Scottish Socialist No. 5

[page 2]

LABOUR'S SCOTLAND Spending Cuts Housing in Europe

House prices in Scotland have risen by 19% for old houses and 119 for new ones over the last yeur. But tenants receive scant attention."

In Edinburgh Tory Cornelius Waugh, head of the housing committee has claimed: "No-one in genuine difficulty will be evicted from a council house. In such cases we do our utmost to ensure that the family concerned are receiving all the benefit and support to which they are entitled."

In fact in June 1976 Edinburgh was evicting tenants at a rate of 273 per year. By October that rate had increased to 334 per year. Of these 1 in every 10 were not getting family income supplement they were due. 3 in every 10 were not receiving rent and rules rebates they were due. 2 out of every 10 are single parent families and half of those were certainly due Child Interim Benefit bur did not appear to be getting it. The average annual rent in Edinburgh is £203.11 - E52.44 above the Scottish average and the highest in Scotland.

1 Worker in 12 on The Dole In Labour's Scotland one worker in every twelve is on the dole. Since last October, there have been on average 1000 redundancies a week. The so-called oil boom is over John Brown Offshore announced 300 redundancies in April. This rising unemployment is a result of Labour's policies of trying to manage capitalism better than the capitalists:

At Robb Caledon Ship-builders in Leith 237 workers have been laid off and fears are growing that the whole yard will close despite nationalisation on July Ist. As local Boilermakers official Tommy Blackhall pointed out, "the government are arguing rationalisation along with nationalisation."

As part of the deal to get nationalisation through, Industry Secretary, Eric Varley, increased compensation, With this blood

Glasgow's Labour council has decided to demolish one third of the houses in Blackhill. Bailie Dick Dynes told the Evening Times of 7th April. "The alternative to demolition is to spend C6 million on improvements. That would be perpetuating a ghetto mentality. We are not prepared to spend that amount •... I regard this as a radical new approach to the problems of Blackhill."

The council's radicalism also includes making 800 redundancies in the Direct Labour Department. Their solution to the resulting problems is to sell off council houses and building projects to the private sector - more goodies for the sharks who are keeping prices and rents sky high.

The final disgrace came when housing committee member Mrs. Catherine Cantley had to resign. She had arranged some spectacular queue jumping for her son and his girlfriend. They got a brand new council house on request wildest dreams of those whose ma is not on the housing committee.

money guaranteed, Robb's Owners are content to let the yard die rather than seek new orders.

In December, the government announced the withdrawal of Regional Employment Premium which even the CBI admits will kill 10,000 Scottish jobs. * Cuts in public expenditure have thrown thousands of newly qualified teachers on the scrapheap.

Labour's policy of boosting industrial investment under capitalism is a policy of replacing workers with machines in already saturated markets, and throwing more public sector workers on the dole to find the money to do it. Little wonder unemployment in Scotland is now over 180,000 - higher than under any postwar Tory government,

something beyond the

Page 2

welfare services have been put on the chopping block to finance handouts to big business. * Staff shortages and overcrowding have got worse while teachers, medical staff and local government workers have been thrown on the dole. • Over £94 million has been cut off Scottish housing expenditure by the Latest White Paper. Councils continue to dole out fortunes in interest charges. Direct Labour departments are being ditched. The burden of housing costs is being shifted onto the council tenants to boost the profits of private contractors and finance houses. The result? Soaring rents and the survival of Europe's worst slums. • Transport cuts continue to axe vital community services. Fare increases of over 250% in three years have hit working people's pockets hard. * Instead of supporting those who elected them against the government, as the Clay Cross Councillors did when the Tories were in, Labour councils are first in line to carry through the cuts.

Rising Prices

In 1976 Food prices rose by 23.5%. So it's not surprising that £500 million worth of goods go to shoplifters every year. In one week this month price rises in Glasgow stores included mince up from 68p to 76p per lb., bacon up from 44p to 454p per half pound, 1ap on a half pound of lard, and 9p on a dozen eges.

With wages pegged back and unemployment rising, more and more people are turning to cneap substitute foods. But even that no longer provides a refuge from profiteers. At 56p a pound butter is setting beyond the reach of many families. Yet the Daily Record of 22 April reports that claims of a rise in vegetable oil prices will send the cost of margarine soaring.

The Labour government has been only too happy to Keep down wages rises. Indeed one union the Association of Technical Scientific and Managerial Staffs now thinks a 34% wage rise is needed for its workers to get back former living stundards. But the government nas rerused to control prices. Even where controls exist in theory, as on bread, increase after increase has been allowed by the government.

The end result of the social contract is that the number of people living on or below the poverty line had risen to 13 million.

[page 3]

NO NO

Its policies.

it they wish.

they have not responded.

chop.

A SOCIALIST ANSWER

CUTS SLUMS NO TO THE DOLE TIME TO FIGHT BACK VOTE MONTGOMERY SCOTTISH SOCIALIST

GLASGOW Glasgow Scottish Socialist League is standing in the Kelvin Ward, site of some of the city's worst squalor. Dalmally Street in the middle of the ward is half made up of demolished and boarded up tenements. The other half is a gaping expanse of waste ground on Maryhill Road, the main thorouglifare. Street after street is being gutted in this way. Kelvin's councillor John Ross is vice-chairman of the Labour group and one of the main architects of

Glasgow and the West suffer from chronic unemployment and the area of North Glasgow in which we are standing is one of of the worst fut. We have been the locar dole queues to make sure every voter who signs on gets a chance to study our policies and to join in the campaign

We are holding weekly campaign meetings in the ward openito all interested. Already many non-SSL members have joined in the campaign. We have asked for support and involvement from the Glasgow Socialist Workers Party. Unfortunately

We are also campaigning outside the ward area. Our candidate, Matt Montgomery, a former Chrysler steward who works at Knightswood bus depot, has been out to Glasgow airport to speak to the strikers. He is arguing the case of workers at Partick bus garage, due to be closed by the Passenger Transport Executive, and Maryhill garage, threatened with the same treatment. SSL hospital workers are to publicise the problem of Kuchill hospital also threatened with the

Glasgow has had fifty years of Labour's brand of socialism. The results can be seen on Dalmally Street. To sum up our attitude to Dick Dynes, Catherine Cantley and John Ross we are calling on the inhabitants of Kelvin ward to VOTE FOR A COUNCIL WORKER, NOT A COUNCIL BOSS.

leafletting

EDINBURGH Facing four Scottish Socialist candidates in Edinburgh, the Labour Party's immediate response was to denounce them for "splitting the socialist vote. All four, chosen for their record in local campaigns, are standing in Leith. One Labour Councillon said the decision to stand against Labour leader Jimmy Kerr would ensure his defeat.

Kerr's opponent, Des Tierney, replied that Labour alone were responsible for their loss of votes. Leith", he stated, "is one of lost jobs and slum houses. Leith MP Ronald King-Murray sits in the Labour government which is responsible for the sackings at Robb-Caledon ship yard and the closure of Leith hospital".

On the campaign's first day the candidates and their supporters joined the 4,000 strong march for higher pensions called by the Minets and the T& G. They handed out a statement supporting pension rises but attacking union leaders like Jack Jones, billed to speak. He claimed to support them but backed the Social Contract which was cutting living standards. A call was issued for a pension in line with the average wage which would rise with prices, and for expansion of welfare services hit by government cuts.

