The terror bombing raids on Hanoi and Haiphong carried out by the United States during the last few weeks of December 1972 created a feeling of revulsion throughout the international working class movement. In Australia the seamen demonstrated their solidarity by refusing to handle U.S. vessels. In Genoa the dockers imposed a similar ban. In Bangindesh there were massive demonstrations which resulted in th burning of the USIS office in Dacca and two students being shot down and killed by the police.
HYPOCRISY In Britain there was an emergency demonstration on 23 December but from the ranks of organised labour there was no immediate response. Sensing that unless they acted quickly there might be some spontaneous displays of solidarity by sections of workers, the leaders of the British Labour Party ended their silence and condemned the bombing. Compromised by their own past record in office when they emerged as one of the most slavish supporters of American imperial- icy in "Stage 2" — are both part of the ism in Vietnam, the Labour leaders would like to forget all this. When Jenkins writes a letter to Heath (published on the front page of the Daily Mirror) he does so as a 'new European' very conscious of the future interests of the European ruling class. He doesn't want, for tactical and factional reasons, the European bourgeoisie to be tarnished by the crimes of American imperialism. But the shirts of Jenkins and the Labour leaders are already soiled. Where was all this brave talk when Roy Jenkins was a minister in Wilson's government and preaching the virtues of the "special relationship" which supposedly prevenTed the Labour government from breaking with Lyndon Johnson. The "civilised veneer" of Jenkins was nowhere to be seen in those days. As for Wilson himself he talks today in terms of "Vietnam becoming an election issue" if Heath continues to support the Americans. What sheer hypocrisy from a man who was known To meet this weakness of the employers, the even in the White House as LBJ's favourite poodle. The Labour Party when it was in power did its best to smash and defeat the Vietnam Solidarity movement. Callaghan as Home Secretary used to talk in terms of deporting IMG leaders. Today he too is 'concerned'. No! Messrs Wilson, Jenkins, Callaghan, etc.: your chatter about Vietnam does not impress us in the slightest as you have aided, defénded and have been involved in imperialism's crimes and aggressions in Indochina. Your Labour predecessors in the Attlee government actually sent British troops into Saigon in 1945/46 to maintain the existing order. And you would do the same again if you were in office. LEFT COVER As for the Labour "left", they have merely provided a "left" cover for this overall policy of British social-democracy. When Wilson was tied to LBJ, they were tied to Wilson. Now that Labour is in opposition of course all the brothers can band together and engage in a spree of resolution passing, emergency House of Commons debates and phrasemongering designed primarily for electoral gains. During the mass demonstrations organised by the VSC in 1968 the Labour left was nowhere to be seen. In fact one of them, Sid Bidwell, refused to speak on a VSC platform because of the "presence of a Black Power" militant. Like its leaders it was frightened by extra-parliamentary activity and, particularly, militant street demonstrations.
That is why for us the actions of the Australian seamen and the Italian dockers are a million times more important and effective than all the hypocritical cant mouthed by the Labour Party leaders in opposition. The solidarity movement in this country which is beginning to re-emerge must fuse its extra-parliamentary actions with the present militancy of the British working class. A response from British dockers, for example, would have a powerful impact on projected solidarity actions in this country. In that sense the January 20th mobilisation should be seen onlv as the re emergence of a solidarity which must continue until final victory. The Industrial Relations Act and the 90day pay freeze - which is bound to be followed by a longer term incomes polsame governmental strategy for curbing the industrial strength of the working class.
For in order to have a cat-in-hell's chance of surviving inside the Common Market, the British capitalist class has to try to decisively break the power of the organised working class in this country.
The employers today are too vulnerable to take on the trade union movement in economic confrontations. The Tories have had to eat most of their Party Manifesto about Government not "interfering" in industry, no "lame-ducks". no compulsory wage control, etc., and have had to pay out huge subsidies to Rolls-Royce, UCS, British Rail and now the Coal and Steel Industries.
sovernment is set on a political confrontation with the organised working class. Broadly speaking, this consists of an attempt to use the "awe and majesty" of the State (Acts of Parliament, Courts of Law, etc.) to throw back the industrial strength of the working class and browbeat us into accepting a smaller "share of the cake" and a lower standard of living. CAREFULLY TIMED The Pay Freeze was carefully timed. As the Economist (25 November) pointed out, the had settled their pay claim because "they could bust any policy" - and they might well have done just that!
