The Newsletter, vol. 2 no. 67

for the day when their foul propaganda would at last of Britain. inflame young British workers against their coloured - The bosses are glad when worker’s hand is raised brothers, when cries of ‘Lynch the niggers’ would be against worker. They rejoice when the common peopie heard in the streets of London as in Alabama. are divided on racial lines. Unity of black worker and white worker is the last thing they want to see. ‘Divide Week after week their gutter rags have oozed and conquer’ has always been their motto. racialist filth about the ‘coloured invasion’. Slogans How are we to defeat the fascist plan to whip up such as ‘House Britons before immigrants’ and ‘No La lynching hysteria in Britain? alien shall jump the queue’ have bespattered their pages.

* By using the lie that West Indians and Africans take white workers’ jobs and undercut their wages WE cannot rely on the police to restore ‘order’. If the fascists have been able to put on the streets an coloured people are frightened to leave their army of young men with poison in their minds, with ~ homes and go about their business, the streets will be iron bars, choppers, knives, stones, razors, bicycle quiet. The fascists will have won. What kind of ‘order’ chains, knuckledusters and home-made petrol bombs * is that? in their hands.

The organized Labour movement in the areas * affected must take matters into their own hands. We do not blame coloured men who defend themselves MAKE no mistake. The London mob—its strength - by fighting back against the fascist-led mobs, but we estimated at 4,000 by the Daily Express and 5,000 tell them plainly: You will not win this fight unless by the Daily Herald—which screamed race hatred, you enlist the aid of the local. Labour movement. kicked and pelted coloured people and besieged them _ Black nationalism is no answer to white chauvinin their homes, was organized and armed by the ism.

Equally, the Labour movement must understand that = The gang of youths ‘armed with sticks, iron bars and the evil passions that have been aroused in Nottingham knives’ which, the Daily Telegraph reported, ‘gathered and Notting Hill lead, not merely to the ghetto, the under the railway arches riear Latimer Road Under- concentration camp and the gas chamber, but also to ground station’ was led by fascists well known to the attacks on trade unionists and socialists and on their police. organizations.

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Fascists led the mob in the chanting of slogans: ‘Let’s This understanding must lead to action, in which get the niggers’ and ‘Give ’em-to us and we'll string white trade unionists and socialists stand shoulder to "em up’. , , shoulder with coloured people.

All the bestial emotions that German, American and . Local trade union branches, trades councils, Labour South African fascism cashed in on ate abroad in Parties and other working-class organizations should Britain today. immediately set about the formation of defence squads But the only persons who stand to gain, besides the (Continued overleaf)

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SERRE M U R DE R N A LA BA M A? allele alae From Our New York Correspondent Unless there was a last-minute reprieve a 55-year-old for this offence.

Negro worker was due to die in -the electric chair A court-appointed ‘defence’ lawyer, Sheldon Fitts, yesterday for robbing a white housewife of one dollar has commented: ‘The nigger was lucky he . wasn’t 95 cents. . lynched.’ Wilson was not put on the stand to testify Jimmy Wilson, a handyman, of Perry County, in his own defence. -Alabama, was sentenced to death on July 27, 1957. The Alabama’s Governor has the power to commute the woman, who is 82 years old, claimed that he tried to sentence to life imprisonment. rape her. But he was not indicted on that charge. American socialists are anxious that the world-wide Robbery is a capital offence in Alabama, but only protests be redoubled. A Canadian MP who tried to Negroes have ever been condenmed to electrocution raise it in the Commons was slapped down.

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RACIALISTS (Continued from front page) and defence committees, consisting of white and coloured’ workers.

It is ridiculous for Labour MPs to tour the streets in loudspeaker vans appealing to people to go home.

Defence squads should patrol the affected areas, displaying enough strength and determination to make it impossible for the racialists to show their faces.

Sweep the streets clean ‘of the fascists and their dupes! This is the duty of the working-class organizations of west London, Nottingham and wherever else the coloured population is under attack.