The candidates helped collect signatures in Leith for a petition against attempts to restrict abortion rights. Two candidates, Jenny Donaldson and Pauline Tierney, are women but all the candidates are putting the issue to the fore. A meeting is being held in Leith to build the Scottish Women's Rights Rally.

The election campaign is being used to build local campaigns, and to put forward policies which create a socialist alternative to Labour and stop the drift to the SNP.

The candidates will campaign against the sackings at Robb Caledon and the closure of Leith Hospital. Street and workplace meetings will raise issues like racism and women's rights. Leaflets, written by members of the Anti-Racist Committee, will be distributed to the immigrant community in their own tongue.

At the first campaign press conference representatives from the Council's

"Labour's record in

Page 3

Direct Labour Department hit out at Edinburgh's housing policy. Facing Tory housing convenor, Cornelius Waugh is Ron Cormack, a former convenor in the Direct Labour. Cormack was victimised in a campaign led by Waugh against Direr t Labour. Edinburgh has stopped buiiding council houses, despite a waiting list of 14,000 and has the highest eviction rate in the country. Central to the SSL campaign is the demand for decent housing for all and an immedite programme of council house building. In Leith alone over 3,000 homes lack basic amenities.

ABERDEEN Ian Grant, SSL Candidate in Castlehill ward, faces a straight fight with Labour councillor Alexander Collie, chairman of the recreation department. Here, at least, we can't be accused of splitting the Labour vote.

The ward includes most of the docks. Aberdeen's principal ship repair yard, the council Direct Labour department, Marischal College (part of the university) and the dingy end of Aberdeen's city centre shopping area. The voters are housed in either the few new flat blocks or a more extensive area of twilight housing.

While Aberdeen has escaped the worst of unemployment, the cuts have hit hard and the housing crisis is acute. Recent weeks have seen campaigns develop against the loss of 142 teaching posts and against Grampian Regional Council's refusal to finance the staffing of its recently built nursery schools. The local Labour Party has evaded responsibility due to Tory control of the Region, where cuts have been passed against the token opposition of the Labour Group- We are campaigning vigorously to reveal the complicity of the local Labour Party in the cuts by showing how the policies of the region and Westminster are echoed in the housing dominated District Council, Housing cuts are running at a third in real terms, and can only get worse following the government decision to remove the oil-related rate support grant.

controlled by the Labour

continued on Page 4

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Socialists and Elections

Socialist Answer

Continued from Page 3 Clay Cross Council who showed that working class resistance to government policy could be stimulated by a socialist couneil. In fact it was these very Aberdeen councillors who backed off from the fight against Tory rent increases and helped Bolate the Chy Cross group.

Our campaign opened with a united front appeal to the Socialist Workers Party, and we are following this up with a drive for support and assistance amongst independent lefts and students. We are holding regular street meetings against the social contract, against spending cuts and for womens rights and the SDA rally.

Dave Fowler, hospital worker and resident

Every party knows that this yeirs' council clections are a rehearsal for the coming General Flection. The Lib-Lab pact is meant to prop up the government until Phase Ill can stagger through, and no more.

The Stechford bye-election result shows what the Labour Party can expect. Their supporters, who suffer their policies not just once every five years but all the year round, have expressed their disgust and disillusion by staying at home.

The next general election whether it comes this autumn or gets held up until 1978 will not just be a formality. The Tory party has the most right wing front bench since the thirties. The fascist National Front may well live up to their claim to have replaced the Liberal Party as the third party in British politics. In short, we are headed for a government of the extreme richt.

The most damaging result of the last three years is that the working class has been betrayed by its own leaders. It is the Scanions and Jones who have wielded the chopper, It has been left to militants like Roy Fraser, who led the Leyland toolroom workers, to gather the threads of rank-and-file opposition. Their militancy has not stopped them being isolated. We think it is necessary to try and build a united movement out of all strands of opposition around policies which provide a clear alternative to the present right wing lendership.

Socialist clection candidates offer a plitform for a fight back. They show the strength of support for a different way forward. We have been fighting for dass struggle candidates and campaigns. We want candidates based on real experience of strugele. People who will take up the demands of the strike committees, tenants" committees and women's groups, and give them a voice. We reject the traditional politician's campaigns, which descend once a year and then vanish to the council chambers.

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IMG Stechford campaign

In Kelvin ward, posters advertising CIr. Ross's surgeries appeared two weeks before the elections. In Falkirk, students at Callendar Park College told SSI. candidate Dave Fowler that he was the only person seeking clection who had come to talk to them about their struggle against closure.

The fight for class struggle candidates und socialist clection tactics has to go. into every labour movement party, It is quite possible for constituency and ward Labour Parties to produce anti- Social Contract candidates course it is a difficult uphill battle. Candidates like Edinburgh's Tom Fenton who is campaigning under the slogan "fight for a Socialist Alternative", against the cuts and the Contract.

But the fact is that very few such candidates have merged. In Glasgow Jimmy Wray, the lone opponent of Labour's policies, was suspended from the Labour group. In Edinburgh attempts to produce a left slate have foundered. Only in Dundee has there been a sizeable challenge to right wing incumbents — and those who unseated them have yet to prove their credentials.

Serious organised opposition to the Labour tight is to be found in the far Left groups, the Communist Party and a few isolated centres of working class resistance. The headlong flight into the arms of the SNP of Sillars" SEP has rendered it incapable of realising its promise of class struggle opposition.

The Stechford byclection showed the potential the far left possesses. The two candidates of the International Marxist Group and the Socialist Workers" Party between them amassed nearly 2%5 of the votes. A united campaign would have Teached four figures and show that a good part of the electorate look on revolutionary socialist policies as a practical alternative.

This is why the SSE has approached the SWP to discuss a joint campaign everywhere it is standing. We do not view the division of the far left as bencficial to the working class or socialism. To face the right wing divided at such a crucial turn in British politics is criminal.

It is not possible to overcome splits by magic. It needs a lot of political discussion and joint activity. But this does not justify the SWP refusing, as they have until now, any form of co-operation or even discussion. Working from the notion that the purpose of standing in clections is to build a party, they have not understood the chances that a unitied campaign would open up for revolutionary socialism and its credibility.

In standing seven candidates for the district clections, the SSL is starting the left on the road to a socialist election policy.

thouch of

MARTIN O'LEARY

FALKIRK

of Hallglen council estate, is standing for Callendar Ward. Callendar Park College remains in danger. It was to be cut and has been reprieved but there are no special interests behind it. The reprieve may be litted at any time. The college depends on the action of WCAC militants. A big part of our campaign has seen involvement with and support for Callendar Park students.

Local tenants have been active in a campuign for proper upkeep of roads and footpaths. They also want a practical and useful land development policy for Haliglen housing estate. We aim to give them and other local militants a platform at our election meeting.

We have written to the Trades Council asking for a chance to speak to our policies at the May Day demonstration. We have received no answer to this request. The Socialist Workers Party is planning to set up a Falkirk Branch and we will be asking their members for support.

