Sheffield Morning Telegraphe strike. The press is Tories. to support for the Liberals. Furthernose, decide who shall and who shall not have suppThe last few years have seen enormous strides forward within the labour movement. But on the most crucial question of all how to reap the gains of big working class victories such as the miners strike and the Freeing of the Five progress has been very small. After the miners strike last year, instead of finishing off the job and hammering the Tories into the ground, the TUC let the government off the hook by starting up negotiations with it on an incomes policy.
to Free the Five, the TUC went back to the negotiations again and continued them throughout Phase 1 and Phase 2. The result was the defcat of the gas workers and the hospital workers, and a fall in workers" living standards.
The tremendous position of strength built up afler the muters strike was wasted. If the struggle against Phase 3 is to be successtul an entirely different type of policy has to be put forward to that which has been guiding the working class in the past year. All pussy footing around has got to stop.
All the atlacks by the employers and state can be beaten. But only provided two things are done. First, the struggle must be orgonised. This means the establishment in every area of bodies to organise pickets, to
well over 400,000 out, on 5, 12 and 19 November. Such shop stewards meetings also succeeded in reversing the positions of rightwing District Committees, as in Leeds. Steps to overcome this lack of preparation have been taken in some unions recently with the call for CSEU stewards mectings. for preparation committees in the NUT, and for London weighting allowance committees in NALGO, writing in the Guardian on 17 November, is even more explicit. He says of pickers, Can the police and forces alone cope? Might there not se a need for enlisting the ald of the armed forces as an adjunct to civil power." He also makes it ciear he is not alone when he says. *There is reason to believe that this problem has exercised the minds of many policemen." Even if the army is not needed this thine it will be in the future, he concludes: 'It may be... that the confrontation will not take place-this a force to be drawn into the struggle. This is disastrous. Not only is enormous potentia wasted, but a dangerous flaw is created in the defences of the working class, Most of the continual press stories and advertising against strikes is not aimed at the strikers but at their wives.
In every possible case women workers and wives of workers must he actively involved in pickets, occupations and so on. The Fisher-Bendix occupation showed the way here with govemment on their own. *For local conferences and action committees in every area to prepare the struggle against *Unite the struggles-unite the cluims; for a miners-engineers alliance; for the uniting of every wage claim und struggle at local and national level. *For a general strike.