After two months of struggle, pressure is now mounting from rank and file gas workers for the escalation of the fight.
The gas workers have replied to the violent press campaign point by point. The Gas Board's huge cut backs in recent years have produced an average of two gas explosions per week before the strike. When an area is pulled out on strike, standby emergency crews ensure that pressure does not drop too quickly; seven days notice of cuts is being given; and house to house checks by gas workers ensure that the switch off is effective. The whole furore about the gas workers being "killers' is nothing more than an attempt to whip up violence against the rank and file.
SPECIAL CASE?
But the press campaign has been used by the General and Municipal Workers' Union leadership as a pretext for dodging the task of leading the fight to smash the freeze through mass industrial action by millions of workers. Instead, their strategy is to tind some loophole through which gas workers can be steered, ending the dispute in some imaginary area of 'independent bargaining. Strike action they see as gestures of protest, nothing MOIC. They insist that gas workers are a 'special case After all, haven't they, the leaders, co-operated with the Gas Board, increasing productivity by 200% over 2 years, at the cost of 22,500 redundancies? Isn't the Gas Board the only state enterprise making a profit? And hasn't it provided cheaper gas to industry, thus improving the profits of the captialists? *There should be some flexibility for dealing with cases of special merit. Every period of restraint prior to this has allowed for examination of special problems", says G&M leader Basnett. But we ask Mr. Basnett: how is he helping to win the sympathy of the working class if he endorses pay restraint for everybody else except his own men? The TUC, frightened by the prospect of the gasmen leading the biggest strike wave since | 1926, has itself been protesting loudly. But Heath has already told them that their protests are useless. Special case?, says Heath; but everyone these days is a special case. If we allow special cases, the policy would be ruined. Set up an inquiry? But my dear chaps, the Pay Board is already going to look into these cases you say are so special, and then award the suitable increases in the autumn. Expand the economy? But look here, the economy is expanding, and your industrial action can only damage this expansion. Keep down food prices with market subsidies? But we can't control the world market, now can we?
WILSON'S FAIRY WAND In the face of the rapidly rising strike movement, what do the 'political leaders of the working class have to say? They have seized on Basnett's line, hoping to break the back of the movement.
Wilson first tried to defuse the movement by appealing to the Government to set up the Pay Board before Phase 2 has gone through Parliament, to deal quickly with the gas men. If this is a bit too unconstitutional, call it a "Royal Commission' instead, suggested Wilson. After all, what the gas workers needed was a "bit of magic", as he so eloquently put it in cer to menne commusion woule have no powers, but the satin and leather might just do the trick. The working class is supposed to be impressed with things like that.
Edward Short, Deputy Leader of the LP expressed the root of this contempt: "I do hope the (Tory) policy of combatting inflation succeeds for the sake of Britain, and also because 1 do not want the Labour Party to come back to power in a situation which is already much more menacing than in 1964". What is this menace? The initiatives of the millions of workers, this is the "menace"
PRACTICAL MEASURES What measures can the gas workers themI selves take to broaden the strike, measures which are urgently necessary but which the leaders are obviously not going to initiate because of their fear of the movement? If there is one thing the Government knows, it is this: you must combine propaganda with practical measures. It is not enough to denounce the hospital workers as killers, if you want to serve the interests of the ruling class, you send circulars to regional hospital boards explaining how to mobilise prisoners, schoolchildren and army personnel to do volunteer work in the hospitals so as to break the strike. You don't just send a letter to the gasmen pointing out the physical dangers of their action, you mobilise the charities to help the aged and sick so as to win them over to your side against the gas You might even organise the odd gas explosion if you can get away with it. Since the object is to hit the Gas Board and the Government, and not the old and sick, what measures does Basnett propose, especially now that the workers are forced to shut off the gas altogether in many towns this week? He suggests a leaflet, a leaflet which gasmen switching off supplies can push into the householders hands, or shove through their letter boxes. This is all very well. But it is not enough. The initiatives of Liverpool and Newcastle offer a way forward here. NEXT PRACTICAL STEP Shop stewards could approach all the tenants committees and associations on the housing estates affected by gas cuts in their area. To the assembled tenants, the gas workers could directly explain their case, and appeal for support on the grounds that the time, has come for everybody to stand up and fight the DEBATING CHAMBER, LEEDS UNIVERSITY UNION, 10 MARCH 1973, 10am-7pm Speakers: Tariq Ali, Malcolm Caldwell, Lek Hor Tan (Cambodian Representative) and VISITOR/DELEGATE 10p Government's policies together.
The tenants committees could ensure that, with the aid of the gasmen, the safety measures could be put into effect on the estate. The old and infirm could be catered for by the organised tenants and workers themselves. What is more, if the Labour Party claims to stand for the interests of the working class, then let the Labour Councils turn over the funds which they keep for just such emergencies as this, to the tenants' organisations to use as they see fit. After all, the tenants know better than the Town Hall what the heating needs of the old and sick on their estates actually are. It is the isolation and lack of practical perspective which has been responsible in the past if these groups have got demoralised and turned their eyes to the Government. The organised initiatives of millions can easily overcome these difficulties. CONFRONTATION The gasmen are unlikely to win on their own. The co-ordination of the existing strikes is necessary. The leaders are not going to do it, therefore the rank and file must set about it by holding regional conferences of all workers against the freeze at which detailed proposals for extending the movement can be WORKCE OUR But such a movement has to organise the mass of the population in support as well. The organisation of the housing estates which is necessary at this very moment to strengthen the gas strike is precisely one of the steps the workers need to take to organise the masses for the major confrontation which is necessary and which the bureaucracy is trying to prevent.
YORKSHIRE INDOCHINA SOLIDARITY CONFERENCE Trade Union speakers For tickets or further details write to: 1A, PARK HOLME, HAREHILLS AVE. LEEDS 8
The Elections: Statement by the Political Committee of the Revolutionary Marxist Group This issue of The Red Mole goes to press before the results of the Irish election are known. An analysis of these results will be carried in the next issue