[page 5]

This year the SNP mounts its biggest local clection challenge to date. The sight of Glasgow councillor Cathy Cantley dismissed from her post for 'irregularities' must have been worth thousands of votes to them. Yet ugain the Labour Party's image seems confirmed by events: empty shell branches, councillors responsible to no one but their families, a party creaking with age and political complacency. It 1s the contrast between the Catherine Cantleys and supposedly radical and dynamic politicians like Margo MeDonald which drives so many away from the Labour Party.

But how deep is the SNP's radicalism? A look at where they are standing gives a clue. In Dundee, where they have one of the two MPs, they are mounting no challenge. In Aberdeen they are standing only eight candidates. All their effort is concentrated on the West of Scotland,

They are not standing to win local office. They want to break Labour's grip on its most symbolic stronghold. Out of a sweeping victory they will claim, not the government of Glasgow, but the right to negotiate the future of all Scotland's working people.

It is hardly surprising they are shy of local office. In the carly seventies they burned their fingers badly with blocks of councillors in the big cities who did them far more damage than credit. And last summer SP-controlled Cumbernauld, under Provost Murray, saw one of the first genuine cases of wage cutting since the 1930s. provoking a long and vicious struggle with the dustcart drivers,

But the SNP are not just "Tartan Tories". The first populist party to enter British politics this century, they seem to offer a way forward which will benefit everyone. If the SNP stands up for all Scottish people, who is to doubt that the common man and woman will gain the most? Are we not the majority of the people?

This argument has a very broad appeal. Many sincere trade unionists have turned to the SNP, believing that working people will prevail in a mass movement of all classes. "After Independence", the argument runs, "We'll sort out the rest".

Yet within the SNP financial and middle class interests hold the reigns. In 1968 a purge of leftwingers removed even National Council members on the eve of conference. Elected branch delegates and nominces for national office were physically ejected.

Last year a storm broke when the press leaked cconomic policy documents being prepared by a committee under MP Douglas Crawford. The documents called for a Scotland "more like Switzerland than Detroit", for the jettisoning of traditional industry and for a mobile and pliable

about the breach of security!

political levy

on national lines.

the general interest.

as deceitful as it is vacuous:

And the SN

labour force. But the fuss was not over the composition of the committee - with half a dozen financiers and no trade unionist. It was not over its secrecy - not even party members knew who was on it. Nor was it about anti-working class policies. most of which were adopted. The storm was

The influence of the ASNTU - the SNP's trade union grouping - has been in continuous decline since the carly "70's, and its founder chairman, lan Smith, left to join the SLP last year. The SNP's main trade union campaign has been against the

the trade unions and move them away from political action. The SNP has no alternative but the breakup of the unions

In the same way the interests of privilege and wealth are served by its policies, although they appear to promote

"It's Scotland's Oil" seems to promise justice and a fair share of the nation's wealth for all. But the oil is neither British nor particularly American, It is privately owned and controlled. Its owners, be they BP or Gaelic Oil, will treat Scotland as cynically as Kuwait or Singapore. A St. Andrew's Cross on every platform in the Forties" Field will make no difference.

In local government they promise the impossible in large dollops. Their Glasgow manifesto unveils a housing policy

- a policy which will split

Page 5

SNP rally in the Grassmarket, Edinburgh.

"The SNP recognises that in the present economic climate few tenants will be able to purchase their homes. We will enable tenants to at least buy a share in their homes, with a discount for length of tenancy, and no houses will be lost from the housing pool. Unlike the present system rent payers will receive a financial return".

Their latest eduction policy documents, released on April 18, call for a return to selective schools - whilst the party remains "committed to the comprehensive ideal".

With a stroke of the pen, they remove problems which have deadlocked educationalists and planners for half a century.

Such policies might work in a dream world, Their effect is different where there are rich and poor, earners and owners. Selectivity cannot be combined vith comprehensives because the high-class schools cream off the best facilities. Selling Council Houses does not give hardworking tenants, a roof over their heads as of right. It puts houses on the private market, which means their prices are settled far above their real value by speculators and moneylenders. It removes the best houses from public stock, leaving only highrise flats and slums. And it puts direct labour workers on the dole.

The ugly face of the SNP has been well veiled until now. If they recerve the mandate they seck, it will take more than popular politians to keep it concealed much longer.

ALAN FREEMAN NEIL WILLIAMSON

[page 6]

110% 100% 50% FPTY FEE

phraseology. It calls for a turn away from "macro-policy". In its place is proposed what is called "micro-policy". The contentis the same, but the new form, when dressed up with talk of worker participation, can be presented as a radical form of socialist planning. The major vehicle for this new strategy is to be the Scottish Development Agency, a state company which provides firms with cheap capital in return for a minority shareholding.

In repeated CBi surveys, Scottish firms have reported lack of credit as more of a constraint on production than in the UK as a whole, never mind the fact that UK industry is itself starved of investment finance. Scottish banks will not lend long term to industry suffering a declining tate of return. The big Edinburgh investment trusts pour money overseas where it will find the biggest profit; their fastest growing lending market is Japanese business.

The Scottish Council suggests the SDA make up for the anarchy of capitalist financing by going "to the money market" Le. borrowing at high interest rates from the banks and investment trusts and relending to industry at low rates, the difference being met by taxing workers and cutting spending on houses and schools We do not deny that it is impossible to socialise the entire economy at one go. Further we agree that the key to controlling capitalist firms is to control their credit. But not through bodies such as the SDA which merely interpose the government between the capitalist money-lenders and capitalist firms, The socialist alternative is the expropriation of the entire credit mechanism.

Nationalisation of the banks is official Labour Party "policy" once mentioned by the Scottish Council paper. If a workers state controls credit it can monitor the entire functioning of private capital, cheap credit can be supplied where necessary without tax increases of spending cuts. Genuine aid can be given other nations instead of imperialist exploitation, Private firms' long term plans would be exposed and bent to the central socialist plan on paitor termination of working capital. Of course, the nationalisation of credit would require the mobilisation of the workers' movement something upon which the Scottish Council has yet to pronounce.

Another example of the verbal radicalism of the Scottish Council's plan is a strident denunciation of the external control of the Scottish economy. The paper calls for all outside take-overs of Scottish firms employing more than 100 workers to be referred to the government. We are not told whether the governmert should say yea or nay. No wonder: for thirty years the aim of regional policy was to make it as easy as possible for the multinationals to move into Scotland.

In order to deal with existing multi-

, though this is never

Page 6

nationals, the Scottish Council recommends "planning agreements". These are sereements between individual firms and the government whereby the firms are supposed to let the government know their investment, manpower and marketing intentions some years in advance.

Planning agreements have been presented by the Labour Left as a step towards socialist planning. In theory they force the multinationals to take to coordinated planning with a "socialist" We do not deny the need to deal with the multinationals. They have the technology and finance required in the carly stages of building socialism. What is at stake is the question of power: who decides the plan and who is forced to agree to it?

