One oroanisation not supoortino ine Assembly is the clerical workers' union APEX. This doesn't mean that APEX mempers are somenow unarrected Dy the scourge of unemployment, but that Ineir natonal leadership nas uned up with the TUC in immediately crying 'Red' when action against unemployment is organised.
An angry APEX member wrote to Red Weekly after his branch's decision to send a delegate to the Assembly had been rescinded on the orders of the ArEA readersmip A circular trom tne u unions executive counci dug up an Ec regulation passed in November 1962 as justification for their ruling that: 'Branches cannot associate or financially support the "Assembly on Unemployment" or any pooy mat sponsors it, norcan any unit within the union be represented at this "Assembly on Unemployment.
Also enclosed with this diktat was a list of proscribed organisations - presumably to refresh the memories of regional and local bureaucrats who may have troupe in semina acceptance or wace curs and redundancies to their members. Those listed include the Communist Party. APEX Action, the British Czechoslovak Friendship League, and the International Socialists.
These proscriptions are used to divide vo une abour movement for ene gener of the bureaucrats. A fight for united acton must go nand in nana with the ending of all bans and proscriptions in tne abour movement.
The real ironv of the storv is that the day after this ruling was pushed through, 146 redundancies were declared in one of the factories which make up the membership or our readers branch. Has the APEX leadership any ideas on how 'support for TUC policies' is going to help these workers? Portuguese textiles.
Only by workers controlling production can you guarantee the right TO WOIK I know that it might embarrass some people to adopt these ideas, because it would mean conflict with the so-called left-wing leaders in the trade unions. Scanlon's recent statement of complete and absolute support for Government policy shows just how bankrupt is the Communist Party's strategy of making any action dependent on an alliance with these lefts".
WAR The fact of the matter is that to take the working class forward in the fight against unemployment, this Assembly will have to declare war on all those who support the policies of the present Government - and that includes Jones and Scanlon. sector. 1,500 to 800.
leges have been sacked scrapheap.
5 March 1976 Act mean that many male workers think that women are now equal, without understanding that their position in the family has not changed. In fact the slashing of the social services means that women are bearing the brunt of these cuts.
And it is not that women are pin money earners. The Women's Own survey showed that three out of five women see their income as essential to the family, while a quarter of these are the sole breadWinCE dry way.
We have got to demand not only the right to work, but right to work specifically. If this isn't done, people will just accept that women should be first down the road.
The Working Women's Charter has got an important role to play in this, because it draws out the relationship between women's situation at work and in the home, and shows that the fight for the right of women to work has to be a fight both against redundancy and against the cuts.
Women are also usually the first to go in any voluntary redundancies. I work at a car components plant in Birmingham, Wilmot Breedon. We had voluntary redundancies of nearly one third verv early on. People feared that the company would collapse, and left in the hope of getting a job elsewhere.
Those left behind are now suffering for not persuading them to stay. Conditions have deteriorated terribly, and the machinery is being set up - with Government grants to impose big speed-ups.
This Assembly will be useless if it is just another moan session. Very little action has been taken to date. Apart from the open sabotage of the TUC, it's obvious that although everybody opposes unemployment, very few people know exactly what to do about it.
If you go to almost any trade union meeting you find that the question is often treated as a moral one, with militants calling on each other to end overtime and impose a 35-hour week. What they refuse to s see is that their members will not do this unless it is part of a national plan to safeguard living standards by opposing the f6 and any other wage limits, restoring the cuts in public spending, and fighting throughout industry for a 35-hour week with no loss of pay.
• real move we see some actor from this conference instead of another lot of wind.