike and the law gel away with. AT E U P RIGHT to see the Tory Bill to Labour Scheme as a fun- damental attack on their jobs, wages. and conditions of struggle against using dockers as ARE abolish the National Dock The conditions contained in the scheme were the fruits of a long casual labour which resulted in the DOCK WORKERS етріоутем.
strike, that would not be the end of the story. If the unregistered ports Several of the non-sheme ports and condition they enjoy are un The only viable way to defend have already pledged support Taw if necessary, and see the strike continuc to work, striking dockers will picket them when their work is diverted, and this will be unlaw. ful secondary picketing. If un- registered ports join the strike, that too will be automatically declared unlawful secondary action. since they know that the wages derpinned by conditions in the the Dock Labour Scheme is for the TGWU to be prepared to defy the scheme ports. they were stabbed in the back by similar situations. The NGA defied the law at Warrington until No, lads, don't ask me to break the law' - Ron Todd given to the miners during their worthless as the 'assurances" the industry down the middle and aginton Wayne The national dock strike, which continued after their release. in the Jones/Aldington report, which offered job guarantees to Hath since it was a formula for a the jailing of the Pentonville Five demanding that all ports be in- cluded in the scheme, culminated the dockers in existing Scheme firmed that unregistered ports would continue to exist and would This was a sell-out which split was bitterly resented by dockers at the time. The Jones/Aldington report was accepted by Edward ports but at the same time also con- be greatly extended. in July 1972.
Todd is worried about the funds of union are worthless unless they they can't be whilst they are dustrial Relations Act with their back against Thatcherism, at a as against the Goverment. Ron the union, but the funds of the can be used to defend the jobs and conditions of the membership, and Previous anti-union legislation was destroyed because it was defied, It was the dockers in 1972 who dealt the fatal blow to the In- defiance of the National Industrial If these political problems are tackled a national dock strike can become the comerstone of a fight- hamstrung by the courts. Relations Court. miners' strike. Print union chiefs, Tony Dubbins and Brenda Dean were at least threatened by the Wapping. Sam MacCluskie defied the courts for a period during the seafarers' strike, saw his union's assets seized, and talked about Todd's position, announcing in advance that there would be no couragement to the courts to do the TUC. Arthur Scargill refused to comply with the law during the courts before they complied at being prepared to go to prison before he caved in and complied their wont It accepted from the outset that a strike would be illegal resistance offered open for strike action. Registered dock- registered ports, which have not mitted in a Department of Trade offices which says that: rectors heavily dependent on imports of All indications are that the cur- rent ballot will produce a majority cargo through British ports, much of which cannot be switched to un- the capacity or the special facilities to handle it even if they were prepared to do so. This is ad- and Industry circular to regional raw materials or components could face problems quite quickly. newsprint and textiles could all be crs handle over 70 Steel vehicles, rest of industry. This is in conflict massive reduction in registered dockers. Under its proposals we have seen a reduction in their num- bers from over 60,000 at the time Now, however, the Tories sec and conditions of employment ditions they are imposing on the with their requirements for 1992 and the single European market. They have the nerve to present a "job for life" for a docker as out- rageous when most of the rulling cials) have always had this the scheme as offering unaccep table guarantes of job security which are out of step with the con class (not to mention TGWU offi- to under 10,000 today.
