PRINTWORKERS at Revell and George/Queensprint have now been fighting for six months for re-instatement after being sacked for pursuing the GPMU print union's National Pay Claim.
The dispute escalated in July when mass pickets were successfully called to close down the printworks every Monday morning.
However, since July the dispute has been in stalemate. GPMU officials worried about injunctions from Revell and Georoe management pressurized the strikers from On October 9 over 1000 workers joined a demonstration in Manchester to support the sacked printers.
It finished with a rally outside Manchester Town Hall. Speakers included Tony Dubbins (GPMU General Secretary), a Timex striker, representatives from Revell and George, Arrowsmiths printwork strikers, Harvest printwork strikers and Sheila Gregory (LWAPC and Socialist Outlook). Sheila Gregory received the biggest round of applause after explaining their actions at Parkside Colliery.
Later There was a successful Socialist Outlook Open Forum meeting al the how to take the dispute forward.
The speakers included Phil Griffin (SMTUC Chair), Sheila Gregory and Geoff Southern (deputy FOC for the Revell and George dispute).
Anti-union laws
Fighting the anti trade union laws was a key issue for those at the meeting. Phil Griffin spoke about the SMTUC Day School held in Manchester on 24 October and resisting the anti union laws. Sheila Gregory explained how women have effectively stopped Parkside Pit from shutting.
A striker from the Harvest speaker from Revell and George said that they had yet to set up support groups. He explained that the day after being sacked they had formed a support group in Macclesfield to set the basis for general support in the area.
The lack of a support group for the Revell and George strike has been a major problem. The unwillingness of the FOC and deputy FOC to back any idea to set up a group reflects the politics of the SWP showing their inability to show any way forward - the only tactic being just stand at the picket line and raise money.
Contribution after contribuIon explained why support drawing on the experience of Miners Support Groups, Timex Support groups and a wide range of other disputes.
To get round the anti-trade union laws a Revell and George Support group can call mass pickets. The discussion was extremely fruitful and the deputy FOC at Revell and George agreed to discuss the issue with the ten strikers.
We need to make sure the support group proposal is turned into reality via further argument and our willingness to be part of it once established.
Without a support group it is difficult to envisage how the dispute can be escalated let alone won.
By Gerry Foley THE RECENT weeks have seen strong pressure from the "international community' - the US and the European Community - to force the Bosnian leadership into signing a peace agreement which would accept the partition of the country into three ethnically-defined areas.
But so far no peace deal has been signed. Whether or not a deal is signed soon, which now looks unlikely, the basic facts of the situation will not change. We can summarise them as follows:
• Peace is impossible on the basis of an ethnic division of Bosnia. The three communities cannot be disentangled without massive population transfers which would destroy the Bosniawwhich has existed for centuries.
There are three communities in Bosnia. They are not separated by language but only by different historical traditions. None of these ethnic communities is concentrated in a compact territory capable of surviving by itself.
Ethnic cleansing
This is the reason for the ethnic cleansing campaigns.
The Serbians historically predominated in large territories in eastern and western Bosnia. These two territories were divided by large areas where Croats and Muslims predominated.
The Muslims live mainly in large towns, but before ethnic cleansing they predominated in a large part of eastern Bosnia. Croats dominate in western and south-western Bosnia which is the basis of the Croat ethnic statelet, called 'Herceg-Bosnia'.
The great majority of the population live in ethnically-mixed areas. Thus 'peace' on a basis of ethnic division means a continuation of ethnic cleansing.
A peace treaty based on this will mean an indefinite continuation of local ANALYSIS clashes.
• The proposed settlement will involve increased intervention by the United States and its allies. The intervention will exacerbate the conflicts in Bosnia; the intervention of the West so far has been disastrous for the Bosnian people.
The imposition by the United States and its allies of an embargo on arms deliveries disarmed the Bosnia forces against the Serbians in particular.
• At the time the Serbs launched their attack on Bosnia, the Bosnians had no regular armed forces of their own. But the Serb chauvinists inherited the equipment of the old Yugoslav army, the eighth most powerful in the world.
This explains why the war in Bosnia has tended to take the form of prolonged sieges of cities. Serb chauvinists have been able to rain down artillery shells on cities and towns with virtual impunity, and to drive civilian populations away from their homes by mortar fire.
The stationing of US and UN forces in Bosnia with a mandate to guarantee implementation of a peace treaty will lead to their increasing involvement in conflicts on the ground.
Experience shows that the essential weight of the interventionist forces will come down on the side of the strongest regional power - that is, Serbia.
Imperialist intervention The United States and its allies would intervene - ostensibly to defend the victims of Serb aggression, but in reality to support its own policy aims. So far, the so-called peace-keeping forces have mainly clashed with Croats and Muslims.
Given these realities, what can be done to aid the beleaguered Bosnian people? The left has a responsibility to act on this question; and to do that it is necessary to make choices.
We have to reject the idea that all three Reactionary Serbian nationalism must be rejected utterly by Serbian working class Negotiating from weakness: Bosnian president Izetbegovic in more talks on carve-up contending parties share the blame for the conflict. The source of the war in Bosnia is Greater Serbian chauvinism.
This war became inevitable when the Serbian state leader Slobodan Milosevic proclaimed the goal of uniting all Serbs in one state.
That could only be done by wars of aggression against the other nationalities in the former Yugoslavia; it could only be accomplished by ethnic cleansing.
The socialist movement has developed a general principle for judging national conflicts. We support oppressed nationalities against oppressor nationalities.
The oppressor nation in the former Yugoslavia was the Serbians. They were also the oppressor nationality in the Yugoslav state which existed between Experience shows that the interventionist forces will come down on the side of the strongest regional power - Serbia World War I and World War II. Although the Yugoslav socialist revolution led to a weakened Serbian domination, Serbs still dominated the police and the army in particular. Socialists defend the victims of Serbian chauvinism. Of course, like anything in the real world, there are many complications in such broad definitions. Some nationalities are more oppressed than others; and some nationalities which are themselves oppressed oppress others. The Albanians were the most oppressed nationality in the old Yugoslavia. We are entirely opposed to Serbian nationalism, but Croatian nationalism, at first at least, represented a struggle against national oppression. We condemn the Croat leadership for breaking the alliance with the Bosnians. Not consistent In addition to condemning the Croatian rulers for not representing the interests of Croatian working people, we condemn them for not consistently defending the interests of the Croatian national struggle. On the other hand we condemn Serbian nationalism totally. In the case of the Serbians we appeal to Serbian working people to reject all forms of nationalism and focus on the common interests of all working people.
For this reason we also condemn the economic sanctions against Serbia applied by the United States and its allies, because their effect is to disorganise and impoverish the Serbian working class, and to weaken the Serbian antiwar movement.
The worst expression of narrow nationalism on the part of the leaderships of the non-Serbian peoples of the former Yugoslavia is the idea that a separate peace with Milosevic is possible.
This has enabled the Serbian chauvinists to oppress and attack peoples one by one, and it has even led the leadership of some victims of Serb aggression to try to make deals with Serbia at the expense of other victims - as in the case of Tudjman's recent alliance with the Serbs in The socialist movement fights for the unity of working people across national lines. But in order to prepare the way for that, it is necessary for the workers of oppressor nationalities to reject the oppression of other peoples by their own national leaders.
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK No. 51, October 30 1993, Page 7