A planning agreement between a government accepting capitalism and a multinational, whatever episodic disagreements they may have, must be a capitalist agreement at the expense of the working class. Even at that, a national government Will always come off second best to the multinational company. The Scottish Council admits that "to the disappointment of many in the Labour Party the 1975 Industry Act was watered down to make (planning agreements) voluntary rather than compulsory" because the multinationals did not want their affairs pried into. A planning agreement between a government committed to the interests of the Scottish working class and a multinational would be a different matter. The power of the state over nationalised banks would be brought to bear. The question of who rules in the factory would he posed: workers? control, the right to monitor and veto the activities of the capitalist management. Since multinationals cannot be controlled on a national basis, the workers would enlist the trades unions internationally to supervise the internal workings of the multinationals. The Scottish Council hides behind vague notions such as planning agreements because it does not wish to take sides in the class struggle.

Proof positive of the Scottish Council's lack of seriousness over planning agreements shows up their attitude to the assembly. They propose the Assembly will "help formulate overall broad guidelines that industrial development policies in Scotland should follow but (1) the Westminsterappointed Secretary of State has final say over industrial matters, and (Il) the SDA will be independent of the Assembly, In other words, post-devolution Scotland has no powers over its own coonomy!

*"AN INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY FOR SCOTLAND", published by the Scottish Council of the Labour Party, March, 77 40pp. 25p.

GEORGE KEREVAN

government.

SCOTTISH ECONOMIC DIARY

LABOUR'S NEW ROAD FOR THE SCOTTISH ECONOMY

While the Tribune-Tors pact was sabotaging the Devolution Bill, the Scottish Council of the Labour Party was publishing its new discussion paper on post-devolution industrial strategy.

The starting point of the new strategy is an admission that thirty years of government regional cconomic policy have failed. Scottish-owned manufacturing industry has been in decline since the Twenties, and nothing successive governments have done has reversed the trend.

This admission stems from a realisation that the end of the postwar boom has accentuated the crisis of the Whole British cconomy. The traditional regional policy of printing money as hand-outs to entice expanding firms from the prosperous Midlands to move to Scotland is at once rendered obsolete. There are few expanding firms left in the Midlands, In fact, cconomic decline and unemployment are relatively worse in the traditionally prosperous regions as British export markets fall.

Breaking sharply with the old policy of industrial mobility, the Scottish Council proposes a turn to stimulating local Scottish capitalism, especially small and medium-sized firms. Thus means "giving attention to the need for maintaining and even increasing profitability"

It adopts wholly new radical-sounding

[page 7]

Free listings for all Labour Movement events. Other notices and small ads: El for up to 20 words plus 3p for each additional word. Deadline for next issue: May 19 period covered: June 1 - July 18th.

Scottish Socialist, Top Floor, 64 Queen St., Glasgow.

Thursday April 29th: Glasgow Scottish Socialist Rally, with Matt Montgomery (candidate for Kelvin ward) and Tariq Ali. Woodside Halls, Clarendon Street, Glasgow, 7.30p.m. Saturday April 30th. Scottish Activists conference against college fee increases. Strathelyde University Union 10 a.m. Further information from: Hugh Stewart, Paisley Tech. Students" Union, 041-889 9940. Sunday May Ist: S.S.L. Election Rally in Leith Town Hall, Leith, Edinburgh at 7.30 p.m. Saturday May 7th. Sex Discrimination Act One Year On: Scottish rally called by Edinburgh Working Women's Charter Campaign. Creche, Theatre Group, Bookstall, food available. Strathclyde University Union, John Street, Glasgow 12:00 - 5.30 p.m, Saturday Ith May. Friday 13th May. Rallies in solidarity with Southern Africa. Speakers Barney Mokgatle, Secretary Soweto Students Committee, and speaker from Zimbabwe. 8 p.m. MeLellan Galleries, Glasgow and 1 p.m. Glasgow University Q.M. Union. Saturday June 4: Conference of Scottish Economists first Scottish workshop. Topic: the state. Presentation by Edinburgh group. For details and for further information on the CSE in Scotland, contact Hugo Radice, Economics Department, University of -Stirling.

Saturday - Sunday June 11th-12th: Socialism and Dependency, Conference on Socialism in the transnational economy considering alternative models of development for Scotland, Details from Scottish International Institute, 58 Queen Street, Edinburgh, 031-226 4668. Saturday June 18. = Campaign for Democracy in the Labour Movement. Scottish Conference. Fight wage controls and the erosion of democracy in the labour movement. Contact for details: Stewart Maciennan, 18 Carrington Street, Glasgow G4. Tel: (041) 332 8728

New Scottish Women's Liberation Journal: Issue 1 now out. Articles on: Socialism and Feminism, Abortion: Feminist Poetry: News; Reviews. Available price 40p (inc. postage) or £1.50 for 4 issues (inc. postage) from: Sally Henry, 23 Marchmont Crescent, Edinburgh.

in the raid.

suspended sentence.

of a good education.

KELVINGROVE LABOUR PARTY WITCH-HUNT

The Labour Party is in danger of its biggest electoral defeat since 1931. The Labour cabinet breaks party decisions at will. The manifesto with its pledges for nationalisation arid better social services is ignored. The working class voters who put Labour into power are suffering savage attacks on their living standards.

Inside the party the response to left wing criticism is the witch hunt. The Park - Botanic Ward of Kelvingrove constituency party has been experiencing this unsavoury procedure recently. Danny Crawford Labour Party were also accused of having gave the ward a membership report. recommending the turning down of applications to join from two people. In the discussion it was made ciear that the exclusions were based on the applicants political views. Disquiet was felt because they favoured the revolutionary road to socialism. Mr. Crawford alluded to what he claimed was an IMG document proposing to infiltrate and split the party. But neither of the applicants were charged with membership of the IMG.

Splits are occurring. They are not caused by the hypothetical plots of far left groups. They come from disillusion in the

Mervyn Griffiths-Jones.

nor the public any good".

runk and file. When Leyland car boss Terry Davies stood for Labour in Stechford he managed to lose to the Tories on a 17% swing. Traditional labour voters appalled at the Governments record were driven to voting for the Tories and the National Front. And the growth of the Front vote was not surprising given that Mr. Davies committed himself to a single sentence on racism in the course of his campaign - and that written in Urdu.

The would be members of Kelvingrove attacked Labour's left wing supporters of Tribune. Of course if everyone who attacked tribunites was excluded the size of the party would dwindle a lot. But these two people had pointed out that the Labour Left had done nothing to check the drift to the right. They were not involved with the rank and file and were not linking up with worker militants fighting phase IT.

The Ward voted for the exclusions. In doing so it expressed itsell in favour of limiting toe rignt of discussion amongst socialists. The issue now goes to the GMC of the constituency party for settlement. It does so as a clearly political issue.

the

Eton.

A matter of class

In 1974 Matthew Lygate appeared in court charged with bank robbery. He was a member of the Workers Party of Scotland. It was alleged at the trial that the money from the robbery was to be devoted to furthering the cause of Scottish Independence. The judge sent him away for 30 years.

On the 4th April Thomas Hickman also appeared in court charged with bank robbery. Like Lygate he had used violence

Hickman is an old Etonian and a former major in the guards. So was his trial judge

Hickman walked out of court with a

Judge Griffith-Jones said "a jail sentence …......would do neither yourself

Which all goes to show the benefits

Page 7

[page 8]

whole of Scotland.