time when the government is losing its grip on the economy, and putes over wage claims generated strike will be helped by the fact that dockers in many parts of the dockers are on strike, There was a been striker in Holland, Spain, receive the support of Neil Kin- SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 15 May 1989 industry is Faced by a wave of dis- International suppport for the world are under attack. Indian national onc day dock strike in France in March and there have A dock strike will of course not nock (despite his talk at the last Austrailia and New Zealand. by rising inflation. decision of Parliament! This would represent the most far reaching use of the law since the Tories started legislating against ample the Baker Bill or the White such a step at the present time their decision would be based on what technicalities such as whether the if it was seen to challenge a the unions in 1982, and would out- law strike action aganst any Government decision - for ex- If thie couts are prepared to take resistance they expect, not on employers and insisted that the TGWU had met Paper on the NHS strength to win the strike, but the problem remains of the leadership of the TGWU and its attitude to the reaction to a dock strike is that it left majority on his executive for tional committee, who had agreed Todd's stand is well to the right The dockers have both the detcrmination and the industrial courts. Ron Todd's immediate must be within the law! He presumably had the support of the this stand, since the executive agreed to overrule the docks na- to ballot the dockers directly in of previous leaders faced with defence of the scheme. always hated the scheme both for which are rightly seen to be as The port employers, who bave its job security and the joint ad ministration which challenges their 'right" to hire and fire, have welcomed the Bill with great en- thusiasm and intend to extract the maximum possible advantage from it. They have already an nounced the ending of the current ments, which are not a part of the scheme but exist as a separate ar- rangement. The employers have given 'assurances' on job losses national wage bargaining arrange- Page 2
m DA T
Carlos Guarita/Roflex PHOTO: needto win the support of the f400 a week docker!) or the leaders of the Labour Party, who see a strike as an electoral liability and have movement will respond to a dock Labour Party conference of the already pursuaded the TGWU to delay the announcement of the ballot result until after the local elections. They do not speak for the labour movement on this however. All the signs are that the strike as the did to the miners by organising a mass support move-
70 per cent of cargo is handled by registered dockers. Italy Alan Thornett ment throughout the country-
Page 3 Already the force of the protest ment. Donal Cattin, the Christian Democrat health minister, has pleaded it was nothing to do with him, but was all down to Amato, the Treasury minister. The decree will become invalid after 60 days if parliament does not discuss and pass it as legislation. Party bosses ready manoeuvring with a view to gaining a percentage point here or trying to distance itself from the that the hard left minority in the labour movement still retains a capacity for taking a lead against the reformist trade union and Communist Party leaders, despite the long string of defeats over the Apart from the disarray in the govemment, concessions have creased the number of categorica such as low-income pensioners. women with difficult pregnancies and the chronically ill. The May 10 general strike is vital if the government is to be forced to drop bureaucrats would like nothing change for some shoddy com- Dave Kelloway hascaused rifts within the govem- in the five-party coalition are al- there in the June Euro-elections. The last thing they want is sus- tained protest against an un- Craxi's Socialist Party in already The wave of protest does show Last ten years. Struggle pays off. been won, the governmont has in- the decree; but the union better - if they are given the chance - than to call it off in ex- popular government measure. exempt from the new charges ganise nationally. Mass protests against health cuts promise. decree, On the April 10 there was a demonstration of 50,000. After. plauded local initiatives from the sidelines. Bruno Trentin of the largest trade union federation, the Communist Party-led CGIL, joined his fellow trade union leaders to denounce talk of a general strike. Instead they called up a team of experts to conjure up alternative package of mcasures to solve the health service's financial crisis. They ac- cept the goverment's general framework of making 'savings to regional goneral strike in Milan, organised by the more militant leaderships line, and a this the mion leaders could no longer block the momentum towards coordinated national ac- tion, and agroed to a national one day general strike for May 10, thinking it better to try and control the protest than to let regional or reduce the deficit, but want work- ing people to pay a slightly soctors opposed to the national rank and file structures start to or- OBSE smaller bill for it. the fight for health services Britaln, France, now Italy: CL 2111 first day to voice their anger rather of the labour movement. Protest strikes broke out almost im- mediately after mass mectings workplaces to discuss this attack on working people. Whole cities ground to a halt in the first week of April as day after day worters left their workplaces en masse and squares. Thin encouraged people who had to pay the charges on the Police had to be called at some protests. Health workers made their solidarity with the patients very clear -they know their jobn and working conditions are next in the firing line. Medical and admin staff have developed various strategies to nullify the decree's effect. Patients bave been asked to sign promises to pay if the decree is transformed into a proper parliamentary law. In other places they have been promised had been held in many marched down to the main people staged refunds in writing if the decree be- than meekly submit. At no BI for strike ne-e leaders called g mittees for a un 3 tion. Powerless a tional general time had the na- slewards.com- cautiously ap made fmm the start by the fac- shop to stop walk- they Calls were hospitals as comes invalid. been strike: outs tory SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 15 May 1989 servers" total suprise - there was THE ITALIAN government is Thatcher with its latest deep prescription charges were jacked replace regional political ad- autonomous units led by business managers... where have we heard deficit would givo Thatcher and so called cconomic success-stoty. Socialist Party leader, wants to long. His man, Amato, is the cuts in the country's health A government budget decree at the beginning of April included the imposition of 'hotel' charges "privilege" of being a hospital patient. People will alno have for the first time to pay for X raysand other tests. For good measure the up too. Plans are underway fo ministration of the hospitals with The huge Jalian public sector Lawson apoplectic fits. It in the time-bomb ticking away at Haly's if this means some roduction in tor. So there is much talk in the modin and political circies about the Thatcher example. Craxi, the impress the middle ground by showing that he can take the tough Domocrats have shirked for so a magnificent response to the April decree from the rank and file political nethor of the infamous April out-Thatcher of nearly E5 a day for the The omployers want the gover- ment to faice Inugh action - even patronage through the public sec- decisions that the Christian Fortunately - and to most ob- the ruling parties" trying to this before? service. decree.
