onference of trade unionists for over 10 years, which debated in 2 SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 20, Dec-Jan 1989-90
plenaries and 36 workshops every issue facing the British labour movement today - showing that despite the damage done by Thatcherism there is still a reservoir of support for this kind of initiative - and a desire to organise against the right. Many of those attending represented a new generation of trade unionists brought forward by the new mood of militancy at the base -most clearly represented at the present time by the ambulance workers" dispute.
It was it not just the size and scope of the representation which made the conference important -but the democratic basis on which it was organised. It represented a sharp break from past initiatives such as Militant's Broad Left Organising Committee (BLOC) and the LCDTU - which in any case have ceased to be effective. Those previous initiatives were rigidly controlled, and discussed short, unamendable statements made available only on the day. The Sheffield conference was organised by a committee elected by the Socialist Movement, and discussed a comprehensive policy document which was circulated in advance and open to amendment through discussion in the workshops.
The scope of the conference was unusual, addressing not only traditional "trade union issues' such as the employers" offensive, the anti-union laws, the fight for higher wages and the defence of working conditions, but also is sues such as ecology, the poll tax and international issues. It attempted to make the issue of women in the unions, black people in the unions and lesbian and gay workers in the unions central.
The central themes of the conference were: building a fightback against "new realism'; clear opposition to all anti-union laws; support for all those sections in struggle; and democratisation of the unions. In general, the conference was successful in clarifying that these were the key lines of divide to be drawn in the trade union movement - between those fighting for class struggle policies in the unions and those who collaborate with the employers and the govemment.
There were many important discussions in workshops. In parSOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 20, Dec-Jan 1989-90
UPDATE A'BULANCE crona le ticular, many of the workshops for members of particular unions were inspiring for militants who had felt isolated in the fight against 'new realism'.
In the workshop on the Single European Market in 1992 debate developed between those supporting the policy document, which saw 1992 as the reorganisation of capital on a European scale, and which would have a devastating effect on the working class as the big corporations reorganised and rationalised to meet the new conditions, and on the other hand those who argued that:
..the concentration and socialisation of capital symbolised by the market represents a move forward in the organisation of production, creating new structures and links across national boundaries which can only be to the ultimate benefit of workers sharing a common class interest.'
This key sentence in the relevant amendment was defeated. The discussion made an important contribution to a debate which is as yet under-developed in the British trade union movement. In particular there was discussion about building intemational links to resist this onslaught and the fight for a workers Europe East and West.
The vast majority of amendments to the statement proposed from the workshops
Thatcher Is trying a Falklands on the ambulance workers: they have stepped up the fight were accepted by the platform and put into the policy statement - which was added to but not changed in character.
A debate which did go to the floor of conference was on an amendment from the workshop on broad lefts which set out how left formations in the unions should be organised. No one disagreed with the principles if they were seen as objectives to be fought for inside union lefts, but the extent to which they should be "preconditions" for supporting broad left formations was controversial.
It was pointed out from the platform that most of the broad lefts which had sponsored the conference do not meet all the criteria concerned. The amendment was carried against the platfor and the ambiguity was not resolved.
The conference took several important practical initiatives Conference discussed trade union action against Poll Tax
AME 91 AM 0% John Harris (IFL) designed to strengthen the work of the Socialist Movement in the unions. A new Steering Committee was elected from regional meetings of delegates and from caucuses of members of individual unions. This will work to implement the practical proposals that came out of the conference such as a trade union conference on the poll tax, a possible meeting of trade unionists across Europe, and an approach to BLOC and the LCDTU to organise an even more representative gathering of British trade union militants.
The amended policy statement, agreed overwhelmingly by the conference, will be published shortly as a pamphlet. It will serve as a useful tool to all trade union militants fighting against "new realism" in their workplaces and trade unions.
Alan Thornett Paqe 3
El Salvador Offensive prepares ground for revolutionary overthrow By bombing of the FENASTRAS trade union offices on October 31, the ruling clique and military command signalled clearly to the labour movement and to the liberation fighters of the FMLN that, having been unable to repress the popular organisations through amending" the constitution in July, they were now prepared to launch a repression through extra-legal means.
The resort to tactics of physical liquidation of leading trade union members indicates that the far-right ARENA government clearly understands the threat it faces from the pincer of mass guerilla insurrection combined with mass urban popular movements. It is not only the FMIN that has learned lessons from the Nicaraguan Revolution. ARENA set out to decapitate the popular organisations before the FMIN was in a position to overwhelm the armed forces.
