Power men face crucial weekend

IF THE Torý government s forced to resien bu the united mass action of the rade unzon movement, uhat will happen then? What will we put in its NHAT HAPPENS after the Tories are forced out will not be decided primarily in The essential question ment that the mass movement working class can be mobilized to drive the Tories predominant factor in what and this will the replaces them.

But it is already obvious that the Labour leaders fear this mass movement just as much as the Tories do; so when a Labour government réplaces the Tories, will they they worka carry the Che struggle against the treacherous reformist leaders will have to be carried through to the very end.

However, the Labour leaders will not come back in the same circumstances in which and were elected in 1964 The Tories are forced to try and take away every basic right, every hard-won. gain from the working class: full employment, -and welfare services, council housing at reasonable rents, trade union and democratic The first and only question before the government which replaces the Tories will be:

how to restore these rights and these gains!

As the Charter:of Basic Rights deteated and restored be only by decisive inroads into the property and power of the capitalist class.

Workers will have to occupy neer platories to ensure closures. Banks will have to be nationalized to contro Building cies, and he butine and:

eties, will have to lie nationaliżes.

under workers' ContrOl.

housing is to be guaranteed to the working class.

The forcese of the ruling stass democratic rights will have be fought and defeated.

It is these tasks which the mass movement will pose to Labour When promotes Labour Party, it is not be cause he is contemplating socialist he hopeshe but left' cause face will give working class the illusion that their demands can be satisfied in parliament.

But every one of the questions before the working class is a question of the power of the organized working class not of simply a few parlia mentary measures. The emand isso mat the to demand now Labour and trade leaders mobilize the whole it is why we must fight for movément.

all the poicy demands the Charter of Basic Rights to unite all sections of the working class, low-paid and well-paid, housewives and trade unionists, youth and adult, for a programme of expropriating the Capitalist class.

Consequently the bringin down of the Tories woul be the beginning of a new and much more advanced stage of the struggle.

The ruling class vould the hope to use betrayals an deceptions by the reformists to prepare a rapid change an ultra-right Tory redecisive struggle on basi and there would bel questions of a socialist gramme, and against right-wing reaction inside the trade union and labour movement.

In this struggle, the Socialis Labour League and the All Trades Unions Alliance will fighting The next Labour government mark the therefore of the most FREEDOM FOR FOR THE IRANIAN WEI ' IRAN 7-15 OPLE IMME IRAN WEEK 7-15 DEC jT1T-17 j'ul dies ABOUT 20 Iranian students went on hunger strike in Trafalgar Square yesterday against the trial in Teheran of five political opponents of the Shah, who face death if found gulity. The Iranian regime has refused two Labour MPs visas to observe the proceedings. Kremlin 'conciliation' strengthens Nixon's PRESIDENT Nixon issued a brutal warning yesterday that US bombers will smash N Vietnam supply lines and military targets if Liberation Front troop build-ups continue in the South.

He made it clear he has no intention of stopping reconnaissance flights over N Viétnam and would order destruction of missile sites and supporting facilities if the aircraft were attacked.

He could foresee no circumstances, he added, under which American ground troops would be sent to help the Lon Nol government. But he defended US military aid to ALTHOUGH no power-industry settlement was retreating from their members' £5 16s pay claim.

WE DEMAND POLITICAL FREEDOM !, REZA DEFERO THE ONE attacks Cambodia and said it was 'a wise investment', not an escalation of the war.

Nixon also took a hard line on the Middle-East conflict, openly disagreeing even with Jordanian King Hussein, who called on Thursday for unconditional Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories.

Us policy, Nixon hinged on the 1967 United Nations resolution. With-It is similar to the kind of retreat made by the Transport and General Workers' Union on the docks and -together with other unionsat GKN-Sankeys after the Tories came to power.

The union chiefs' first aim will be to persuade their members to follow the Electrical Power Engineers' Association's example yesterday in calling off their threatened work-to-rule. Effects of the manual workers' five-day-old IAMNI action have clearly scared union chiefs more than they have the Tory government.

They hope to achieve a return to normal working on the basis of the Feather formula hailed in yesterday's 'Morning Star' as a victory for the power workers.

"The fact that a meeting is taking place is a tribute to the strength and militancy of the power workers and a rebuff to the government's attempts to intimidate them,' said the 'Star' editorial.