But its more general timing was dictated by the fact that during these particular months of the year no powerfully organised section of the working class had a pay settlement due. Those sections which did have claims due for settlement - like the hospital ancillary workers, the teachers and the gas-men - are poorly organised and industrially weak.
In other words, the Government's timing of the Freeze was deliberately aimed to avoid a confrontation with powerful sections of the working class like the engineering workers, and to defeat weak ( and therefore low-paid) sections of the class first.
GOAD AND THE A.U.E.W. FINE Then along came a Bible-thumping black-leg with the rather appropriate name of Goad. By bringing an action against the AUEW in the National Industrial Relations Court he threatened to upset thewhole careful strategy.
For if the AUEW Executive Committee started a the hospital workers tried to break out of the might well get linked together and the Government might have to take on the AUEW over the Pay Freeze after all.
Nevertheless, the Court (tempted no doubt by the prospect of establishing a legal precedent North London engi teers demonstrate during one-day stoppage that scabs cannot be barred from union membership) decided to see how far it could go.. UNION LEADERS REFUSE TO LEAD The AUEW Executive Committee's response to this threat was muted in the extreme. They merely sacked the bank which had paid the first fine and called on their members to "take appropriate action to defend the policy of the At the same time, speaking on radio and television, Mr Scanion stressed that the AUEW was not defying the Law, that they were not defyin the court's authority to levy the fine and that the strikes would be protests only No wonder the response was confused and spo Government had to wait until the Power Workers adic - to the delight of the capitalist press and television.
It was exactly the same do-your-own-thing pseudo-democracy which made it impossible te win the 1972 national engineering pay claim. I function is to avoid any struggle with the rightwing in the union (and in this case with the Gov. ernment too), and yet preserve Scanlon's "left" image in the union.
And in the case of the hospital workers, Mr Alan Fisher of NUPE is showing exactly the same evasion of responsibility to lead a political fight in defence of his members against the Pay Freeze.
The way he does it is to say that the hospital workers are a "special case", and that the strikes are again just a protest against the "unfairness" of the hospital workers being "singled out", etc. In other words, he is not against a Pay Freeze - for everybody else.
Contrast the way the National Committee of Stewards for Health Workers described their one day strike on December 13th and their week of Action from 29 December to 4 January: "We see this as not just in pursuit of our secreal fight back against the Act at the same time as tional interest, but as the FIRST MAJOR BLOW OF THE LABOUR MOVEMENT AGAINST THE straight-jacket of the Pay Freeze, the two struggles FREEZE. Therefore we call on all other sections of workers to join us in our struggle to smash the freeze."
A POLITICAL STRUGGLE Our trade union leaders shy away from this sort of political struggle because, when the chips are down, they accept the "rules of the game" as MALBANITEL laid down by the capitalist state: that the working class must never use its overwhelming industrial strength in the political field (that would be "undemocratic"") and must wait for "the next Tabour Government"
Needless to say, the ruling class do not apply the same rule to themselves. On the contrary, they make use of their dominant position in society every single day (not only through the Government and the Courts, but also through the press, radio and television, etc.) to influence political decisions in their favour.
This is why the only way to answer the "awe and majesty" of Acts of Parliament, Courts of Law, etc., is with the awe and majesty of the enormous industrial strength of the organised working class in political struggle.
That is how the Government was forced to release the five imprisoned dockers. That is the only way to smash the Pay Freeze and the Industrial Relations Act.
And it is the only way to prepare the ground for bringing down the Tory Government altogether.
IN BRIEF * Bernadette Devlin has issued an appeal for worldwide solidarity actions on the first anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Derry (see page 3 for full text). In London there will be a rally on Sunday, 28 January in Camden Town Hall, Euston Road, preceded by a demonstration starting from St Paul's at 2.30 p.m. and marching via Fleet Street and Gray's Inn Road to Camden Town Hall. * Indochina Demo (see page 3)-after fruitless approaches to the British Committee for Peace in Vietnam for a united demonstration on January 20th, the Indochina Solidarity Conference Committee has regretfully been compelled to organise a separate rally and demonstration on that date. The rally will start at 2 p.m. at Charing Cross Embankment, and will be followed by a march to the American Embassy via Trafalgar Square.
| Hospital Workers: