organisations of the labour moveFailore to organise in the unions in the past hus been one of the main reasons for the defeat of the left. Hevan, for example, was defeated by the right-wing union leaders of the 1950s.
Do you think It's necessary to organise in the unions to struggle against those who won't fight the Taries!
Yes. The left must come together in all trade unions. The aim of the trade union movement is to bring about a fundamental change in the society in which we live, and that can only be done through the struggie socialism.
So we have to carry on that tight inside the unions, and where leaders refuse to carry out the policies for struggle have to fight where necessary for an alternative leadership As you poinied out, under the Heath government the TUC refused to allow unions to register under the Industrial Relations Act, and unions took action against the Act.
Do you believe the TUC shoul now be talking with the Tories abou union laws?
I think it is stupid for any person to make arrangements with their jailors, with those who would handcuff and chain them, and restrict their liberties.
The thing to do is that if there is any attempt to restrict the liberties of the trade unions, which have been fought for over 150 years, those liberties mast be maintained.
Weshould refuse, the TUC should refuse, to have any connection at all with those who want to introduce legislation to restrict the liberties of working people. whether picketing, a hundred per cent trade unionism, or any other question of What are the most important policies which have to be Fought for at the present time?
Wages, are naramount. Without decent wages workers can't have a reasonable standard of living. Therefore we must suppart the engineers" present claim, and the wage claims of all the ober Secondly, the shorter working week. We also have to fight on the conditions under which people are working and on the question of genuine industrial democracy.
The issue of racism is also a serious problem inside the working class movement. Many workers have had their minds bent and distorted by the media and have swallowed lies.
My election manifesto, put out to all the clectors of Hackney North, called for abortion on demand, for troops out of Ireland, and for further seconalisations of banks and big business.
The issue of denationalisation is one we faced on a previous occasion after the 1945 Labour government. We should make it clear that on the return of a Labour government we will nationalise without compensation any industries that have been de-nationalised.
Quite clearly, there has to be the greatest possible amount of unity we can obtain in the trade union Seld against these attacks from the Tory government. This means that all those on the left should be united in helping to conduct the struggle against any anti-trade union legislacion.
This last point obvlously brings up the question of united action against the Tories in general, and the question of left unity. What are your views on this?
Fought to be possible on all the issues I've talked about to get unity of al working class political and trade union organisations. Certainly, on the problem of fascism National Front, successfully by the Anti Nuri League Those who don't support unity are only acting as disrupters, because the problems I've mentioned. problem of a wages struggle in a trade TRICEL cannot permit differences. If we conducted trade union battles on wages in that way we'd be defeated on all occasions 1e's only because workers sink their sectarian differences about wages and working conditions that they are ever successful.
The press is saying that thatcher his a for Tive yeurs. But th previous Tory government essentially brought down by action outside parliament.
Should the working class accept Thateber being in office until 1984, or should it fight to do to this Tory government what was done to the last When the workers are problems in life, whether it's their johs, their homes, or whatever, they don't ask themselves the question about what sort of government we've problems. And there wilt be a Tighe They put up to overcome the problems that have been forced on them by the Thatcher Tory government.
It has been well said, and I believe it, that the will of the people is the highest law"
If the nation's peopie want to make changes and a Parliament, government, or any other body which has ceased to be representative of their interests stands in their people have the right to take action which will bring the results that they want.
IF this calls into question the continuation of a Tory government, then they have the right to do that too A government, even though elected, is Bot continue government in spite of the will of the people.
The likelihood is that If th Thatcher government goes ahead wit the sort of policies that it has alread put forward and those that follow, then the people will be faced with having to tuke some action to defend their real democratic rights against undemocratic astocratic government.
If the struggles are so sharp that it brings into question che continuation always of the government, then the labour trade unionists politicians will be faced with the question of whether they support the workers in their continued ruggles to change the conditions of life.
whether they say to the workers, No.
you must capitulate and not challenge the government too much, not push the issue to governitient itsell question, a was the case with the miDers in 1974.
The vital question is whether the interests of the mass of the people and the majority of people in Britain are working people properly represented by the goverement of the day, or whether attacks are being made which will have disastrous majority of people.
We must maintain the principle or Abraham Lincoln for the people, by the people, and of the people As has often heen said in history, and practiced by the people have the right, the inviolable right, to bring down that government and pur another government in its place.
London. general election victory.
andi thic this has been domi like the decaving areas.
sectarian in struggles was Wrong faced with dwellings.
Westminster London E2.100,000.
those stranglehold over Interest (sic) E772.80.
year's budget projects way, the Interest capital and government Controlling will and and public works projects.
and illness and misery.
already paying.
the paint where the Tories called into are being consequences for the Government people. the and marginal expansion. WITH local council spending high on the Tories' agenda for the axe, the 16 June conference on the crisis of local government — called by supporters of the Socialis Campaign for a Lahour Victory — is well timed.
The following appeal for the conference, initiadly called by the Haringey Labour group of counciliors, Is now supported by nearly 40 Labour councillers In The appeal was written before the Tories expenditure and the system of cash limits. We have argued for a massive injection of central government funds for the inner city areas to cater for the employment, housing, social and special needs of these We believe that only a furidamental reorganisation of finance to local authorities and a break in the debt stranglehold can solve these problems.
The Labour government's much-lauded Inner City Partnership scheme has been little more than a cosmeti exercise. In Lambeth, for example, most of the E5m annual injection has had to be used to offset cuts in other sources of central government fanding like the area health authority bodget and locally determined needs allocation. Moreover, councils themselves have to find 25 per cent of the partnership money.