United defence committees should provide material and financial aid to coloured people who have been beaten, assume responsibility for replacing. spoiled furniture and clothing and broken windows, thus demonstrating in practice the solidarity of white workers with. coloured: victims of. racialism and fascism.

The local Labour movements should begin a widespread publicity campaign, pointing out: the falsity and bad faith of anti-colour propaganda.

This campaign should explain the appalling conditions which cause West Indians and Africans to come to Britain; the fact that the coloured population here is less than one-half of one per cent. of the total population; the fact that for every immigrant who comes here four white people leave: Britain to seek. jobs in the Empire; the fact that only a united working class ‘cap resist the employers’ offensive against jobs, wages and conditions.

* A SPECIAL appeal must go to white workers who are unemployed .or living in slums.

Socialists are neither ‘pro-black’ nor ‘pro-white’. They stand for jobs for all, better housing for all, the tearing down of slums, the ending of the social system which gives rise to unemployment and overcrowding. coloured people. They can be achieved only through ' ‘These aims can never be achieved by attacks on the united action, of white workers and black workers MOorTor-carsS were used to direct the racialist mobs in London’s Notting Hill last Monday and Tuesday. They cruised around ordering riot. squads from one area to another. .

In the cars sat fascist chiefs. They chose the targets for attack. They gave the slogans. It_ was all planned and executed :. like ‘a military operation.

The’ fascists began their preparations a month ago ) with a race-hatred leaflet. It read as follows:

‘People of Kensington, act now. Your country is worth fighting for. Fight with the Union Movement.

‘Take action now. Protect your jobs. Stop coloured immigration: Houses for white people—not coloured immigrants. A square deal for the Negro in his own country, There was a drawing of a group of Africans in national costume, carrying spears. Over them was a notice saying ‘Way in’

Only a minority of the young.thugs who roamed the Notting Hill streets this week, kicking and chasing coloured people . and besieging them in their homes, were local boys.

SEPTEMBER. 6, 1958 against the common enemy—the employing class. provide neither jobs nor homes. All they bring are The fascists have no solution whatever. They can Belsen camps, mass murder and mass misery. finding it hard to get a job, or who are living in over- Today they throw dust in the eyes of folk who are crowded -tenements. ‘Blame the blacks,’ they say. But an attack on one section of the working class today will lead to an attack on other sections tomorrow.

-Socialists say: ‘Blame capitalism.’ Whatever the colour of their skin, workers have the same problems, the same interests, the same struggle to make ends meet, against the same exploiters —the landlords and the bosses.

But if Labour’ is to make such an appeal and make it effectively it must put-its own house in order.

Labour MPs such as James Harrison, who blame the coloured people: for the race riots. and who talk of restricting immigration to this country, should - be decisively and publicly repudiated by their constituency parties, by the. Parliamentary Labour Party, by every local Labour Party and by the national executive. pelled ‘trom the party without ceremony. They should be chucked out of their seats and ex* LABOUR. Should stand forth as the uncompromising enemy of any form of racial discrimination.

Tt should demand the outlawing of any kind of colour bar or incitement to racial hostility.

But it is no use waiting for the Tory Government to act. Anti-fascist workers themselves, white and black united, must give back two blows for every one, smash the fascist thugs, break up their gangs and drive them back into their holes.

@. BLACK AND. WHITE WORKERS UNITE!

@ SWEEP THE FASCISTS AND RACE RIOTERS = @ OUTLAW THE COLOUR BAR!

Motor-cars were used to direct the racialist mobs in London's Notting Hill last Monday and Tuesday. They cruised around ordering riot squads from one area to another.

In the cars sat fascist chiefs. They chose the targets for attack. They gave the slogans. It was all planned and executed like a military operation.

The fascists began their preparations a month ago with a race-hatred leaflet. It read as follows:

'People of Kensington, act now. Your country is worth fighting for. Fight with the Union Movement.

'Take action now. Protect your jobs. Stop coloured immigration. Houses for white people—not coloured immigrants. A square deal for the Negro in his own country.'

