The Troops Out Movement National Coordinating Committee met last weekend in Birmingham and adopted a To coon Pity anne for te neat The main project over the next period will be the building of a labour movement conference on the rom of the Labour Government it Ireland, and what the British labour movement needs to do in the developing situation in the Six Counties, This confervice would be called as a propagaida counterblast to the projected Constitutional Convention.
Leading up to this cheve will be a whole series of local conferences hased on the labour movement. Already, it was reported, conferevices are projected in Glasgow, Birmingham, and Wear London.
In the meantime there wiN de demos called on the anversary of Bloody Sunday in January. These wil be built BOLT CHIJ All over the North vehicles were hijacked and sat on fire in protest at Coney's death twice as many as last year-organised by AUEW (TASS). In the workshop discussions many of the women felt that although TASS has done more than other unions in taking up some of the issues affecting women, we are still a long way from the situation where women members are able to play an equal part in the activities of the union.
no provision for their special problems in getting to meetings or for child care during meetings. Ironically there were no creche facilities provided for women attending the school.
One major question which the school tackled was, given the inadequacy of the Equal Pay Act, how de we get real equal pay? It was clear from expericnces quoted that the usetulness of job evaluation is far greater to employers seeking to avoid equal pay, than to women fighting for it. A rule of thumb for assesame ot was sugpested: "What would a man be paid for this job?, which, it was agreed, is no real answer in obs mainTy occupied by women, as a man's sape would simply be pulled down. General rules of thumb, it was argued, can leave as many loopholes as the Act itself, and the only people who can decided what is equal pay in a given situation are the women involved, It is therefore behind their decisions that a union must put its weight.
The need to link equal pay with the characteristic low pay of wollen was stressed which means a fight for a suhstantial minimum wage for all work ers, with an automatic siding scale of increases to defend real wages against inflation. One sister objected that this interfered wtih the principle of of the class.
Although TASS is keen to recruit women, it often ignores them or makes would not have been particularly the rest of society solidanity activities. oppression of women. can be more of a principle for the working cluss than saying: "So long as we do not rule society, we will not pay for the cconomic crisis of those who do; and so long as some sections of the labour movement are stronger than others, we want their victories to be applied to the whole If the school had limited itself to the traditiona! trade union prov ince of wages and conditions, it useful. What it was able to do instead was to bepin to look at women's pos ition in the home and family, which largely determines their position in TOKENISM But to what extent & TASS sup port for the struggles of women mere tokenism? All-out support for the AUEW women who struck for equal pay at Salford Electrical Instruments would have done more good than ten National Schools The union bureaucracy did not even ask its members if they were prepared to contribute to a financial levy, or engage in blacking and other This is not an isolated incident which the union overlooked'. Why b it that TASS bas made no moves to make that support meaningful by backing the Charter Campaign. The importance of the campaign is that it goes heyond the narrow official channels of trade union act ivity, yet TASS and ocher unions try to place it squarely back within that Iramework, thus blowing up the bridge between the women's liberation movement and militants in all unions whose combined strength is the key to a real fight apainst the