The letter we print below is the first shot in the next big battle in the class war in Britain. Heath's government have placed most of their eggs in the Incomes Policy basket. Success is vital; the ruling class cannot accept another defeat at the hands of mass workers' action. Incomes policy is an economic kick in the teeth to the working class, but more than that, it is a political test of the balance of forces in society. The ruling class cannot afford to have the question of "who rules" - raised again. Heath knows all this and will not be appearing on the stage exactly naked. First, anyone fighting Incomes Policy faces a barrage of carefully prepared propaganda. Trade Unionists taking up the struggle "will be fighting against the O.A.P.'s, low paid and housewives". Secondly, most of the best organised sections of the trade union movement have their claims timed for February, March onwards. Traditionally weak groups, like the hospital workers, can (it is thought) be defeated easily. Thirdly, the hospital workers face an attack on the basis that they have abandoned the sick anyway. All this can sow confusion in many sections of the working class.
Against this, the hospital workers' claim can and must be used to rally working class oppoon to the Freeze. Class-wide solidarity action at be developed -and that demands classwide organisation, not reliance on the bureaucracy. Trade unionists everywhere must demand an emergency conference of the LCDTU to organise such action now.
NATIONAL COMMITTEE OF STEWARDS FOR HEALTH WORKERS 122 Sinclair Road, London W14 ONL Dear Brothers and Sisters, As you may have heard, health service workers are organising at rank and file level to put an end to a situation where low levels of unionisation and activity have led to many N.H.S. workers struggling to exist below the Governments official poverty time.
We have been galvanised into action by:(a) an abysmally low claim of 54 put in by the official union negotiators. (b) the impossibility of gaining any increase as long as the freeze is allowed to last. Under pressure from widespread militant activity in support of an £8 claim our leaders have called a national half day strike of all ancillary workers on Wednesday, December 13th. We feel that this is not enough to shake the government, and so at a national conference of stewards on December 3rd, we decided to convert this action into a 24 hour strike with demonstrations whereever we can, and to plan a week of militant action from December 29th to January 4th. We see this as not just in pursuit of our sectional interest, but as the first major blow of the Labour Movement against the freeze. Therefore we call on all other sections of workers to join us in our struggle to smash the freeze. Alone we cannot successfully take on this government. United working class action can and must. If you cannot join us on strike on the 13th, motions of solidarity and donations (cheques payable to L.A.S.H.) will be gratefully received if sent to me at the above address.
Finally, we apologise in advance for any inconvenience our actions will cause to Trade Unionists and their families but we have learnt through bitter experience that we have no other way of making our voice heard. However, we shall be maintaining emergency services, provided that the management do not bring in "volunteers", Le. scabs.
Yours fraternally, J. M. Palmer. (Acting Secretary) The passing by the Dublin Parliament of the draconian Offences Against the State (Amendment) Act, 1972, marks a crucial turning point in the struggle in Ireland.
Unable to win the war in the Six Counties, British imperialism calls in its second guarantor, the Dublin Green Tories. By launching an all-Ireland offensive, they are attempting to smash the Northern Resistance with a stab in the back from the Vichyite regime in the South. Whitelaw's regime understands that unless it can, in the next two to three months, destroy the resistance and the will to vietary of the Catholic population in West Belfast - the epic centre of the struggle — the whole strategy for dealing with the Irish situation will be threatened.
FAILURE The IRA have now succeeded in launching massive daylight attacks, using the RTG-7 rockets, the most advanced armaments they have yet used. This, coupled with the spread of the struggle to the central areas of the Six Counties away from both the border and the two main cities, those areas where the Catholics have up to now been relatively quiescent underlines the failure of the British Army to crack the command structure and support organisation of the IRA.
These attacks upset the delicate tightrope that Whitelaw was walking, as the British Army tries desperately (sic) to saturate and suffocate West Belfast, before morale in its own ranks cracks up or the Labour Party's bi-partisan policy on Ireland comes to an end. The end of Labour's bi-partisan policy, i.e. a refusal by Labour to support the present repression, would open the flood-gates of latent frustration and despair over Ireland in the British Working class and give rise - not, at first, to a mass solidarity movement - but to a mass "Bring Our Boys Home" movement which would objectively for a limited period aid the Irish people.
There have been three important indicators to date of the disintegration of morale in the British Army. Firstly, as reported in the last issue of The Red Mole, a tremendous drop in the British Army recruitment and re-enlistment to be replaced probably by Defence Minister figures. Secondly, the decision by 30 N.C.O.s and long serving veterans of the 2nd Battalion of the Paras to buy themselves out of the Army rather than face another tour duty in Ireland. Thirdly, another unit of the British Army was only persuaded to go for a third tour of duty in Ireland when 27 "agitators" were given cushy postings in Hong Kong. On bi-partisanship, there have been signs that Wilson, looking at British opinion polls, and aware that the overwhelming majority of British people want the withdrawal of British troops from Ireland, has been manoeuvring to place himself in a position from which he can take electoral advantage of this feeling. His "The Great British Public will not tolerate... speech last week-end at Huyton was only one pointer. Another indication has been the strident calls by James Wellbeloved, the Labour M.P., to "Bring Our Boys Home". Political observers are well aware that Mr. Wellbeloved is acting in this as a stalking horse for the Labour leader.
DECISIVE BLOWS All these factors mean that, if Whitelaw is to win, decisive blows have to be struck against both the morale and the apparatus of the Northern resistance.
The blows in the South do both.
They have the added advantage of challenging the Provisionals at their weakest point. To achieve this, it was necessary to force Lynch into action. This was achieved by threats and promises.
The threat was that if Lynch did not come to the aid of the British, and the British Army morale started cracking, Whitelaw would fall, Carrington, and a policy of total confrontation, which would probably have been followed by another truce.
Either a truce or blatant and open repression would have been a threat to Lynch and the Fianna Fail Party, as the events in the South after Bloody Sunday plus the tremendous enhancement of the status of the Provisionals after the summer ceasefire showed. The promise was that if Lynch helped Heath, in cracking the resistance, there would be a place for Fianna Fail in the future governing of Northern Ireland.
To fulfil his part of the deal, Lynch had to Volunteers of an Active Service Unit of the IRA try out their latest weapon, the RTG-7 Rocket. (Picture: Colman Doyle panic the people in the South into the belief that the violence of the North was going to spread South in a wave of irrational and meaningless terror bombings, which could lead to a second civil war. For half of the population of the South of Ireland, who like the Spanish people, have seen a civil war in their own lifetime, this in itself was a frightening thought. This is the political significance of the three "mysterious" bombings which rocked Dublin, and conveniently gave the Fine Gael Party the chance to do a volte face and abstain in Parliament, thus allowing the draconian legislation through.
In fact the only mystery about the bombings is whether they were conceived in Park Gate St., (the Headquarters of the Irish Secret Service) or in Queen Anne's Gate (Headquarters of the British Secret Service).
FAR FROM OVER In all this, Lynch has been successful to date. But the battle is far from over.
In 1927, the Cumann na nGaedhael Party bought in a similar measure. A couple of years later, they were gone in a storm, never to return to governmental power. Since then there has been successful anti-IRA legislation passed. It is important that this is born in mind because it is important to contradict the middle class liberal myth that repression never works. It is equally important to combat the notion that this repression necessarily will work. The number of strikes, protest meetings, pickets and demonstrations that greeted the arrest of Mac Stiofain and the introduction of the new legislation, which was a 100 times greater than (To page 8)