The whole system of local government financing is wrong Hackney, for example the London borough hishest on the needs league, is 22nd on the cash receipt! per head of population league. A Ipirate yieids one of the lowest amounts in Inner London, E340,000.
In Carden, rich in commercial and industria. properly, a lp rate yields Elm. Seventy-five per cent of any rate increase in Camden falls on these commercial Even more astounding vields E2.880.000, and in the It is not only entral government that exercises a local authorities. The banks and money-lenders take their pound of flesh, Hackney bas an estimated debt for 1978-9 of E215m (C200m in 1977-8) 23.107,540 (estimated For this year tears almost al debt are a third of Hackney's Esom plus budget. Put another way the debt is E1,065.45 per person, two ycars ago it was only i belington the total de reach sam. teeit reaching payments increased from E10m in 1973-4 to E36m for 1978-9. Rate income for the same periods by comparison was E20m in 1973-4 and E40m this year This means that all the money council tenants pay in rent and much of the rates in these boroughs - and they are typical — is consumed by the money-lenders, Financ are literally authorities to ransoms. And the problem gets worse every year. At present interest takes a third of all expenditure Labour groups Hackney, Lambeth, Haringey, Isington and Camden were elected on radical reform manifestos pledging expansion of chid-care and nursery provision, day-care centres for the elderly, house-building and improvement eliminate private proliteering, and a range of community This is the minimums necessary to avert Inner-city decay with its attendant blight of beightenet racial prejudice, vandalism, violence, unemployment, Weare also committed to freezing rents while wage are restrained and paying local authority employees a Ebl minimum wage for a 35-hour week. We oppose the renl Increases in Islington and Hackney which pur an extre penalty on council tenants over that which they are We haveno time forthe Tories hypocritical carping about spendthrift councils'. They have no time for the unemployed, those in housing need, the sick and the victinis of their market system wlich throws the weakes to the wall. Their policy of savage curs in spending wil only exacerbate inner-city decay.
But short of ahandoning our manifestos we see only two ways of implementing our programmes for inner city rejuvenation. One is enormous rute increases or a form of delicit financing. For exampic in Huckney it is estimated that a 233 per cent rate rise would be necessary to begin impiementing our main prenges.
Clearly this is not on. It is not on because it still hits at working people's pockets. It is also an illusory solution while the present system of finance exists. Rate rises can only be a stop-gap measure to maintain jobs and service Hence we are fighting for a massive increase in central government finance and rate support. We want to see public ownership of banking and finance and a rate City of La socialist reconstruction of society.
The Labour colossal council or bankrupting the people.
continue expansion programmes.
Interest week to the council manual workers.
authorities we are forced to use holding local Community boroughs like adequate to rescue the inner cities continuin you SOLISOL come as delegates or visitors.
Patrick Kodikars, council);
Powlowski, Jane Neal Fletcher, Durine (Camden Bob Lewis (Hillingdon council).
Hill, London NW3 (Belsize Park tube). Include: the lessons of Clay Cross and background papers available. Further centralised scheme of finance protected from inflation Enormous resources and labour exist in the inner cities to renovate production and services. The financial tubricant is necessary to set them in motion. Private enterprise is daily failing to employ these resources and meet social needs. That is why we believe production should be geared to socially useful products and requires government refused to take responsibility for the inner city areas. Hence councillors are faced with the Hobson's choice of bankrupting the In Lambeth the rale has been increased by 39.8 per cent — 28 per cent is merely to stand still, the rest is to Camden's rate is up 17,7 per cent, but because of the high rateable values thi can also finance the local settlement of £60 and a 35-hour As socialist counciliors we are committed to the provision of jobs and services. Until we successfully force the government to restructure finance to loca the least anti-working class means of raising finance. We aim to co-ordinate activities in as many boroughs as possible to achieve this fundamental overhauling of local authority financing.
Small initiatives are already being made in this direction by Lambeth, Islington and Hackney, but these are behind closed doors and inadequate to achieve the necessary changes. We need to turn the local councils out into the community involving the Labour Parries, Tenants and the entire organised labour movement.
Only with the full involvement of the working class community can we build a strong and united movement Mindful of these problems we call on all Labour groups, CLPs, trade unions and labour movemen sodies to support the call for a conference on the crisis o local government finance and services. We ask conference SIGNED: Ted Kaight, Sylvin lagerson, Bryn Davies, Mike Jerram, Bill Bowring, Kevin Moore, Paul Moore. Mathew Warburton (Lumbeth council; John Sweeney, Ron Heisler, Dinsh Morley, Keith Lichman, Peter Kahn, George (Hackney Jenny Morris, Val Veness, Alex Farrell, Cathy Streather, Jan Wilson (slingion council); Ken Livingstone, Anna Bowman, Pat Driscoll, Mick Morrissey, Phil Turner. Tom council): Jeremy Corbyn. Ron Blanchard, Colla Sherrif, June Chapman, Bernie Grant (Haringey council); Enda Doanelly (Hounsion council);
• The conference la to be held on Saturday. 16 June, 10wm-5.70pm at Humpstead Town Hali, Haverstock Workshops and Poplar: rates finances and where the money goes: democracy. Labour groups and the working class; and direct labour.
Admission £1 for delegates and visitors. Resolutions can be submitted. Creche - Local coveranco! conference, c/o 5 Stamford Hill, London N16.
Socialist Challenge 31 May 1979 page