Interview With Authors of Equal Pay Survey

Two members of the women's liberation movement in Aberdeen have been researching the first year of the Equal Pay and Sex Discrimination Acts in Scotland. They will shortly be producing a pamphlet on this subject. Jane Saren spoke to Maggie Marshall, one of the authors, about their findings.

JS: What made you decide to do this research? MM: Last autumn we approached the Tribunals office in Aberdeen to find out how many cases had been brought under the EPA and SDA in the Grampian Region, simply out of interest. We discovered that only 6 cases had been brought, and of these, not one had been successful.

This made us wonder about the conduct of the Tribunals, so we had a glance at the transcripts of some of them, It seemed very much that the Acts were being interpreted in an extremely finicky way, and that women were being treated unfairly. We felt that this should be publicised. Since so few cases had been brought, and also to give us a better basis for judgement, we decided to cover the

We got in touch with all the women who had brought cases in the Grampian Region and their representatives at the Tribunals. We also contacted as many as possible outside the area, and we got copies of the proceedings of all the Tribunals in Scotland and studied cases which were taken to the Employment Tribunals Appeals body in Glasgow,

In addition to his, we surveyed the general cconomic position of women in Scotland for the pamphlet. JS: How many EPA and SDA cases have been fought in Scotland as a whole, and how many have been successful!

MM: Up to the end of March 1977, 39 EPA cases were contested, of which 14 were decided in the woman's favour; there have been 7 SDA cases of which 1 was successful As far as we know, the SDA cases have all been concerned with discrimination in employment, and have thus gone to Tribunals been fought on the grounds of discrimination in education or provision of goods and services, which would be heard in the Sheriff Court.

JS: Why do you think so many cases have been lost?

MM: There are lost of reasons Firstly, the Tribunals started off with no guidelines to the operation of the Acts, and they have taken a very narrow view in their application of them e.g. as to what constitutes broadly similar work?. A woman who worked in a stalf canteen in Dumbarton, making snacks and going errands, claimed she was entitled to equal pay with the tea-boys in the same firm who cooked meals for staff who didn't use the canteen: they earned t51 per week, and occasionally got overtime for working Sundays, which she didn't have the option of doing, whereas she earned $33.70 per week.

The Tribunal ruled that this was not like work, since she made snacks while the men cooked meals in fact, they all cooked things like bacon and eggs, but she put them into rolls as well! The Tribunal also said that even had "broadly similar' work been established, she would not have been entitied to the same pay because there were material differences in their work, since she had staff status and was paid on

we don't know of any having

Page 8

i weekly basis, while the tea-boys were casual workers and were paid at an hourly Tate.

This particular case also illustrates another problem in the operation of the Acts. On appeal, a very similar case in England was decided in the woman's favour. But only the decisions of the Scottish appeals board in Glasgow set legal precedents for the Scottish Tribunals. And Tribunal decisions, as opposed to appeals decisions, aren't binding on subsequent Tribunals, English or Scottish, at all.

A major loophole in the Equal Pay Act. itself is that, unlike most other tribunals. such as for Unfair Dismissal, the onus is on the complainant to prove her/his case. Even if they can prove that they are doing "broudly similar work to that of the person with whom the claim equal pay, the employer can then plead "material differences" in the nature of the jobs.

To give an example of what has been accepted as a material difference, in one case a woman who was a cleaner on a construction site neur Peterhead claimed equal pay with a man who worked beside

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[page 9]

her. The Tribunal accepted the employers" argument of a material difference in their duties because the man occasionally drove into Peterhead to get messages woman also had a driving licence, and was willing to go on errands. She had never been asked to.

Generally, employers have gone to a surprising amount of trouble to circumvent the operation of the Acts, even where only one or two of their employees would have been affected. JS: Most of the cases in Scotland seem to have been brought by isolated individuals, rather than by groups of women. How much support have they got from their trade unions in their action? MM: Yet, most of the Scottish cases have been brought by individual women, and there must be many more who do not claim because they are intimated by the procedure. Even the women we contacted who had fought cases were not fully informed of the workings of the Tribunals, or fully aware of their right of appeal. The majority of women who have fought cases in Scotland have been represented by their union at the Tribunal. I myself am not sure if more could have been done by the unions, but I think it's fair to say that the women we got in touch with felt their unions could have been more supportive. JS: What impact do you feel the Acts have made on the position of women in Scotland?

MM: There is still a large gap between the average wages of men and women: in April, 1976 the average weekly wage for a man doing manual work was £66.20, for a woman in manual work it was C39.40 (gross). The five-year waiting period between the passing of the Equal Pay Act and its coming into effect allowed employers to re-evaluate jobs and put women in separate categories.

Quite apart from that, women tend to be employed specifically in certain industries and services, and the Equal Pay Act is useless to women who cannot compare their job with that done by a man.

But obviously women won't win equal rights from a tribunal - the women in the Trico factory showed that what's needed is for women to organise and fight for their rights.

CRECHE THEATRE GROUP BOOKSTALL FOOD AVAILABLE

-but the

nationallv agreed wage rate, but are still All the oil companies including BP are prevent the spread of trade unionism in the oil industry and on forecourts nationally.

STRATHCLYDE UNIVERSITY UNION

[page 10]

Glasgow Irish Meeting

"Support for Ireland's right to selfdetermination has declined over the last two years, The need is as great as it ever was".

That was the message from Gerry Lawless, speaking to a public meeting of seventy people in Glasgow's Woodside Halis on April |Ich. Comrade Lawless outlined his view of British plans for Ireland. After flirting with the idea of handing over for good to the Loyalists, the government had been pressured by the military into another try for military victory, He stressed the disarray of pro-British forces in Ireland the Dublin government may lose the coming clections, the Unionists are split a dozen different ways, the Social-Democratic and Labour Party which pinned its hopes on sharing power with the Unionists is given over to public wrangling. At the same time antilmperialist forces were cooperating better/than ever before.

Comrade Lawless also explained that the left in Britain had been worn out by the weight of anti-Irish comment in the press and confused by the shifts and changes in British policy. This was the main reason For the decline in support for the Irish people. But it was possible now to stop that decline.

The IDL is an organisation based in the West of Scotland, Here there are problems that exist practically nowhere else. The great strength of the Communist Party in the labour movement has made it difficult to get Labour movement support for the demand "Troops out of Ireland". The Communist Party prefers to call For a Bill of Rights and for financial aid to the six counties. However worthy these demands they avoid the principle involved. The Irish people have a right to decide their own future. They cannot exercise that right unless the British get out. When calls for peace and prosperity are made an alternative

to "Troops Out", then they are a breach of socialist principle.

Above ull in the West we have the problem of sectarianism and bigotry. The last July 12 Orange walk in Glasgow attracted 30,000 people - the biggest outside Belfast.

The IDL exists specifically to overcome these problems. Its principles are:

Self-determination for the Irish people Troops Out of Ireland * Release all Irish political prisoners in Britain and Ireland.

If you live in West Scotland and agree with these principles, Join the IDL.

MATT MONTGOMERY, Chairman, Irish Defence Leaguc.