There was a drawing of a group of Africans in national costume, carrying spears. Over them was a notice saying 'Way in.'

Only a minority of the young thugs who roamed the Notting Hill streets this week, kicking and chasing coloured people and besieging them in their homes, were local boys.

On Monday and Tuesday evenings hundreds of ruffians, carrying weapons, swarmed in from other parts of London. Fascists had organized and armed this mob, with the deliberate intention of creating a reign of terror in which coloured people would be frightened to walk the streets.

To a certain extent they succeeded. On Tuesday afternoon I saw coloured people hurrying home with anxious strides. I saw shattered windows hastily boarded up. I saw groups of sullen young men on street corners, staring at any coloured people who passed.

Kept her children in

I heard a young man with a copy of the fascist paper Action in his pocket snarl at a Jamaican girl pushing her pram down Bramley Road.

At a house in Blenheim Crescent a Trinidad woman opened the door to my knock. Behind her two neatly-dressed children played in a tidy room.

'I was scared to let them go out to play,' she told me. 'I believe someone organized the riots. Fascists held meetings here. They wanted to stir people against the coloured folk, didn't they?'

A Jamaican bus worker whom I met in a café asked me: 'When I was on strike the white people at the garage were my friends. Why are all these white people against me now?'

-By Our Industrial Correspondent less for unskilled must be raised. Even the 6 per cent. asked by the Confed. amounts to. only 10s. and will not bring the tate up to a decent level. It will’ at best stop us from sinking That is the price we have to pay for the ‘self-restraint’?

Workers at the Sumries clothing: factory, Leeds, are on strike against the management’s ‘work longer for less pay’ proposals.

As revealed in The Newsletter last week, the firm is trying to enforce a return to 44 hours’ work for 44 hours’ pay instead of the present scheme of 40 hours’. work. for 45 hours’ P All last week the shop committee tried to negotiate a settle- ay.

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ment, but Mr. Charles’ Sumrie refused to budge an inch. However, after the strike had lasted only one. day he changed his mind.

He offered a scheme of a 41}-hour working week for 44 hours’ pay. Bonus would be paid for over 44 hours’ -work. ‘Non-productive’ workers (cleaners and labourers) were not to be included in‘ the scheme.

A. meeting was cailed on Tuesday morning at the union offices to hear a report from the shop committee and to decide what to do..So many workers turned up that it was impossible. to get them all into the union assembly hall; about 400 were.in the hall-and about 300 more in the street outside.

The meeting had to be adjourned to a field opposite’ the —— factory in the. afternoon, where the workers overwhelmingly. voted to reject the offer and to continue the strike. :

I spoke to several. strikers outside the factory and at the meeting, including a number of West Indians, who are. solid with the rest.

_There was very strong feeling that if the ‘management was :

allowed to get away with this, conditions would soon get -worse-——and. not just. in one factory.

‘If the management can just tear up this agreement no conditions will be safe,’ said 24-year-old Brian Rymar. ptactised by the trade unions in the boom years while profits . soared.

What must be done now? The first step must be td force from the engineering employers at least the 6 per. cent. without a wage freeze clause and the 40-hour week and improved holiday pay.

Would be playing about How can it be done?

The Confed. executives. meet on September. 11-to discuss their next steps. The Manchester Guardian hints that they may seek a further meeting. with the employers. This would be playing about.

We already know the employers’ reply. Another meeting won't change it. Only strength and action will do that.

On September 11 the Confed. executives, if they are to be taken seriously by the employers or their own members, must “ decide on action.

What sort of action? Limited actions such as token strikes or bans on piece-work’ and overtime (when the employers themselves are cutting overtime) are useless. So are strikes district. by _ district.

These actions. only. prolong the struggle, put an unnecessary. -- strain on. the members’ loyalty, dissipate energies and- encourage the employers, who will benefit most from a long. dispute.

We must not spar with ‘the employers. We must knock them out before they knock us out. The employers can be defeated only by a total. national stoppage.