The necessary features for a decisive class battle have been ripening in El Salvador for some time. The collapse of the American scheme of stabilising the situation through land refom and a consolidation of the political centre was exploited by both the ultra-right and the forces of the revolutionary left.
The FMLN's demand for free elections in which all could take part - provided there was a six month postponement to allow for campaigning - won to them significent layers of the population who had previously been in the political centre. At the same time Page 4
UPDATE ARENA has grouped around it all those who were committed 'stabilising" the situation through mass repression and 'total war against the guerillas, as well as those who have an interest in seeing the preservation of the present social formation and can see no other option but ARENA.
The position of both sides has been quite similar to the extent that both had to win wavering elements of their social base over to an understanding that it was not possible to negotiate with the other. The protracted negotiations which have been taking place have been serious attempts by both sides to explain the legitimacy of their position at a mass level and to expose the intractability of the opposition.
At the same time the FMLN did publicly attempt to come to a negotiated solution, to explore every possible avenue that was open to them. This attempt was made for two reasons. Firstly, because there are undoubtedly layers of political opinion within the FMLN that want a negotiated solution to the social crisis and are prepared to go a long way in securing one. Secondly, because even those who see no hope for such a solution understand that if they are to have the sustained involvement of the workers and peasants in a bloody and violent insurrection that may last months and cost tens of thousands of lives, then it has to be clear that there was no other alternative. In addition, such a process can be used to win what remains of the middle layers and the petit bourgeoisie to the side of the FMLN.
It's war in San Salvador: and the casuaities are mounting
The offensive launched by the FMLN was not the first declaration of total class war against the goverment. This had come from the trade unions UNIS and FENESTRAS. In invoking such language the unions issued a challenge bothto the govemment and to the FMLN. On the one side they were demanding that the old conditions should end, and claiming that they were not prepared to live in the old way: and on the other they were demanding defence from civil repression by the armed forces of the people -the FMLN.
It should be understood that, by all accounts, the offensive that the FMLN launched was not at first aimed at seizing power. The FMLN wanted to force the regime to a the negotiating table in a very public manner to express the nature of dual power that exists in the country. The result of the offensive quite possibly took the FMLN by surprise with the level of mass support that it engendered.
The response of the popular organisations was to take to the streets, build barricades, take up arms and to join the military and political offensive. The general strike call by the unions added to the creation of the revolutionary conjuncture that now faces El Salvador. As the offensive developed and the cadres of the FMLN and the population grew in confidence, the ambiguity of the FMLN's position became ap-
parent. While battalion leaders in the the suburbs of San Salvador were being interviewed by the BBC World Service and claiming that they were all out to sieze power, the FMLN were issuing official statements claiming that they wanted to force the regime to the negotiating table.
This hope was definitively quashed by the actions of the Salvadoran military in reply to the popular insurrection. The heavy bombing of working class areas by the Salvadoran planes flown by US pilots, the use of anti-tank weapons and helicopter gunships, and the ferocity of the counter-offensive on the ground show that the oligarchy understands that it is now in a do or die situation.
This was underlined by the torture and murder of the Jesuit priests, their cook and her daughter. That such an open act could be taken by the Salvadoran military, who have since followed up with a barely veiled threat to the progressive bishops through the good offices of the Salvadorean Attomey-General, shows that the normal rules of the game have been dumped for the 'total war' strategy by the majority of ARENA and the oligarchy.
The question for the FMLN is: who is there now to negotiate with that the population can take seriously?
The response of the United States has been as predictable as it has been bizarre. Pointing the SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 20, Dec-Jan 1989-90
Milos Jakes - next stalinist
finger of blame at the Soviet Union - while Gorbachev and co. are heading in the opposite direction as fast as possible - is a knee-jerk reaction that cannot carry much weight at an interational level. It is surely now clear to all but those who do not want to see that the USSR has now publicly junked any intention to defend any revolution and is intent on forcing revolutionary movements to the negotiating table under any circumstances. This indeed may be a key factor in the FMLN's desire to negotiate at all costs.
With one eye on the scenario after a seizure of power, the FMLN understands that it will not have any Soviet backers to sustain its reconstruction programmes, or to limit the role that the USA might play in creating yet another long-running contra war in Central America if the workers and peasants do take the leadership of the reconstruction of Salvadoran society.
