Statement by the Israeli Revolutionary Action Committee Abroad said to rapresent the Palestinian Arat and the Israel-Palessine Sociafist Action Group.
The present hostilities in the Middle East are not accidental, They flow from the long-standing conflict between two sides -an the one hand political Zionism aiming to establish a mono-national Jewish state in Palestine (an objective realised in al Hance with imperialiami, and on the other sand, the present we Pake the previous. indigenous Palestinian Arab зворів, wars between Israel and the Arab States, in only an extension of that fundamental conflict, Whatever the circumstances surrounding the opening of bostilities, the basic re for the war lies with the leaders of the Zionist State, who have pursued throughout the conflict, and in particular since June 1967, a policy of tirritorial conquest and annexation, involving large-scale eviction and disposseasion af the Palestinian Arabs, It should be recalled that the present fighting is taking place over territories seized by Israel in On the opening side, this war is being fought by the Egyptian and Syrian regimes in order to regain lost territory and prestign, and to salvage their tattering authority at home. In no way can they be masses, the chief victims of Zionism, Sadat, the torturer of striking Egyptian workers and students, and Assad, whe only a few weeks ago closed down the Paleetinian radio station, are in no way entitled to speak for the Palestinian people All the evidencs suggests that these re gimes, which already demonstrated thei bankruptey once in 1967, are aiming only Set a trement which en be actiond First Report St beating to conditions Tor a piootic settlement under the auspices of imperia only at the expense of the Palestinians' interests.
in and mit ation he are from Chilean regimes and Zionist Israel on the same level, we hold that only a thorough-going social revolution, which will overthrow oth Zionism and the Arab regim alue the problems of the Arab Ea including the Palestinian problem. Via, wes and Arabs from larant an Europe, declare our solidarity with th Struggle of the Palestinian people against Israeli occupetion, and with thow Israeli socialists who refuse to take up arms for Zionism and are now being persecuted for their couragious stand.
In opposition to chauvinism, expansionism we uphold the principles of intarnationalem and revolutionary soci lism Left since the Coup : p.4-5 made or by daiming that the only hope is to start preparing for the next election in order to return a Labour Goverment Such arguments are false: the united power of the working class move. ment car defeat the Fories Pentonville 5 and the miners" strike proved that beyond doubt, To tell the working class that they are powerless and must sutter another 18 months of spiralling prices, frozen
On 14 September the management of Norton Villien Triamph (NVT) announced that their Meriden plant near Coventry was to be closed. making 1750 workers redundant.
This followed losses of El6 million over the last three years. It also came three months after the NVT group was formed, and received an injection of t4.8 million from the Department of Trade and Industry. According to Dennis Poore, chairman of Manganese Bronze, who took over the old BSA/Triumph group. this money was paid not just to maintain production but to increase it.
In fact Poore is engaged in a manoeuvre, He is shifting production to the Small Heath factory in Birmingham, and closing down the Meriden plant, where wage rates are higher. IMMEDIATE RESPONSE The reaction of the workers to the redundancy proposals was immediately to stop the move ment of all plant and completed motorcycies out of the factory. Round the clock pickets wete mounted to enforce this.
On Monday 8 October, Triumpli stewards called on workers from major engineering and struggle against redundancies, and 4000 marched factory, why should we have to pay for it car factories to march in support of their through the city centre to a rally. At this rally Leslie Huckfield, the Labour MP for Nuneaton, and the Transport and General Workers Union District Secretary, Bill Lapworth, put forward a dead-end scheme for the worken to buy the factory themselves. As John Fisher, ASTMS representative at Meriden, put it: "This is our The fight against the Tory Government and again"
It is not bad management but capitalist com petition which has squeezed out Triumph. If the workers buy the factory the high powered motor cycles they produce will still have to be sold on the world market, and they will come up against exacily the same problems, in a conference could become nothing more than a couple of years one group of workers would have the tragic task of sacking others, The way forward does not lie through a workers cooperative, but in making the capitalist class, either individually or collectively, pay the cost of preventing the redundancies.
At its national conference last week the Labour Party debated the nationalisation of major industries. This is what MPs such as Huckfield should be fighting for, instead of leading the workers up a blind alley. The fight to save the Meriden jobs must mobilise the widest possible support, around the demand for no redundancles, with the finance to keep the factory open to be obtained from the rest of the NVT group, from a levy on other capitalist enterprises by the Coventry Labour Council, of through At present the campaign will best be taken forward through meetings and demonstrations around the demand of nationalisation, with no redundancies, and under workers' control. The essential point is that the finance to stop the redundancies has to be obtained from the capitalist class. Fruitless schemes to put up trade union finance to buy the factory will only lead to demoralisation, Provided that a strong campaign is carried out, that delegations are sent from Triumph to every factory and every section of the Labour movement, that the transfer of materials is stopped, and other forms of action are prepared, then redundancy can be deleated.
John Mitchell and Chris Banner a body. At Footprint Tools in Sheffield strikers have been supported in face of violent The complexity of the wage regulations in Phase 3 of the Tory government's attack on the working class is no more than a facade designed too conceal their essential content. The stark fact is that the basic increase in pay permitted in Phase 3 is for most workers little different than under Phase 2 For anyone getting the average wage, the E1 plus 4 per cent formula of Phase 2 gives almost the same as the basic 7 per cent formula of Phase 3 or the alternative of 02,25. This cash alternative is designed according to the Tories to give larger increases to lower paid workers. What in fact it does is to allow increases higher than 7 per cent for workers in industries (or negotiating groups) where average wages are well below the national average. For lower paid workers in industries where the average wage is equal to or greater than the national average it offers no benefits whatever. They can only get more than proportionate in crosses if otber workers in the same industry take less than 7 per cent.