INSIDE
LCDTU - p.2 Centre Point-p.3 strong state-pp.6&7 The capitalist legal machine, having ground out its ruthless justice For six building workers in the Shrewsbury case, has now started on its accond batch of victims.
Meanwhile the three buikling workers sentenced to jail terms in the firse trial have been granted leave to appeal, but ane being kept inside while the courts argue the toss about whether or not to give them buit.
The buiking of a mom movement_lo free the three, reverse the verdacts and stop the trials is now one of the most cracial tasks facing the workers" move. MEnL A victory in this light can do nore than simply defend the long-estah LICE CENTEN trade unionists in this country, It can provide a rallving poin around which the trade undon rank-and file can begin to unite its forces and link up its struggles, with the possibility of forcing a full-scale counter-offensive a gainst the Tory Government.
This makes tha upooming conderence on Shrewsbury called by the Liverpool Trades Concil of double importance. lt must receive massive support from all councils, union branches, shop stewards Slueusbury Delence Committees as possible being represented. But the convening of an impressive con Terence Will not force TOTH:S retreat. The Conference must initiate dechive action to back the Shrewshury inititanta, Over the past few weeks Communist Party trade unic miliants contented themseives with mague calls to the official leadership. If these policies win out at Liverpool it will be a disaster. The Liverpool Conference must give a decisive lead. To ensuro this a campaign muat be bunched to seod delegates to the Liverpool Conference pledged to support a resolution along the following lines:
1. This Conference calls for industrial action by all workers, during the appeals, to free the Shrewsbury 3, reverse the convictions, and stop the trials.
*2. It supports all moves towards indelinite national strike action in the building trade.
3. In the event of an indefinite national building strike the conference calls for indefinite solidarity strikes by all other sections of the trade union movement.
Only on the basis of such a policy can tie Shrewsbury struggle go forward. The campaign around this resolution should go beyond union militants, stewands anc branch activists Maa labletting shou he organised, and mass site, plant and factory gate meetings held in every are to discuss the case, tho way forward, and the clection of delegates The Editoral Board of Building Wor kers Charter will be meeting to diseuss case in Manchesder this Satunday, This body has the power to set the soone for the Liverpool Conference Birmingiam UCATT shop stewards with backing the lead already ghen by their call for an indefinite strike in the building trade. If Charter took up this call it would be guareneed a national anpact. Bet the previous behaviour of CI militants does not encourage oplantism: in any event the decisions made by Charter will he a clear test of how committed the CP a to a serious fight in defence of the Shrewsbury workers.
The Sheesmur Conference as beig held on Seturday, 2 Februsty in St. Georee'y Hall, Iterpont Credentiris and further information an De obatined from: Simon Fraser, LTC Secretary, 33 Herion Gardens, Liverpool 3 /Tel: 051-236-1778.
with a one the pe tone patin We don't want to antagonise those in leadership The rank-and-file and the leadership SHEFFIELD WORKERS DISCUSS THE WAY FORWARD do-nothing line.
*They refused to publicly condemn the TUC-Government talkes.
of the miners struggle, out strike to free the Shrewsbury 3.
*They staked everything on keeping the car of the left trade union bureaucrats.
The Liaison Committee, which is the main mouthpiece of the Communist Party in the trade unions, was meeting in the midst of the mos sonous cass contromagons since ne war. The TUC is busy throwing the movement into utter confusion, The LCDTU should have come up with a clear and decisive plan of action, but on all the major issues of the day it only added The meeting refused to condemn the TUCGovernment talks, despite the campaign of opposition to the talks in the Morning Star They merely demanded that the TUC should stop participating in any talks which result in acceptance of Phase 3.
BASEST OPPORTUNISM One delegate called for the rejection of talks with the Government unless it is willing to scrap Phase 3 and release the Shrewsbury 3, Jim Hiles replied by saying: We do not want to antagonise those in leadership who have fraternal relations been a "long hard struggle' to reach a position where we have the car of some of the leaders.
So out of the basest opportunism towards the left bureaucrats, the LCDTU is not going to cad a rent to puran chu to toe talks and block the TUC's outright treachery, In addition, they refused to condemn the TUC for failing to The TUC must gire meaningful support to the miners, to smash Phase 3, to bring down the Governmany are sieur a Labour cravernment pecceed to so must polis new were ine words with which Dick Caborn, comenot of Firth Brown, ended the lanuary, called by three of the most innorton nop rewards commitoes in the area. The meeting nad been designed to gwe a platfoon to the miners and to suppott all worcers linting Phase 3 Two days earlier anotner woolicial meeting had taken place, Without backing from important shop stewands committees, this meeting had been called at the initiative of the Sheffiekd IMG, in an attempt to organse support tor the Shrewsbury hosking workers. A handful of convenors from the local pawaig and enginceung mdustrs, a dozen or so shop stewards, together with some some to 60 "They endorsed Scanion's postponement of the Engineering pay claim until after the settlement *They ignored the call of the Birmingham UCATT Joint Shop Stewards Committee for an allprovide a lead over Shrewsbury, Phase 3 etc.
