The LSA must solidarise itself with Black Nationalist and anti - racist struggles taking place such as that - in late 1976 - which burst forth against the 'witch-hunt' whipped up in the Tory press over 'immigration'. In supporting such struggles, we must defend the right of Blacks to organise along whatever lines they so choose in and outside the labour movement.
Where possible, socialists should involve themselves in and help build defence organisations for victimised Blacks - particularly under the 1971 Immigration Act - and find out more about existing defence groups and militant organisat -ions of the Black Community.
Both through our press and public meetings, we should explain the oppression of Blacks as Blacks; the character of their struggle as an independent form of the class struggle; the explosive nature this gives to their struggle as work -ers & the vanguard role their struggles will play against reaction. An important part of this process will be to make available - to Black militants as well as white - the marxist analysis of Black Nationalism made by the SWP (USA). This would SOCIALIST ACTION
help explain the complex raçial-national character of the struggle of the immigrant and In addition to identifying with the struggles of Blacks, the LSA has a duty to combat racism within the broader labour movement. This struggle can concretely be mounted by:
a) supporting and helping to build mass action campaigns against the racist governments in Zimbabwe and South Africa and the complicity of the British government in 'maintaining' them -through massive investments. 'End all military and economic aid for Apartheid!.
b) supporting and helping to build a mass action campaign against the present racist immigration laws which prevent Blacks entering the country on the basis of colour and reduce those who do get through 'immigration controls' to second -class citizenship. 'Repeal the 1971 Immigration CRIA demonstration in April last year E) Student Movement The National Union of Students (NUS) has become the main arena for the discussion of contending political programmes for advancing student struggles and relating them to those broader social layers. Our long-term task within the student movement is to try with other tendencies - a class - struggle left wing within the NUS on a programme offering solutions to the problems facing students as students and linking them with broader social struggles underway. Key points of any such proa) In face of cut - backs in social expenditure, socialists have to fight for a 'sliding scale of educational expenditure! to ensure no worsening of standards. In face of the erosion of student grants, under inflationary trends, socialists have to fight equally for a 'cost of living clause' inbuilt into all grants. Since immigrant & women students are particularly hard-hit by the twin evils of inflation and government cut-backs, such layers have to be particularly protected by a series of complementary demands.
b) At the same time as raising demands relating to students as students, socialists have to pioneer within the NUS attempts to get the union to both sponser and support the mass campaigns against present anti-abortion moves, racist laws, the oppression of the Irish people and the general attack upon living standards & job opportunities by the government.
The struggle to achieve any of these demands should be posed within the 'red university! strategy. Whether attempting to oppose closures of college creche facilities or attempting to mobilise mass support for a strike, the aim should be the occupation of the college thereby turning it into an ideological and organisational centre for anti-capitalist struggle. Such a perspective will involve a fight against both the opportunist and the ultra-left trends in the student movement.
F) The Labour Movement The permanent threat of large-scale unemployment and rampant inflation are symptoms of decaying capitalism. 'Productivity deals', factory mergers and closures, laws restricting the independence of trade unions, and incomes policies are all weapons of the ruling class that workers have to confront more and more. Massive defen -sive struggles will have to be waged in the labour movement in the period ahead to win decent living standards, working conditions & the right Faced with such a perspective, the key task of socialists in the labour movement is to develop a strategy to combat the problems workers face by 'binding' the movement together in united action. In order to prevent attempts by the employers to Isplit' the workers" movement, socialists should pioneer inside the unions support for the doublyoppressed layers such as women or Blacks. Any attempt to build a class-struggle opposition that does not include such issues - e. 9. support for women's abortion rights or repeal of the racist Immigration Act - represents a clear attempt to avoid political questions and an 'accommodation! to the backward ideas of layers of workers.
At the same time, demands must be raised that relate specifically to the problems of workers, demands stemming from attempts to defend living standards and democratic rights. The two main evils facing workers at present - and which will deepen in the period ahead - are inflation & unemployment.
Socialists should demand an end to any form of incomes policy (such as the Social Contract) and attempt to introduce the idea of a 'sliding scale of wages! (i.e. wage rises automatically tied to increases in the cost of living). Such a demand should not preclude struggles for higher wages but is essential in preventing the inevitable demoralisation of workers struggling time after time merely to stand still.
To combat unemployment, socialists should fight for a 'sliding scale of hours' (i.e. sharing the given amount of work, through a reduction in hours, among the existing work-force) with no loss of pay. Such a demand can be popularised in the call for a 35-hour week. Since unemployment is already wide-spread, fight to get the unions to unify both the employed and unemployed in a major campaign to end cut -backs in social expenditure and for a massive Public Works Programme!
hese demands will become central in the per iod ahead. Their importance lies in the fact that they can unite the whole labour movement around a common struggle, not allowing weaker unions to fall by the wayside, through lack of industrial power, thus creating divisions. At the same time, they show that workers, who bear no responsibility for the crisis, should not be made to suffer
G E C Mass demonstration in Coventry against redundancies In struggling in factories, mines and depots to maintain jobs and wage levels, workers will ever more come into conflict with employers unwilling or unable to 'concedel their demands. In such struggles, the call 'Open the Books' or 'No Business Secrets' assumes its full importance. If employers cannot guarantee full employment or decent living standards, let them 'open' their books to representatives of the labour movement for investigation.
If, as may happen, individual employers prove they cannot satisfy the demands of the workers, then the call should be made for 'Nationalisation under Workers! Control. If employers run their enterprises efficiently, they should be taken over by the workers and - within the framework of a national plan - be run in the interests of people and not profit. Where industries go bankrupt or close down, a similar demand should Such demands are not, of course, the sole demands socialists should raise and struggle for in the labour movement. Socialists should be to the forefront of all struggles over pay and working conditions, however Ismall' or 'localised'. The above demands, however, are a trame-work in which struggles should be increasingly placed as more and more workers become aware that the problems they face are general ones requiring general solutions.
It is in fighting for such demands, first on a local and progressively a national level, that workers will gradually realise that the struggle to defend decent living standards and full emp -loyment can only be achieved by a socialist solution.
In fighting for these demands, workers will increasingly come into conflict not only with the ruling class and its institutions but with the bureaucracy dominating the labour movement which oîten refuses to champion the interests of its members and which collaborates in 'productivity deals', unemployment and voluntary pay freezes as in the Social Contract.
One of the major errors made by large layers of the 'left! is not only that they have no strategic solution to the problems facing the labour movement but that they have no perspective of struggle for removing the present mis-leadership. The rank-and-file movement oi groups like the SWP divert struggles against the labour bureaucracy loutsidel the unions. The task is not, however, to separate militants in artificial bodthe mass of members - who still follow the existing leaders - but to channel growing discontent into a struggle to kick out the labour bureaucrats.
The central task of socialists in the unions is, in this sense, building a class-struggle left wing tendency around a clear set of demands to challenge and struggle against the present leadership. Such a struggle against the class-collaborationist methods of the bureaucracy will throw up demands against their anti-democratic practices in an attempt to create a true spirit of workers' democracy: e. 9. ands for the 'recall of all officials' or Isalaries of union officials no higher than that of the average worker'.
The aim of such a struggle for a clear class struggle programme and for a democratic structure is to transform the unions into organisations which will pioneer the interests of working peop-
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