It went on:

•.. it is the government which is being taught a lesson. The workers have proved that. militancy is the only thing that pays. continuation will bring them victory.' Here we have the 'Star' which originally supported the £l0 demand by militant power workers, giving a political cover to what is the first step to retreat masterminded by Victor Feather.

But what is the great concession the power workers' leaders wanted from the Electricity Council in yesterday's 'talks about talks'?

Concession?

Only that if talks take place the Council should promise not to rule out an improved pay offer.

Concession? It would surely be hard to imagine any talks between unions and management that did not include provision for "improved offers'.

The union side of the industry's national joint council will meet again tomorrow to discuss what IU secretary Frank Chapple says is a 'marginal change' in the employers' offer.

The unions hope this will be followed by a long period of haggling while men in the stations cool-down and are generally softened - up to accept a few bob on the existing f2 offer.

general secretary.

Thursday acted as unpaid medium between the rightdrawal was 'a matter for wing union leaders of the negotiation'. power workers, the governNixon is able to take this ment and the Electricits Council. hard foreign policy line because of the continuing rapprochement between US im- is born from the fear that the erialism and the Kremlin power workers' struggle will escalate into a major conureaucracy.

He made this plain at his frontation with the governconference when he spoke about the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) now contrast with those of the going on in Helsinki: the US employers and government. and the Soviet Uhion were very far apart at the talks, not quite as concerned about he said, but he thought the the work-to-rule. most significant aspect of their relations was that they backed by the Confederation Nothing less than £5 16spower demand LONDON power workers yesterday left no room for doubt on their determination not to allow union leaders to settle for less than their full £5 16s claim.

TOM CHAMPION, joint shop stewards committee chairman at Fulham power station, told us: "The claim is such that nothing less than £5 will do.

It's geared up so nothing less is acceptable. "It has to be met in full.

We'll work-to-rule for 12 months.

Entitled 'If a man with two children worked Monday to Friday, he would be entitled money under the new Tory "poor law". 'Our case stands up for examination by anybody. 'The power men can win because all we're doing is going to work, doing normal work and not doing excessive duties or hours. It's not true that we're going slow.

Rumours Another Fulham shop steward, JAMES. ROME, an engineering union member, spoke of rumours that union leaders may bring back a £3 offer: 'I myself feel that £3 would definitely not be acceptable. 'We've fought for long enough for what we're asking and I feel we're entitled to £5 l6s considering the high productivity that we've given.? • THOMAS KING, a Fulham toolstore worker, said: 'My opinion is the dockers But the most remarkable feature in these early stages of manoeuvre has been the frantic activity of the TUC He was the man who on Make Jan 12 General Strike -Ford men His desire for compromise A RESOLUTION passed by Ford's 1/667 Transport and General Workers' branch has called on the union's execuFeather's activities are in tive to make January 12 an official stoppage.

The branch committee is to The Tories are undoubtedly circularize its entire membership of four-and-a-half thousand with resolution, Their stand so far has been which also calls for a campaign on 'the TUC general council to make January 12 a one-day general strike'.

THE BRITISH Communist Party leaders fully supported by the British CP.

When during the Nazl-Soviet peace pact Stalln handed over Jewish members of the German Communist Party who had escaped to the Soviet Union, after Hitler came to power In 1933, to Hitler's SS, the leaders of the British CP were silent.

No one has given such wholehearted support to Stalin as Bert Ramelson, present Industrial organizer of the CP.

This man, together with the rest of the older leaders of the Party, has complete contempt for the history of the international working class. • Behind the scenes he has continuously conjured up mountains of lles against the Trotskylst movement.

In the old days he was foremost in calling us agents of Hitler and fascism. Now he lyingly denounces our members who has never done anything in the working-class movement, apart from licking Stalin's boots.

On Tuesday, December 8 during the anti-union laws demonstration Ramelson organized a deliberate provocation against the Workers Press. We, here, are publishing a copy of the letter we sent to John Gollan, secretary of the CP.

This matter Is not going to be allowed to rest. The days when Ramelson could get away with such Stalinist lles are over. His contemptible action Is a measure of the bankruptcy of the Industrial policy of the CP which refuses to fight for the resignation of the Tory government.