We cannot afford to leave the fight to the top leaders, who Jast year had to. be pushed into. action.

A campaign must be started. right now in the districts and factories and shipyards.. General. meetings of Confed. stewards and shop delegates should. be called: in-each area.

The local strike and action committees which sprang up-in

_ By Lancashire engineer Harry Ratner. -THE Confederation of Engineering and Shipbuilding Unions was right to reject the- employers’ offer of a miserly 4s. 6d. for unskilled and 5s. 6d. for skilled men.

Even double these. amounts—which is what the Confed. leaders. asked for as a minimum—would not make-up for the drop in. real wages suffered by engineering workers.

In many: factories overtime has been cut. In others slackening off of work has meant lower piecework earnings due to shorter runs’ and. more waiting time.

Thus. many -are taking home pay packets anything up’ to £2 to £3 lighter, though the cost of living has risen by 6per cent. since the last increase.

Now the real scandal of the low basic rates is being revealed. It is no longer possible to supplement them with overtime. For the first time since the war many workers are having to manage on. a ‘bare’ 44 hours’ wages. Hardest hit are the-lowest paid, the labourers and unskilled. :

Until recently it was possible to escape a shop with lower than average earnings, or where overtime had been cut, and walk into another job with better pay or better overtime or both.

That cannot be done. any more. There are no “jobs around. the last dispute and did such good..work must. be revived._ and new ones formed.

Meetings in each. factory should. give all workers , an. ex--planation of the issues and enable them freely to express their views and mandate their representatives to the district meetings. ~ Thus an active and informed rank and file will give ‘strength to the local leadership.

Above all we must ensure that all major decisions are re- a ferred to the rank and file: to decide—decisions on whether ; to accept or reject. any offer of the. employers, whether to end the strike or stay out. .

Saved by the leaders Last year as the strike was extending and the employers © beginning ‘to. crumble they were saved by the Confed. leaders, who called off the strike and accepted 1is. and a twelvemonths’ wage. freeze without consulting the rank and_ file, though a few more days would have won greater concessions.

The way to. ensure rank-and-file control of their own decisions is to link the local committees on a national scale.

Not least, we must ensure the active support of the wider Labour movement. In each area the local Labour Parties and trades councils must be contacted and the support. of other unions Sought.

The engineers’ fight is part of the fight of the whole working class against a united employing class and its. Government.

Fur NEWSLETTER -- If the honours-seeking Trades Union Congress knights had not isolated the busmen by blocking attempts to spread solidarity action the London bus strike could have begun a general movement to oust the Tory. Government.

The Right-wing leaders will manoeuvre again to isolate the engineers and avoid an. all-out fight against Toryism.

That is why rank-and-file militants in the engineering industry must link up with militants.in other trades and. build unity at rank-and-file level.

The national rank-and-file conference called by The Newsletter for November 16 in London can help to forge these links.

WirHouT a doubt the main abstacle to achieving socialism is the use by the capitalist class of its fuil State machine (police, courts, armed forces, Parliament, House of Lords, radio and television, Monarchy etc.) plus such instruments as the Church and the Press.

In times of deep crisis armed fascist thugs are used as well.

But despite these obstacles the economic system, pressing heavily down upon the working class, forces it time after time, in defending its standards, to challenge the whole capitalist system.

Every national wage struggle today threatens to broaden out into a major political struggle against the Government and the ruling class.

This is because of the precarious position British capitalism is in. It is also due to the fact that the Tory Government repeatedly intervenes in. strike struggles on behalf of the industrialists. - :

This is where the other major obstacle to the sweeping aside of capitalism comes in: the workers’ present leaders.

The present leaders transmit capitalist ideas into the trade unions and Labour Party. At every critical stage théy hasten to the aid of the employers by resort to ‘arbitration’, calling This is the third in.a series of articles on socialism off large-scale strikes, settling for measly pennies without the slightest reference to the members who provide them with their comfortable salariés. Why do they do this?

