TRADE UNION REGISTER: 3, edited by Michael Barratt Brown and Ken Coales (Spokesman Books, El 50p)
Registers of trade union activity in Britain are not scarce. But the title of this particular volume is Imprecise, only a small part of it being devoted so the actual recording of union doelooment:. In the form of statistics, a diary of main events and the reprinting of some key trade union documents. The mainly express the elastic political philosophy of the Institute of Workers" Control, Bearing in mind that Wedgwood Benn has recently been extolling the virtues of this political formerion in glowing terms, the volume is worth glancing at.
Ken Coster' long review article 'Converting the Unions to Socialism' sets the general tone of confusion and om ssion A colounul summary of the strugg against the Industrial Relations Act totally omits to mention ine Labru, and enos up with the somewat unjustified conclusion that 'the unions are well capable of defending themselves against future provocations.
tinge of the trade union bureaucracy or the danger of racism to organised labour. Worse, the proposed road to achieving socialism is shrouded in mist, with vague talk of a process of democratising' society through an appressive erosion of managerial preropaths' and reclaiming' the Labour Party for socialist policies.
The remaming hotchootch contains some usetul Normen Lewis's offering on the Industrial Relations Act concludes that it would he la tragedy' if this act not capitulate to the 'age-old flummery' of English article which follows this path is the one entitled Women's Economic Revolution' which uncritically applauds the TUC for its "honourable part' in promorscare agiststion against oiscrun nation.
The better section of the book is the Round the incultries review or deve coments in copincering, the docks and elsewhere, in which the details are less smudged by reformist interpretations. Some good WOMENS RIGHTS: A PRACTICAL GUIDE;
This collection of information about women's rints it a useful handbook for women trying to thread their way through the network of discriminatory legislation in this country, The information a roughly classfind wore, ond women and the law.
The chapters on the welfare system are an invaluable guide to ait the stages at which the system section-while also covering housing, consumer leve and immigration -is largely devoted to the law as it relates to sex, marriage, divorce and children. The sheer mess of material here is in itself an indication of the pressures towars leased union and the mainterance of the nuclear famity. But no alternatives which is a further indication of the strength of this institution under capitalism (the draft oo-habitation as the leges contract!.
Valuable and well-researched as this information generally is, there are neverthe ess cartain drawtiscks in its presentation, Firstly, there is a confusion about the kind of audience it is geared to-evident in the unevenness of tone and curiously patronising comment:
offices in the smarter parts of town'! More importandly the book is devoid of any consistently analytical framework, Why exactly do laws work against women in newwysr now do mey contsoute to reintorcing women's passive acceptance of the situation? Lastly. the book could have pointed out the way to begin to fight the situation through a series of demands against the main areas of discrimination covered by the book, NICO NEWMAN ment. A succession of military dictators using the most intensive methods of repression have proved incapabie of solving the country's economic problems as a client state of imperialIsm, and Banzer has already lasted longer than most. Despite his attempts to crush the