We ask our readers to join with us to fight against the scourge of StallinIsm, which is once again ralsing its head, and thereby coming to the assistance of the most reactionary forces in Britain.

We as Trotskylsts, long ago pledged ourselves to smash Stalinism politically and we are going to do it.

DEFYING baton-swinging pol BY A central Madrid chanting France CORRESPONDENT less demonstrations throughout nationalists on trial in Burgos. trial. of British Industry, which, whilst acknowledging the lamage the dispute has inlicted on members' profits, has urged the government to stand firm.

Beneath all these manoeuvres are the 115,000 power Over the last two years they have seen 20,000 redundancies in their ranks whilst productivity has risen by 40 per cent. accepted ar a lo per Last they reluctantly cent increase - well below their original demand-because they knew their leadership would not fight for any more Now the stage is set for another sell-out. But will it happen?

Ulster's electricity-supply stewards yesterday rejected an offer of an extra an hour, and maintained their demand for a f5-a-week increase.

The offer would have given them an extra £3 for a 40hour week.

Since the electricity dispute began on Monday, there" 'has been a state of emergency in N Ireland. Power use has been banned to all but manufacturers making estimated 200,000 workers Yet the approach of the Communist Party - with inmany power stations yesterday's •Morning Star'. workers is the same adver they give to all workers who want to fight the Tories more militancy but lay off the leaders, accept a few shillings and go back to work.

It is a policy to disarn the power - workers and allow the right in the union to get busy with the retreat.

This is the lesson that all power-workers must learn if they are to win their claim. were negotiating and not confronting each other.

The Soviet Union's conciliatory attitude to the Americans provides Nixon with the political means to do what he pleases in Vietnam and the Middle East-and in attacks on the working class at home.

At the same time, the imperialist arms build-up against the Soviet Union and the working class continues.

The US stockpiles strategic nuclear weapons and gives heavy military aid to cliem states like Cambodia and Israel.

The Stalinist bureaucracy fears revolution.

The development of working-class struggle in different parts of the world pushes the bureaucracy to try and conciliate with imperialism.

But the more the Soviet leaders concede, the more the imperialists, driven by the pressing needs of their own crisis, demand.

Every concession, in Cambodia, in the Middle East, or at Helsinki, strengthens imperialism and makes it still more demanding.

This is the real dynamic of the SALT talks. Far from being a step towards universal disarmament, as the Stalinists would have us believe, they allow the US to strengthen its nuclear power against the USSR. Led ion Strengthen ime boss sion They also strengthen Nixon for his struggles with the working class at home.

Railwaymen were forced back to work yesterday after march by Bonn police: only 24 hours on strike when the Administration rushed emergency powers through Congress and threatened to fine rail unions for contempt of court. same vein, he added:

This use of the US anti-union laws shows clearly what the Tory law will mean in Britain.

It allows for emergency [Hitler]. The bad part, powers. and special laws rushed on to the Statute was rejected.' Book to cripple strikes and force workers back to work.

The US government's home policy, like the British government's, is increasingly dic- march does take place. tated by the growing threat of economic slump, as unemployment continues to grow and profit rates fall.

At his conference the PresiNothing and dustmen can come out on strike.

'We're not striking. Our industry has had more increased productivity than any other and we've been offered the lowest increase!' His colleague, craftsmen's mate HAROLD PRITCHARD, said of the reasons behind their action:

Tories 'If it weren't for the Tories this power cut would never have happened. Since they got in everything went 'My wages are £23 lls. Out of that I take home £17.

"To get that I have to work three weekends out of four' BERT PRICE is chairman of the Nine Elms transport union branch - the largest union branch based on Battersea power station.

Concerned

was concerned that the 'unions must have been put in a position through vicious press propaganda that they might sign something under duress.

"Though we've offered at any time to put on extra blant, i.e. generators for hospitals, at no time has the Board asked us to do this, he added. but made no reference to the present level: 5.8 per cent.

Attempts to revive the economy by lowering interest rates have not 'so far succeeded, and Nixon is turning to more and more brutal attacks on workers' wages struggles in order to recoup his position.

In this situation, the attitude of the Soviet bureaucracy poses acute dangers. Not only does it strengthen Nixon's * hand against the working class at home and overseas, but it allows him to build up the American war machine aimed against the