Workshops on • Strategies for defending jobs.
• Welfare cuts and the unemployed • Unemployment and the defence in|dustry •Global unemployment Registration and annual Network membership £10/£5. Further details and credentials from SCG Network, 3, Blades House, Kennington Oval, London SE11 TW AS LABOUR councillors across the country emerge from the 'euphoria' of the election results and begin to grapple with the reality of trying to deliver adequate services in the grip of Tory local government legislation come two timely conferences for Labour activists.
The call has come from two camps to renew the struggle for socialist policies in the Labour party. The Socialist Campaign Group Network Conference on Full Employment on June 11 begins the process.
On June 25 Tribune hosts the 'What's Left Summer Conference' at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London.
In a marked break with the 'shut up, don't rock the boat, wait for a Labour government' new realist school of thought, John Edmonds General Secretary of the GMB will address the conference.
The platform for the conference calls for Labour to present 'a radical socialist alternative to 15 years of free market stagnation' to the electorate at the next general election. Edmonds will attend conference The conference aims to promote 'political debate at all levels because the regeneration of the Party is a primarily political not merely and organisational process.
The topics for debate will be: the role of the left within the Labour Party; the regeneration of the Labour Party, a return to full employment and the future of the welfare state.
In addition to Edmonds the conference speakers are Peter Hain MP, Michael Meacher MP, Dawn Primarolo MP, Alan HOME NEWS Simpson MP, Roger Berry MP and John Prescott MP.
This is an opportunity for the left to argue for those breaking from the new realist bloc to turn their fighting words into action.
We must begin the fight now to defend the welfare state and return to full employment by supporting all those public sec..da...
tor workers in local government, the NHS, education and the civil service who continue to bear the brunt of Tory attacks.
Activists in the Labour Party will be reinvigorated in the wake of the local and European election results and these two conferences present a welcome opportunity to begin a fight for socialist policies in the run up to the general election.
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK No.62, May 14 1994, Page 6