FLYING PICKE, COMES TO TOWN

The upsurge of the work. ing class in response to the Tory attacks has brought building workers into mass action for the first time in over half a Up to 300,000 building workers all over Britain have joined the selective strikes which are coming to the end of their Ilth week.

Afraid of a fight with the Tory government, the reformist leadership of the building unions has refused to call an all-out, official national strike.

Regional action committees —not elected by the rank and file-have been given autonomy to call out whoever they want. In some areas, like Hull, building workers have had to fight action committees for 'permission' to come out on strike.

The union leaders' policy means that only one-third of Britain's building workers are out in a dispute which is crucial to the survival of the building unions themselves.

Although the majority of the 900,000-strong workforce in the industry is unorganized, it has been proved throughout the strike that this question is settled in practice, in an actual fight for a decent living wage and 100-per-cent trade unionism.

Many men — unorganized before the strike-have joined the unions in the course of the In line with selective strikes, however, George Smith, general secretary of the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians (UCATT), who is also chairman of the TUC General Council, has tried to get some builders to return to work on the basis of separate company deals.

In fact he was given a fullpage in the Communist Party's 'Morning Star' on August 18 in which he was allowed to justify this policy, which has been met with hostility among builders.

If building workers are today isolated, then the responsibility lies mainly with the Stalinists. Not only do they oppose a national strike but also desperately attempt to halt the instinctive rank-and- file drive towards with the Tories.

Every wages battle involves a political fight with the Tories. They are now aiming to hit back and have issued orders to the Social Security officers to hamper and harass the builders.

Yet the Stalinists insist that their only quarrel is with the employers. This conscious policy holds back the development of the consciousness of But that is the method of Stalinism. From their conception of peaceful coexistence with capitalism flows class compromise and a complete reformist outlook. Beginning without any confidence in the working class and its ability to fight, they say the building workers do not have the strength to launch a national strike.

For the same reasons they restricted the fight of the Upper Clyde shipbuilders to a work-in, producing ships free of charge for the employers, facilitating the sacking of several thousand men and the signing of a four-year, no-strike deal.

By the CP's actions in the 11-week builders' dispute they prove that their 'Cl. rter' group was never more than a cover for the union bureaucrats.

The strikes which began at the beginning of July followed year-long tortuous negotiations with the building employers. With basic rates for most building workers only £20 a week (£17 for labourers), the unions' demand for a £10 increase and a cut in the working week met stiff resistance from the employers.

For they knew that almost 200,000 building workers were already unemployed because of the economic recession. In addition, they had another weapon they wanted to use against workers: 'the lump'.

Despite changes in the law, upwards of 300,000 men in the industry — before the strike began — were self-employed workers, without insurance cards. The big employers in the industry knew and tolerated this. It was a big weapon against organized trade unionism on the sites.

Because of 'the lump', poor throughout British industry before the strike began: A recent Department of Employment survey of earnings in industry showed building workers in 16th place.

Coin an inducter whinh accounts for four out of every ten deaths in industry, the building workers are involved in more than just a wage claim.

No one can doubt the workers' determination In WULACIS celinauun. A11 areas like Bristol—previously unknown for its militancy among builders—a successful flying miners, Picket, based on the miners model, has roused workers to join the strike.

When the operatives' side of the national joint council were on the point of signing the - compromise deal with the • empioyers, gıving a basic which made the union leaders change their minds.

An industry with such low wages, high unemployment and death rates, and 'the lump', poses the question of its nationalization under workers' control and without compensation. While the big private employers exist they will always try to use the lump to weaken trade unionism. And they now have the backing of the Tories' Industrial Relations Act.

This involves a fight to force the resignation of the Tory government. This cannot h carried through without the support for the builders from the rest of the working class in a General Strike called by A Labour government must be returned to power pledged by the mass movement, organized in Councils of Action, to carry out policies of socialist expropriation of the basic industries, land and finance. In the struggle for the realization of this perspective, a new principled, revolutionary alternative leadership must be built throughout the building unions, sweeping aside the reformists and the stalinists who cover up for them.

PAGE 8 Workers Saturday September 9, 1972