Cross Embankment to Hyde Park (via the Portu guese Embassy) last Sunday to protest against the visit of the Portuguese dictator Cactano to Britain, There is no douht that this was the largest anti-imperialist demonstration in recent years, Left organisations on the mirch included Labour Party and Young Socialists branches, the Communist Party, IS and IMG, the Portuguese Wurkets Coordinating Committee, and various black organisations. Also represented were several trades council, the London region of the Transport and General Workers Union. the Royal Group of Docks Shop Stewards Committee and other trade union organisations. There is little doubt that the IMG contingent was the most cohesive and combative contingent on the demonstration, being surrounded by extra policemen throughout the march. A few weak points, however, need to be stressed. Bob Murphy Over 70 trade union delegates attended a conTerence last weekend called by the Sheffield and Rotberham Shrewsbury Defence Commitfoe. It was, explained chairman Gwya Read, Part of the mass rally in Hyde Park at the end of the demonstration Photo: Ena Nathon (Red Weekiy) a delegate from Rotherham Trades Council, the batest of the committee's attempts to publicise the issue and to plan practical measures to defend the pickets.
Jim Kemp, of the London building workers Joint Sites Committee, emphasised that the law is based not on judicial niceties or on debates ride the courtroom, but on the halance of class forces outside. And the State's preparations for the inevitable clashes under Phase 3 of its income policy entail smasbing the most important tactical deselopment in the lahour movement over the past 18 months - the mass flying pickets. first used by the miners and building worken best year, and most recently put into effect by the Chrysler workers. The answer to the Government s attacks he said, depends on the ability of the rank and tile to lead mass mobilisations of the working class. As Jol Lebor of the Labour Rescarch Depurtment told the conference: All laws are good for the capitalist class and bad for the workers.' Twe builling workers from the Slewsbury area also spoke at the conterence. Alan Abrahams. a UCATT regional official and member of the editorial board of Charter. the buiding workers rank and file paper, detailed the problems of organising in an industry with a large element of casual labour. As he said, even after the great steps forward in last summer's strike North Wales remained one of the weakest areas for union organisation, which no doubt explained why this area had been chosen for the attack. Des Warren, one of the Shrewsbury 24, described the harrowing experiences of the pickets since their arrest in February: telephone calls late at night, threatening letters, and continual police harassment. Labour/CP on the organising committee meant that the demonstration had a certain bias, namely towards pressure on Parliament (in other words, it was a by-product of the political strategy of the Tribunites and the CP). This meant that respectability" was a major criterion for the organisers. In the view of the IMG, the tocus of the demo should have been the Portuguese Embassy, and that is where it should have culminated with a mass rally.
Secondly, the lessons learnt in the days of the Vietnam mobilisations have to be re-learnt: demonstrations above a certain size have to exert their authority over the streets and chalenge the right of the pollee to orgunise the demonstration. The demonstration, and the surious pickets that have heen held during the Caetano visit, show that this is an absolute necessity if the movement in solidarity with the struggle in Mozambique, Angola and Guine. Bissau is to develop further in this country The main resolution preparing the way forward was carried unanimously. Moving it on behalf of the committee, Rotherham building worker Ian Stevenson stressed the need to extend the campaign throughout the whole of Yorkshire, und for delegates to raise the issue m their organisations. It was agreed to work for a mass mobilisation for the rally to be held in Trafalgar Square in September.
The conference also recognised the wider issues of repression, nationally and internationally, discussing and unanimously carryone emergency resolutions in defence of the five Birmingham building workers on trial for their activities in figbting against the lump; in support of the three members of the NUT in Wandsworth, under attack from their union leadership, and in solidarity with the militants of the former Communist League, banned by the French Government.
Hed Weekly 20 July 1973 Page 3
Over 800 women attended the Women's Liberation National Conference in Bristol last weekend. The size of this gathering and the level of debate both indicated the positive development of the movement in the present period. The conference foeussed on some of the most important questions facing the movement at this point in time, and some of the most important debates were conducted within a generally Marxist framework. The structure of the conference, however, placed some serious limitations on its political effectiveness. Each day was divided into one plenary and two workshop sessions, with a total of forty workshops on different topics. The workshops did not report back to the plenary sessions but simply duplicated and circulsted their minutes to the whole confeThis tended to fragment rather than unity the different experiences and plans that exist within the movement. For example, the campaigns that are taking place around racism, family allowances, and housing should be linked up. But this was something which the structure of the conference made very difficult.
CAMPAIGNS The main need of the women's liberation movement at present is to develop campaigns which can unite those women who are already politically involved and forge links with other organisations actively engaged in the strugale against various aspects of capitalist oppression and exploitation. This is the way the movement will be able to reach more than just the most politically aware, and gain an audience among the mass of women. Some of the activities in which the women's movement are currently engaged could have great potential - in particular, the Family Allowance Campeign. A weakness in the present conduct of the campaign, bowever, is the attempt to link it with the demand 'wages for housework. This demand does not reach the root of the problems facing women who are trapped in the home.
There are three separate problems involved here: (1) the need to shift responsibility for providing the resources necessary for the care and upkeep of children from the individual parent or family on to the capitalist state; (2) the need to end the crushing burden of Individualised housework on women: (3) the need to ensure some measure of financial Independence for women.
Neither of the first two needs is adequately met by wages for housework. The social responsibility for the care and upkeep of children is not just a matter of providing the necessary arsh, but is one of actually carrying out the various tasks connected with child raising in a social fashion: demands such as subsidised, socialised child care facilities are the main ones in this respect. The same applies to the problem of bousework. What is needed is not cash compensation to women for having to bear this burden, but steps to actually relieve them of the need to bear it at all, the need to establish subsidised and The recently enacted Northern Ireland Constitsocialised facilities to take over as many as possible of the tasks presently making up "house work.
REAL QUESTION The problem of financial independence is a real one. But the formula pur forward by some, money is power, confuses rather than illuminates the real question, Working women do not have 'power simply by virtue of their separate income, The oppression of women is a feature of the capitalist system, and the only means of acquiring power tor the oppressed is through organisation in the fight against that system.
Financial dependence is not a problem limited to women: it is, for cxample, shared by all the victims of the wellare state - the old, the low paid, the unemployed. What is needed is not a demand that separates the problem of housewives off from other oppressed groups, but a set of demands around which all the victims of the social security system can be brought together in the fight for financial independence. The demand for an end to all farms of discrimination against women in social security benefits would be central to this.
This is the type of problem which the movement has already started to debate. But what must be done now is to develop a clear pers pective for the political activity of the movement. The 22 September conference of socialists in the women's liberation movement should turn the debate in this direction and start to solve these problems. Dodie Weppler Last Thursday Rowntree Mackintosh announced a loss of 220 million incurred in dealings on the cocoa futures market. This will be reduced to 110 million because of tax relier. The unprecedented upsurge of world commod ity prices therefore has now reached the point where the dealings of a few days by a large and experieneed company can wipe out roughly two years' profits. The company has not yet declared bankruptcy but was forced for a time to suspend dealings in its shares, whose price collupsed when dealing wus resumed. Rowntrees' error was probably in expecting a tew weeks ago that the recent surge in the raw cocoa price would not last. Cocoa beught in West Africa was therefore sok on the cocon futures market (for future delivery). This technique is used to protect companies against price falls during the period of transport of the material. When it arrives they can then buy it back at the current price. What happened was that prices continued to rise and Rowntrees were forced to buy back cocoa al much higher prices than they had earlier sold
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Sheffield conference defends pickets