At the same time as this miserable performance by the USSR the Guatemalan military has sent regiments into El Salvador to fight the guerrillas, and the Honduran armed forces have been mobilising. On the plus side, however, the Guatemalan liberation guerrilla army, the URNG, has pledged to step up the war within Guatemala as an act of solidarity with the Salvadoran insurrection. The public position of the Nicaraguan goverment has been to keep silent but it does not take a great intellect to understand the reason why or to imagine what result they hope for.
At the time of going to press, the FMLN are withdrawing from some positions within the capital whilst fighting is still going on in other areas of the country. This withdrawal of forces should not be seen as a step back or a stabilisation of situation. The FMLN, as did the FSLN in the first series of battles in 1978, ap pears to have recruited a large number of the urban population and is in a process of rapidly consolidating them and organising them before launching a fresh offensive.This fresh push must come soon enough to prevent the mass repression that will surely follow any withdrawal from urban areas, and well planned SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 20, Dec-Jan 1989-90
UPDATE enough to show to the population that there is a realistic chance of overwhelming the heavily armed Salvadoran military. Yet at the same time the FLN leadership is still insisting that all it is attempting to do is 'to remove the present high military command from its position of ab- solute power", Politically, it is ar- guing for an interim government made up of moderate sectors, not necessarily including the FMLN, to pave the way for elections in which the FMLN can take part. Taken at face value, this can seem somewhat odd, given the in- tensity of the situation. To im- agine that simply removing the army leadership will resolve questions that go to the heart of the Salvadoran social-formation appears a little naive: but the deeper purpose of the FMLN may be to maintain its leading position both politically and militarily, and to prevent the middle ground from seizing the initiative on the democratic question. Time will test out whether this is really the case, provided the present insur- rection succeeds in toppling the present regime. With hundreds of thousands on the streets, Czechoslovakia looks to be the next bastion on unreconstructed stalinism set to fall. Glas- nost has not been adopted as governmental policy yet - but the signs of retreat are clearly there. In a demonstration of tens of thousands on 17 November, there were calls for the resignation of Stalinist leader Milos Jakes and for democratic elections. In the brutal repression that followed, at least one student, Martin Schmid, was beaten to death; quite possibly others were too. Then, on the Sunday, veteran oppositionist Petr Uhl, a leader of Charter 77 activist and marxist writer, was arrested for spreading false rumours" of the death. Anna Svoboda, another leading opposi- tion figure, was arrested on similar charges. It Jakes" regime thought that such repression would silence the opposition, they did not have to wait long to see how hadly they had misestimated the situation - the following day 300,000 were to take to the streets in the largest opposition activity since 1968. On this occasion the riot police could only stand back and watch. On the same day Vaclav Havel, prominent op- position leader and playwright, announced the
It is usual to end articles such as this with a ritualistic call for solidarity with the revolu- tion. But a note on the role of the British left should also be made. Since the victory of the Nicaraguan Revolution the question of EI Salvador has been seen as a subsidiary issue; yet it has always been the extension of the revolu- tion in Central America that has been key to breaking the isolation of the Sandinistas and the frag- mentation of the Nicaraguan revolution in the grip of the USA and USSR. There is now a real opportunity to extend and defend the revolution in one. The whole of the left in the labour movement must now begin seriously to provide resources for the El Salvador Solidarity Cam- paign and build an anti-interven- domino to fall? Citizens Initiative, the lovakia.
Gorbachev: keeping out of the way tion movement in Britain against the role of the USA, and against the complicity of the British goverment in US strategy. This includes the simple task of affiliation to the campaign as well as labour movement bodies taking up the question and sup- porting the insurrection. If there was ever a time to shake of routinism and to build a substan- tial solidarity movement it is now. Will McMahon launch of a new opposition umbrella organisation. along the lines of E.Germany's New Forum; and widespread strikes took place, particularly in the colleges. The General Strike called by Charter 77 in response to govern ment repression is likely to bring out even greater numbers on the streets on 27 November. Czechoslovakia has a long history of opposition activity - but since the days of the 'normalisation" in the aftermath of the Soviet invasion in 1968, this has generally been confined to a handful of in dividuals around the human rights organisation Chatter 77, who have served long terms of im- prisonment as a result. Only a few weeks ago, some of its leaders were predicting a much slower process of building an opposition in Czechos The events of the past few days spell the end of the period of intense repression following 1968. While it is the working class of Czechoslovakia, and Eastern Europe more generally, that will brush aside Jakes and his cronies, socialists in the West must voice their solidarity with the movement, par- ticularly at a time when activists such as Petr Uhl continue to suffer from state repression. Patrick Baker Page 5
A woman's right to choose? Reproductive rights campaigners are facing attacks on several different levels this autumn.
Firstly the goverment's Bill on the National Health Service published in November, will have wide reaching effects on women's already limited choice in their health care generally. For instance hospitals which have "opted out' will not be under any obligation to provide gynaccological services. The closure of Family Planning clinics means that more and more soon-to-be 'cash-limited" family doctors are taking on provision of contraception.
When it comes to medical advances that could benefit women, the control exercised by the multi-national drug companies is used to restrict our choice. RU486 has been under trial for about 7 years and is widely used by women in France. There can be no doubt that this treatment represents the biggest advance in abortion technology since the introduction of vacuum aspiration.
In France, the Socialist govemment overrode the decision by Roussel-Uclaf not to produce it in that country. Anti-abortionists have threatened a boycott of all that company's products if it is introduced in this country. The company are worried by this and are also influenced by the fact that the chair of the Boon-based parent company is himself anti-abortion.
Vigilante groups from the USA such as the Guardian Angels seem to be all the rage nowadays and the most recent ministering angels" to come over call themselves Operation Rescue. This is an outfit who call themselves 'urban terrorists" and who make it their business to terrorise women outside the abortion clinics.
Run by five men in the United States, this organisation indulges in what it calls "pavement counselling' - harassment of women seeking abortions in private clinies up and down the country. Officially the anti-abortion organisations in this country don't support them, but in practice individuals have been participating in these activities.
Pro-choice campaigners in Manchester and London have tried to organise other activites to show solidarity for women victimised by these fundamentalists. In the US itself, women have been organising through the National Organisation of Women (NOW) in massive, sucessful demonstrations against the organisation that they label "Operation oppress you".
As if all this wasn't enough to contend Page 6
FEATURES
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say M Q GILLICK RUVI
Fundamentalists don't give up easily: the bettle to defend abortion rights continues with, there is likely to be attempts to further restrict our abortion rights through parliament, following the Queen's Speech. It is likely that this speech will make mention of the proposed Embryo Research Bill, based on the 1984 Wamock Committee report.
In this Bill, MPs will be given a straight choice between
• Allowing in vitro fertilisation to continue, but banning use of the remaining embryos for research.
• Allowing IVF and embryo experimentation, but under the guidance of a Statutory Licensing Authority and for only up to 14 days.
Any medical advance which can help infertile women should be supported by feminists. The problem with the second proposal going before parliament is that the 14 day limit tends to give embryos some special status compared to other areas of research and could be used to enshrine "foetus' rights" in law. Whilst there may be a need for a Licensing Authority, the Labour Party and the Pro-choice lobby have pointed out that it all depends who would sit on such a body.
It is ironic but not surprising that a bill which should benefit women by enhancing their choice over whether or not to have children should have brought in its wake so may ideas and proposals which run counter to that. Ann Winterton MP, for example, is putting an Early Day Motion to restrict access to artificial insemination for lesbians and single women, and it is thought that such a proposal might be included in the bill.
There have also been rumours in the press that the govemment would consider allowing an amendment to the bill which would restrict women's aborion rights to a 24 week limit. These are only rumours and according to NAC (National Abortion Campaign) they may even
Tour podies our lives our right N
" to decide sa REVERSE THE have been put about by the anti-abortionists to up the ante in the debate. However the anti-abortionists are almost certainly planning amendments to the Embryo Bill along these lines - except that they will attempt to lower the limit still further, to 20 or 18 weeks.
The anti-abortionists are cynically using the debate around the Embryo Bill to raise the issue of 'foetus' rights' and the issue of viability as a way of restricting women's control over their own fertility. The viability of the foetus to survive with medical help outside the mother's uterus should not be used as a way of measuring the limits of women's choice. Her control over her body should be absolute. They must be halted in their tracks by the liveliest campaign that we can muster to oppose, these amendments - whether they are for 24, 20 or 18 week limits.
At its conference on 28/29 October NAC agreed to do this by setting up a special campaign dedicated to drawing attention to these points and defeating the anti abortion amendments in the first instance, whilst also opposing any other anti-woman amendments and proposals. The campaign will be launched on November 25.
The campaign against the anti-abortion amendments will undoubtedly be the major focus at the moment. But the conference also agreed to campaign on all the other many fronts on which our abortion rights are under attack. After almost fifteen years of campaigning for women's a