The fundamental answer is that they themselves have a privileged’ stake in maintaining capitalism.

They are a conservative bureaucracy. Over the years their salaries have been pushed much higher than the wages of the workers they represent. ;

They move into another circle: joint boards with the Capitalists in the day-time, frequent banquets with the rulers at ‘social functions’.

Frank Cousins, the leader of the Transport and General Workers’ “Union, when: asked by the Press how he would describe: his status in society with regard to his own standard of living, quite brazenly said: ‘Middle class.’ Much anger was caused among rank-and-file trade unionists at the reports about members of the Trades Union Congress General Council living in £7-a-day hotels in Blackpool at the 1957 TUC—£42 for a week’s stay, nearly four times the wage of engineers!

Or take’ this little exchange from last Monday’s News Chronicle: .

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‘Puffing a cigar Mr Tallon [of the Amalgamated Engineering Union] was in philosophical mood.

“There are too many titled people in the union business,’

he mused. ‘Far too many “‘Sirs”.”

Mr Hill [of the Boilermakers’ Society] eyed him sourly.

“What do you mean?’ he demanded. ‘I could have been one of the first “Sirs” if T'd wanted to be. ll be a baron by the time I’m through.’

© THESE people, however militant some of them used to be, become corrupted and conservative by their mode of existence.

Printed by Plough Press Ltd. (T.U.), r.o. 180 Clapham High St., Londoa, "232 ~ es By HARRY FINCH Forgetting what it was like to live as an ordinary worker they begin to resent large struggles that threaten ‘their’

standing with the employers as respected ‘peaceful negotiators’.

‘ From resentment to outright opposition or conscious betrayal (as in the 1957 national engineers’, strike, the Covent Garden strike and the London bus strike) is only a short step.

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The trade union leaders also sit on the national executive of the Labour Party and their ‘stay as we are’ mentality, coupled with the similar outlook of the parliamentary leaders, is translated politically into an opposition to all forthright, socialist policies-in the Labour Party.

By using trade union block votes without finding out the wishes of the rank and file, the leaders forced through a policy at last year’s conference which said that the next Labour Government would merely buy some shares in private capitalism.

This would. perpetuate capitalism; it goes counter to the ;

constitution and aims of the Labour Party.

© To change this state of affairs in the Labour movement, it is vital to build up powerful rank-and-file movements in the unions and bring them into the working of the Labour Party.

Rank-and-file trade unionists are already starting to build such movements in preparation for the big battles ahead.

Their policies are finding a growing response in the unions.

It is often argued that the Communist Party trade union leaders are somehow different from the Right-wing leaders.

It is true that they often offer militant words, but it is deeds that count.

In practice these leaders often line up with the Right wing ; or do the apologizing for them, All through the Midland redundancy strikes the Communist Party leaders covered up for the Right wing. As a result, the infamous ‘one week’s compensation’ for the sack has become the general practice.

Praise from Palme ‘Dutt In Labour Monthly R. Palme, Dutt called the TUC leaders -—the men who stabbed the busmen in the back—‘respectable, conscientious, serious, hard-working, responsible officials, genuinely trying to do their best, according to their lights, for their membership’.

The opportunism of the Communist Party leaders flows from their need to protect their own trade union privileges and from the fact that at all times they protect the bureaucracy that has grown up in Russia—which also wants things to remain as. they are.

Many rank-and-file militants in the Communist Party are as disgusted with the actions of their own leaders as with those of the Right-wing leaders.

They, too, are willing to unite in a rank-and-file movement whose aims are to stop all bureaucracy so that we can go forward to the overthrow of capitalism.

The. fight to transform the unions and Labour Party into democratic, militant organs of class struggle, the fight to control leaders and make them live like the rank and file and subject to recall, are the paths whereby the workers “will not only prepare for the removal of capitalism but also prepare themselves for direct control over all leaders when the working class takes power.

Published by The "Newsletter, 180 Clapham High St, London, SW4.