sure that millions of inuigrant where some have no legal rights, appalling working conditions and undermine the rights of all workers, whether members of Finn Jensen USA employers are subject to sanctions for employing "illegal' ment select committee called for the same to be introduced in Britain! With the advent of 1992 such a policy could now be on the If the trade unions do not begin to tackle immigration issues, they will be cutting their own throats as well as betraying black workers. The new laws will en- workers will be left to the mercy of the police, the courts, and the most unscrupulous employers, creating a two-tier workforce, low wages, Such a situation will labour, In 1977 a Labour govem cards for the whole of Europe, Immigration: urgent cases for treatment regardless of their status. Whetber Act are an attack on all workers, forward - meaning that unions By 1992 the European Com- munity (EC) will become Portress Europe. An "iron curtain" will en- countries. A person who has, for Athens will not be able to get into any other EC country. Informa- 1992 and the Single Market lions of immigrant workers. In the example, been refused entry in That would be a qualitative step should support all anti-deporta- tion campaigns, and lead to a policy of opponing the deporta tion of anyone from Britain, Nalgo will Implement such sure that non-EC citizens will get the same treatment in all EC tion is already being systematical- ly exchanged among EC govem- hut particularly an aftack on mil- policies still has to be seen. ments to ensure this. AT E UP D he admitted previous Labour case affects one or more of their own member. Some just give several successful campaigns for itsmembers. In the advertising for bers, but for all black people*. about Labour's policy review on immigration. Instead he limited himself to criticising the existing racist and scxist laws, for which governments bad some respon- The degree to which trade unions are involved in immigra- tion cases varies a lot. Some unions do nothing, even when a legal help but refuse to campaign to stop a deportation or to unite a Nalgo is probably the most ad- vanced trade union on immigra- tion, and since 1982 has fought the April 15 conference Nulgo ar- gued that trade unions should not only fight for trade union mem- hundred people attending the Nalgo conference on the issue in Manchester on 15th April it migration cases a trade union The conferenoo decided to ca- tablish a liaison network for trade unionists and others. A booklet will be produced by the National Black Members Group in Nalgo. tional trade union conferences to form policies on immigration and nationality The conference also decided to mobilise for a lobby on May 15 in Manchester, when Francis Okanlami's appeal will It was expected that Labour's spokesperson on immigration, Alistair Darling, would talk about WITH MORE than one is fair to say that a small siep has been taken to make im- Resolutions will be going to na
France at the polls - for sixth time not rule out the possibility of be- coming part of a new unified or- coming part of ganisation in the future. It is perhups not surprising that so many disparate elements of the hard left, some new (such as the MCR) and some old (such as the LCR) and with varying degrees of organisational control, were mi- able to sustain the momentum for unity indefinitely. The fact that they worked together for the Presidential elec- tons, and in some cases during the municipal clections too, is an en- couraging sign. Now the priorities of the LCR Lie for the time being in building struggles in the work- ing class, where it has been very active of late, intervening in the national nurses strike as wellasin smaller local disputes. A recruit- memt drive is also taking place in the Nord/Pas de Calais region, where membership cards are being issued on an experimental While strengthening its profile in the working class and building its party base, the LCK is looking to the