The meeting also rejected an attack made by one delegate on the AUEW decision to go for an overtime ban rather than a national strike, and went on to endorse Scanion's decision to postpone the AUEW struggle until after the "crisis"
was over, even though this means shifting the whole weight of the struggle against Phase 3 and the Tory Government onto the miners" shoulders. The AUEW's decision to abandon the struggle for their pay claim in favour of a struggle solely around 5 days work or 5 days pay, was held to be justified because the "3-day week put the shop floor onto the defensive". sip until the Will became an Act. And we had precisely the same thing with the May Day strike against the OFFICIAL AND UNOFFICIAL Hut the Tuesday meeting did not lie up to its potential. Only 80 people attended-barely 10 more Than had been pachered on Sunday by the tiny forces of the IMG. An array of four odlebrity speakers talked for so long that it was not possible to have speakers from the floor, let alone use the meeting to map out DETEC Duons when incants in the srea could The cause of this failure is to he sought in the Incorrect ideas of the organisers about the relationship betwoon the official and unofficial movements. All Hiree convenors see the cod far unofficial action, but they conceive of the unorfic lal movement OF course! Putting the shop Noor onto the defensive" was one of the things which the Government intended to do with its 3-day week. That is why the AUEW should have taken the offensive. The 3-day week was not an act of God, It was an act of the Tory Government designed to divide the workers movement. The AUEW decision has left the miners struggle isolated and the engineers' fight seriously weakened, LIVERPOOL CONFERENCE This refusal to fight against the line of the burenocracy -w'os also seen in the discussion on the forthcoming Liverpool Trades Council conference on Shrewsbury, A delegate from the shop stewards recently passed a resolution calling for indefinite strike action in the building icy of the LCDTU (recall of the TUC: 5 days trade, proposed that the LCDTU call for the Liverpool conference to initiate industrisl action in support of such a strike and undertake to spread such action to other industries.
But the Birmingham resolution was ignored by the LCDTU, as it has been by the Morning Star. Instead they want the Liverpool Conference to "campaign' to get the 1875 Act repealed, the mobilisation of the working cinss and to get pledges of support, and to demand cle release of the 3. Any real action must, it seems. depend on the TUC and Parliament. The Conference must simply try to commit the Labour Party to the repeal of the Act, and the TUC should be recalled in order that (unspecified) industrial action should be called The CP refuses to fight for the policies which are necessary to defeat the Tories, They should have campaigned for a national strike in the AUEW and the NUM, and fought for an alliance between the AUEW, the NUM and ASLEF against Phase 3. The failure of the CP to do so is directly responsible for the present situation in which the TUC are able to get away with barefaced treachery in the struggle against who have fraternal relations with the LCDTU? the Gosernment, It is this same policy of allianc with the bureaucracy which now leads the CP ro run for cover in the midst of the crisis. The one struggle, with the exception of the miners pay claim, which could break the deadlock is the Shrewsbury campaign, which has been going out in the building industry for nearly a year Yet up and down the country the CP (with the exception of some CP shop stewards in Binning ham), has opposed calls for strike action in the building trade, and instead proposes only one-day protests until the TUC can be badgered into action.
ELECTORALISM The CP justifies its opportunism by appeals building industry in Birmingham, where UCATT to electoralism and to the alleged backwardness of the working diass. Crowning the general polwork or 5 days pay; full support for miners, ASLEF and other sections in struggle) is the call for a peneral election with the return of Labour pledged to end the 1875 Act, the Incomes Policy, and the Industrial Relations Act, The CP sees this as an alternative to stepping up the industrial struggle, It is nol its organisations against the capstalist state which is their objective, but the return of a progressive Labour Crovernment", opening the way to an electoral alliance with the Communist Party.
Coupled with this is the cry repeated at Birminghim that the working class is not ready for action, Instead what is required is further campaigns of education and propaganda.
The CP do not distinguish between the present consciousness of the working class about the need to struggle against the Tory Government and its understanding of the pructical steps necessary to get that struggle under way, It is true that there is some confusion about the intter, produced in ao small measure by the CP itself, but the workers movement remains undefeated. What is needed is for some section of the class to give a lead by taking up a determined struggle.
The Birmingham LCDTU meeting offered nothing lo the working class, and was sulely a means for the CP to cover its tracks, and to prepare to lay the blame for inaction on tle rank-and-file, AND
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On every single issue facing the working ciass today the Liaison Committee for the Defence of the Trade Unions meeting in Birmingham last Saturday, (19 (January), came out with a rightwing.
meeting votes for right-wing,do-nothing line
WE ARE FOLK LE