demanding that their leaders call an all-out stoppage in support of their wage claim.
low paid at Callaghan's wage-slashing policies. It was the high point of a growing revolt as, over the past month, ever-wider layers have been drawn into action, contain the situation, as in the case of the ambulancedrivers. Suprise Undoubtedly, this upsurge took Callaghan by surprise. When he postponed the election last October, he took a calculated risk. He assumed that his TUC allies, who had spinelessly supported his wage-cutting policies, would continue to enforce government pay policy.
After all, they had supported the first three rounds of the Social Contract - despite escalating unemployment.
His faith in the TUC was not misplaced, When the first serious challenge to the 5% norm with the fireman's strike last year, the TUC did their utmost to 'isolate' the strike and demoralise the men back to work.
What Callaghan left out of his calculations was the rank and file.
Having suffered a substantial drop in wages during three years of the Social Contract, they were LLO longer willing to stomach more pro-capitalist policies. The militancy and determination of, first The 'day of action' expressed the pent-up anger of millions of the often pre-empting their leaders' attempts to the lorry drivers - then the ambulance drivers, cleaners & hospital workers - forced their vacillating leaders into calling actions which exploded the 5% norm.
Hysteria Callaghan's reaction to the upsurge was to launch an anti-union hysteria, shrilly denouncing the strikers as irresponsible' and branding the action of pickets as 'terrorist' He vas backed-up by other members of the cabinet who threatened everything from a sixmonth wage freeze to introducing a 'state of emergency'.
The extent to which Callaghan - and his TUC allies - have moved to the right can be seen in the Concordat recently arranged between them. This agreement, hastily cobbled together in response to the mass pay revolt, is designed to assure employers that a future Labour government will be able to carry out its austerity measures by relying on the TUC to Unity?
For many months, disparate forces marched together under the label 'Khomeini's peoplé' because they were all united in a desire to overthrow the hated Pahlavi dictatArmed opposition to the Shah's rule.
orship. The uprising itself was the result of escalating actions which seemed as if the entire nation was involved in a common struggle. curb rank-and-file democracy and break strikes.
The proprosals it contains are almost identical to those which appeared earlier in Barbara Castle's 'In Place of Strife', or the Tories more savage Industrial Relations Act.
Concordat While the document does not put forward any precise pay norms - to avoid embarassment to the TUC before its own members -it does propose that there should be an annual 'economic assessment' when both sides of industry sit down and work out a pay ceiling.
In order to force workers to abide by these norms, the document tables major inroads into the Workers, who had been on strike for months, set up elected committees demanding workers' control in industry. Peasants, in certain cases, seized the land. Universities were turned into popular bases of opposition to the Shah. Towns throughout Iran saw the creation of 'neighbourhood committées' which helped mobilise mass demonstrations like that on Feb 8th when over 1 million poured into the streets of Tehran against the Baktiar govThe unrest spread into the army which had been the main bulwark of the Shah. Rank - and - file soldiers and airmen - like those from the Doshom Teppah air base - began to identify with the peoples' demands, distribute arms and set up committees demanding the right to free speech, to participate in politics & to elect their own officers.
Constituent Assembly Now that the Shah has been overthrown, however, there exists no concensus as to the development of the revolution or the type of society to emerge out of it. On the contrary, it is clear that growing C6C NOW NOW NUPE says £60 NOW democratic rights of trade unionists. It talks, for example, of strike action being a 'last resort', and the need to avoid strikes altogether during negotiations.
It poses the need for secret ballots' to break the solidarity of workers and open them up to the anti-union propaganda of the TV and press. It goes on to talk of the need to end 'secondary picketing' (ie. solidarity action) in a way distinctly reminiscent of the Industrial Relations Act. Labour will, in other words, do all the Tories want - without legislation. Election The 'Concordat' was obviously hastily put together as a platform continued on page 8 divisions have arisen amongst the once united forces on clear class lines.
The tasks of the Barzagan government -appointed from above by the Ayotollah - were sumined up with unusual bluntness by the New York Times (Feb 8th): "Barzagan's mission is to preserve the continued hegemony of the nationalist bourgeoisie in Iran and protect it against the revolutionary forces unleashed by years of strife, strikes and militancy".
The New York Times is dead on target. The Barzagan government has grouped around it support from the Iranian bourgeoisie - remnants of the old, discredited National Front - which has become increasingly frightened of the power and independent action of the masses. It has been this fear which has prompted it to refuse to 'legalise' parties of the left and to postpone the elections to a Constituent Ass -embly in which the masses would be free to choose their own government.
continued on page 10