Repression in Ireland

In Scottish Socialist No. I we carried an article on the Peace Movement. Since then we have had no coverage on the Irish issue. This was omission rather than design. As John MacLean repeatedly pointed out, socialists in Scotland have double the reasons to attend to . these struggles, not fifty miles away from Glasgow. This issue we begin to repair the omission.

Death threats have been made against the man who told the BBC Tonight programme about RUC brutality. Bernard O'Connor, who helped to spark off a furious controversy when he spoke on television about being beaten up by police at the Castlereagh interrogration centre in Belfast, is now receiving threatening phone calls nearly every night.

These threats come in the wake of a torrent of criticism directed at the BBC

DIED OUT AÉTER CulloDeN IN 1$45 THATS JUST AN ENGLISH SolDieR Wi' A SCOTTISH ACCENT

ANDERSONSTOWN NEWS, Saturiny, Codi Merch 1877

Thiry

for showing the interview. This criticism has little to do with the accuracy of the programme, which revealed only one tiny part of the brutality which is meted out day in and day out; what angered the Government and its Tory and Unionist backers was that the programme co-incided with their attempts to beef up the role of the RUC and the Ulster Defence Regiment.

The RUC has just taken delivery of a number of amoured personell carriers, and has been issued with deadly Mi Carbine rifles: the purpose of this equipment is made clear in aletter to the community paper Andersonstown News of 26 March ... the RUC have been edging further into the Catholic areas of Belfast... they can now be seen every day in the Falls Road, Andersonstown, and Lenadoon. It is obviously their intention to gradually increase their patrols in the hope that they will again be accepted into these areas... The prospect of these Loyalist thugs patrolling regularly is frightening. They must never be allowed back!'

The RUC was one of the roeks which wrecked the so-called 'Peace People' in the eyes of most Catholics, Forced into backing the security forces by their sponsors in the establishment, they even went so far as to call the RUC. our friendly local Bobbies'. This was seen as dangerous nonsense by most ordinary Catholics, who, although they deeply want peace, are not so desperate as to desire a return to the days when the sectarian RUC and B Specials ruled the rOOSt.

Page 10

One of the most important indications of this was the superficially non-political St. Patrick's Day Parade, which took place in West Belfast on 20 March. About 40,000 marchers and spectators participated, and the contingents and floats ranged from Sinn Fein through trade unions to sporting and cultural organisations. It was a happy carnival occasion, but it showed that despite everything the Catholics have a very strong attachment to their Irish identity, and their sense of community solidarity has been maintained. They will not casily be persauded to accept the old sectarian set-up, and the RUC will be resisted as it tries to encroach on their areas.

BOB PURDIE.

[page 11]

CHARTER 77. New rise of opposition in E.Europe

"Charter 77 is a free and informal and open association of people with various convictions, religions and professions, linked by the desire to work individually and collectively for respect for human and civil rights in Czechoslovakia and the world". (quotation from Charter 77).

Such is the aim of the statement known as Charter 77, which Czech defenders of civil liberties attempted to deliver to the Prague government in January, It was signed at the time by 282 persons, including the playwrights Vaclav Havel and Pavel Kohout, as well as Jiri Hajek, foreign minister in the Dubcek government. The number of signatories has since risen to over 672.

SIGNIFICANCE OF CHARTER 77.

Charter 77 "represents a new stage in the development of opposition in Czechoslovakia" according to Jiri Pelikan, Director of Czech TV under Dubeek, now in exile. Its importance, according to Pelican, is also that it "comes at a time when the spirit of resistance has begun to rise with a new force in the other East European countries". (article in Rouge, French Trotskyist daily, Jan. 14th).

Charter 77 acted as an immediate spur to the opposition in other East European countries. On Feb, 3 sixty Jugoslav intellectuals signed a petition demanding immediate repeal of a law which allows police artbitrarily to reject applications for passport. And in Rumania for the very first time there appeared on Feb. 13 a letter signed by eight intellectuals which demanded that the Rumanian government "honour the country's constitutional guarantees".

RESPONSE OF THE CZECH GOVERNMENT Government response was immediate and harsh, When representatives of Charter 77 tried to deliver the petition they were dispersed and harassed by waiting police. The official press began a campaign of slander and vilification against the signatories. In its Jan. 12 issue the CP organ, Rude Pravo, wrote that the Charter 77 group were "agents of imperialism without a mite of honour and conscience [who] cannot have any mission but the preparation of counterrevolution". On Jan. 17 Havel was arrested along with four other representatives. Arrest, detention and police harassment have continued ever since.

On March 13, Jan Patocka, a Czech philosopher and one of the representatives of the Charter group, died. This was only a few days after he had been questioned for eleven hours by the political police. Over a thousand persons attended the

funeral despite the repression. According to a report in Aver, paper of the anti-Moscow faction of the Greek CP. "most were arrested before or during the ceremony" There has been a sharp increase in the arrests and harassment since the Patocka Tuneral.

SOVIET SLANDER CAMPAIGN The Soviet bureaucracy mounted its own stander campaign. The Feb 12 issue of Pravda had the following to say about the Charter 77:

Sit-down demo on first anniversary of Russian invasion-same spirit survives today

"In the press and over radio and TV in many western countries an unprecedented hoopia has developed around the antisocialist gutter document called Charter 77, which was fabricated by a group of rightwing counterrevolutionaries, figures whose true anti-socialist face was exposed in 1968".

In the face of the new rise of opposition in Eastern Europe the Kremlin bureaucracy has decided to draw a hard line immediately in Czechoslovakia. For it was here in 1968 that the Stalinist clite faced its greatest challenge and was able to restore its "order" only with a brutal military occupation. For this reason also the Charter 77 is a key test, and is seen as such by the entire opposition movement throughout Eastern Europe. UNDERMINES REFORMISM

The Stalinists have every reason to attempt to repress the new rise of opposition which, it fears, will go beyond the limits of Dubcek-style reformism. This dynamic was pomted out by lios lanakakis, a University professor who joined the Czech CP in 1948 and was a supporter of the Prague Spring. According to lanakakis "a characteristic of the movement today is that reformism can be reformed through working within the has been discredited." (statement party in Rouge, March 3).

the idea that such societies

Page 11

A similar dynamic exists in Poland where, according to Krzysztof Pomian, 3 Polish socialist oppositionist, the myth has been exposed that "this regime is bad for the intellectuals but it may be good for the workers". According to Pomian, In Poland "in the 20 years between 1956 md 1976 more workers were killed than between the two wars. Since June there has been open repression against the workers. The masks have been ripped off." (statement in Rouge, March 3).

Foday there exists in Fastern Europe for the first time a real possibility of overcoming the uneveness which has always characterised the opposition struggles in the past, a real possiblity of unity and co-ordination between the working classes of Eastern Europe against the Stalinist bureaucracies

Scottish Socialist:

GUS FAGAN.

[page 12]

ROTHESAY: STUC side- steps contract fight

The central theme facing delegates at this year's Scottish Trades Union Congress at Rothesay was, unsurprisingly, the Social Contract, With opposition growing among the rank and file, the STUC was in a position to give some leadership against a third phase of incomes policy.

Unfortunately, the STUC side-stepped the fight when the central focus for all delegates opposed to the government's policy, Composite D, was narrowly defeated by 967 votes to 1017.

The resolution called for a return to free collective bargaining combined with the protection of wage agreements against inflation. It was moved by the Scottish NUM and seconded by Dundee and Stirling Trades Councils.

Despite the vote, it was the left which won the political debate. Mick MeGahey. moving the Composite, answered the contention from Bruce Millan and Labour Party Scottish Council Secretary, Helen Liddell that ending the Social Contract would mean a "wages explosion'. "There is the theory of a "free for all", he said, "If we leave the Social Contract there will be a 'free for all". Will the employers be stuffing E10 notes in our pockets whether we like it or not?". "What do they mean by a 'free for all'? A 'wages explosion". As I have said before, the only time I've heard of a wages explosion is when someone bursts into a pit munager's office on a Friday morning and blows up the safe with gelignite!"

And in his summing-up, MeGahey slammed Jack Jones" concept, echoed by Danny Crawford of UCATT and Alec Donnet of the G& MWU in the debate, of an 'orderly return" to collective bargaining.

"Who's going to be the Lieutenants who say what section of the troops move forward and what section move back? What do they mean by an orderly return? These emotive terms they utilise to cloud the issue. And the issue is the united strength of the British Labour and trade union movement in order to advance the living and working standards of its members. That's the issue. An 'orderly return" means

And the support of the G&MWU and UCATT for the Social Contract was. as Johnny Walker of ASLEF pointed out, 'unreal to their members'. One building worker in five is on the dole in Scotland

Rowland Sheret of Stirling trades council, and one of the seconders of composite D.

pointed to the specific inclusion of the demand for cost of living clauses in wage agreements contained in the composite: *Two years ago in this Congress we moved a resolution which asked that all wage agreements should include cost of living safeguard clauses ... "In the period since the end of Threshold Agreements in October 1974 there has been a 55% increase in inflation 55 trigger points, If we had fought for that resolution two years ago and implemented it, we wouldn't be in the situation we are today".

The main blame for the defeat of Composite D must be laid at the door of the AUEW officials and Gavin Laird in particular. At a time when the engineers. are in the forefront of current actions against wage restraint - and despite the likelihood that next month's AUEW national conference will oppose the Social Contract - they insisted that the delegation stick by last year's policy and oppose Composite D.

Had they abstained — as the Fire Brigade Union did in a similar situation the composite would have passed with a comfortable majority.

Following the vote the atmosphere inside Congress was about as damp and miserable as the Rothesay weather. The defeat, however, masked many important changes inside the union delegations.

The T&GWU delegation, in one of the most positive developments of the Congress, rejected by 18 votes to 12 Jack Jones' call for an 'orderly return' and decided to vote for the miners' resolution. Last year only 8 Transport and General delegates had stood up to Jones in the delegation causes to argue for support for Resolution 17 around which the main opposition to Incomes Policy had gathered. With the TGWU conference coming up in July, this was: an important reflection of growing grass roots opposition to the policies of the T&G leadership. The NUPE delegation took a similar decision.

Other decisions included: *On their unemployment, Congress called for a widespread campaign of opposition to the unacceptable level of unemployment', for a reduction in the working week and early retirement and rejected clauses providing for voluntary redundancies or natural wastage as a means of reducing the labour force'. *On equal pay, Congress unanimously approved a composite resolution noting

Page 12

that legislation alone will never solve the problem of low pay for women and that Industrial action by solidarity and support from the organised trade union movement can achieve equal pay. It instructed the STUC General Council to mount a campaign for women to be paid 'the wage a man would receive if he were doing the same job'. *On Social spending cuts. Congress, was "specifically opposed to the closure of Tour Scottish Colleges of Education' and demanded "government action to restore the cuts, to reduce unemployment and to maintain social services. *On devolution, a resolution "condemning the action of those Labour MPs who either voted against or abstained in the vote on the guillotine motion relating to the Assembly Bill' was remitted to the General Council after Alex Kitson had explained that the GC was fully behind this pait of the motion but wanted to give further consideration to proposals for increased Assembly Powers and Proportional Representation contained in the motion.

In the absence of'a clear lead against Incomes Policy, however, these decisions in the present situation amounted to little more than hot air.

The lead will now have to come from those like the British Airways engineers, the Leyland toolroom workers and Port Talbot electricians who have proved their willingness to go into action against wage restraint. The key task, as many of the rank and file activists involved have realised far more clearly than their leaders, will be to turn their struggles into a united assault on the Social Contract. The STUC may be over, but the fight in the workplaces, the union branches and the union conferences is only just starting.

Mick McGahay

ALAN HORN

[page 13]

1977 has seen a wave of struggles to smash a Social Contract foisted upon us by Labour and trade union "leaders" who never consulted those who elect and pay them.

To maintain wage restraint, they have trampled on labour movement democracy

contact

Cornton,

STUC Round-up Ode to Gavin Laird

Scottis: Socialist takes great pleasure in printing the following poem by a member of the AUEW delegation at Rothesay; the author, for obvious reasons, must remain anonymous.

They came down to Congress, To lay the "Contract dead, To end the wage restrictions. That's hanging on our head.

But at the prelim meeting, And to their dying shame, The officials wouldn't let them vote, Lord Carron rides again!

CDLM Scottish Conference CDLM Programme

and broken basic trade union principles. This year we have seen: *Union support for threatened sackings at Leyland; *Union backing for blacklegzing at Heathrow. *Explusion of striking NATSOPA members at "The Times" *Union betrayal of EETPU members at Port Talbot. The "Lefts" and the Communist Party claim to oppose Phase III. Yet they sabotage struggles against Phase I. Leaders such as Bob Wright, president, and Derek Robinson, Leyland Combine convenor, have denounced Leyland, Heathrow and Port Talbot workers as "divisive", "adventurists". The Morning Star has joined in the chorus.

We need to build a socialist opposition to "leaders" pay for the bosses' crisis, and those whose collaboration assists them. At STUC Congresses Stirling Trades Council have laid the foundations in Scotland. The Campaign for Democracy in the Labour Movement has held two 400-strong conferences in Birmingham to build a fighting programme of action.

Scottish Socialist League delegates who attended the Inst CDLM conference on March 27th have put out a call for a Scottish Conference on "Wage Control and Union Democracy". The proposed date is Saturday June 17th, the location to be decided. Sponsors already include individual branch officers and stewards in APEX, EETPU, CPSA, EIS, NUPE, NALGO, T&GWU, AUEW, who sit on six Trades Councils, plus officers of the NUS and the Labour Party. To receive information and publicity material, to sponsor the conference

STEWART MACLENNAN (CDLM ORGANISING COMMITTEE), 18 Carrington Street, Glasgow G4 (041-332 8728) or ROWLAND SHERET 15 Vorlich Place, Stirling (0786-61184)

Scottish Socialist produced a daily duplicated bulletin for STUC conference delegates taking up the main issues raised and campaigning for support for composite D. Sets of conference bulletins are arailable at 25p including p&p for the Scottish Socialist fund drive.

"Left" candidate for AUEW

"splitters",

who believe that workers must

Page 13

REJECT WAGE CONTROLS NOW: - Smash the Social Contract against Phase II — Return to free collective bargaining - a sliding scale of wages on a cost of living index worked out by elected trade union committees.

NO PUBLIC SPENDING CUTS: - Full services through a sliding scale of spending linked to increased costs assessed by trade union committees - Nationalisation of public sector suppliers — strike action against all cuts. NO REDUNDANCIES: - Work sharing on full pay — Total hours available divided between the whole work force with no loss of carnings.

JOBS FOR YOUTH:- All unemployed into the trade unions, in the fight for jobs alongside employed workers - Further education, training facilities available to all youth - public works schemes controlled by the trade unions wages and conditions for youth. OPEN THE BOOKS: - Employers who argue they cannot afford a wage increase or sustain the full workforce must be forced to open accounts to elected committees of trade unionists - Nationalise bankrupt firms, under the management of these committees, with no compensation.

FOR WOMEN'S RIGHTS: - No solution to equal pay, low pay, in legislation - Figh wage controls — fight for unionisation of women, right to jobs and better working conditions for women, nurseries, full abortion rights, through elected sub-committees of trade union bodies. STOP RACIALISM: - Workers' defence squads, black self-defence to protect black communities — - No racists in union posts, no fascists in the unions - a programme of public works under trade union management to provide jobs, houses and other amenities. NO TO BUREAUCRATIC DICTATORSHIP: Restore democratic procedures in all labour bodies regularly elected by the members official to be paid more than the average wage of members in the unions and the Labour Party Democratic selection of candidates for all offices.

Support all struggles

End all immigration controls

All officials to be subject to recall,

End all bans and proscriptions

Full adult

No

Politics and Sport

Congress unanimously voted to take all action in its power-to stop the SFA Chile match in the Santiago stadium this summer. Pedro Carnejo of the Chilean Trade Union Federation, CUT, explained what "keeping politics out of sport really meant:

"On the 5th of October 1973, I myself was taken prisoner and taken to the National Stadium. More than 12,000 of my fellow countrymen were at that moment in that prison, in that stadium, in the galleries and changing rooms. And for 33 days that 1 spent in that place, I lived through the terror that was being practiced on my people there. "And the president of the FIFA, the international football association visited the stadium to inspect it. And those of us who were prisoners there at that time were obliged, to clean up the stadium. And when Sir Stanley Rowse, the president, appeared in company with the fascist generals, we were herded off to one side to rooms apart, so Sir Stanley Rowse would see a stadium that was empty and suitable to play football in".

Gay Rights

Only one delegate to Congress voted against a motion from the Civil and Public Servants Association (CPSA) which called for the revision of Scottish law on homosexuality to bring it into line with legislation presently applicable in England. In Scotland even private homosexual acts between male adults are illegal (see Scottish Socialist number two). Despite the near unanimity of the vote, the large round of applause which greeted a speech by a Boilermakers' delegate against the motion indicates the hard ideological battle still to be fought before the underlying backwardness on sexual questions behind the liberal facade is finally rooted out of the labour movement.

[page 14]

TOWU Elections

Moss Evans has been elected to replace Jack Jones as general secretary of Britain's largest trade union, which has over 1,900,000 members. In a 39% poll he received 46% of the votes cast. It says a lot about democracy in the T& GWU when one notes that this is only the fifth clection For a full time officer in the history of the Union and that Moss Evans is declared elected until he reaches retiral age, after receiving a minority of the votes cast. There were fourteen candidates and Evans was clected by receiving the highest number of the fourteen. There is no second found or transfer of preferences.

The democratic question aside, this vote represents a defeat for the left. There was no united campaign around a left candidate opposing the machine organisation of Moss Evans, groomed as successor to Jack Jones. John Cousins, the most publicised anti-Social Contract candidate, came second with 16% of the

vote while Alec Kitson with the support of the Morning Star, Tribune and Militant came third with only 10% of votes cast. Kitson did not come out clearly against the Social Contract and as one of the leading national officers, his vote compares with the votes of the two revolutionary lay candidates, Tommy Reilly with 27.445 and Alan Thornett with 11,493 votes - together getting 5% of the vote.

With so many candidates, the vote was confused. Evans cannot count on controlling the Union in the same way as Jones. A grass roots revolt among the membership is taking place against the Social Contract. Whether the left can place themselves at the head of the coming workplace struggles is the questions which now faces T&GWU militants.

ROWLAND SHERET (T&GWU, in a personal capacity)

Social Contract up for debate

The 55,000 strong Educational Institute of Scotland opens its 1977 AGM in Stirling on June 2nd in the midst of the rank and file revolt against the Social Contract. As at Heathrow and Leyland, the battle against incomes policy will be a battle for union democracy.

This confrontation is not new to EIS. In December 1975, an emergency conference instructed EIS to frame a salary claim within the C6 limit. This tacit acceptance of the Social Contract was motivated by General Secretary John Pollock as a pragmatic acknowledgement of EIS lack of industrial strength, Yet following the conference Pollock, a former chairman of the Labour

Party in Scotland, was quoted in the press as saying Scottish teachers had pledged overwhelming backing to Labour's Social Contract.

Motions for the 1977 AGM indicate a pay revolt is brewing in EIS. A motion from Aberdeen declares "total opposition to the Social Contract" and calls on EIS "to campaign within the STUC against the Social Contract". A motion from Renfrew calls for a return to free collective bargaining at the end of Phase IT.

The unrest, however, is contradictory. Many EIS members are still confused into believing an end to some form of incomes policy means a return to the hungry Sixties when, as they see it, a "lack of industrial strength" (more correctly, the lack of a leadership which could forge a public sector alliance) led to declining living standards.

This does not mean that teachers support their living standards being reduced. A motion from Central Region calls for *The establishment of salary scales which would restore, in real terms, the salaries of teachers to those prevailing as at August 1975, a contract-busting 50% increase!

Should this pay revolt boil over at the AGM, it would require a vigorous confrontation with Pollock to get main union policy implemented. In 1975, EIS voted for an immediate ban on mixed age, mixed subject composite classes over 25, and no

Page 14

EIS News

coverage of classes for teachers absent more than three days.

The AGM will be a three-comered tight between Pollock, the headmasters, and the left. There is no love lost between Pollock, bent on turning ElS into a white collar union with political influence, and the headmasters who are integrated into Scottish Office machinery. Pollock is always capable of a left face, and will certainly support an Aberdeen call for affiliation to the TUC, which the headmasters rejected on Council as "proletarianising" EIS. The urgent task for EIS fragmented left is to unite and lead the growing pay revolt against the Social Contract and the present leadership.

[page 15]

CLYDE BUILT DOESN'T SELL ANY MORE REFLECTIONS OF A CLYDE-BUILT MAN, immy Reid, Souvenir Press, pp166, £1.75 It is an open secret that Jimmy Reid, in resigning from the Communist Party n February 1976, put out feelers to join he infant Scottish Labour Party. His pproach was rebuffed. In Sillars" view, the LP could not "contain" Reid; which is to ay Sillars did not want Reid's popularity o create a rival leadership to his own. urther, Sillars was always against associating ith "losers"; he castigated Leith SIP for rganisating a public meeting with expelled abour MP Eddie Milne.

Reid's popularity is still evident ve years on from UCS. Recently in dinburgh, at a meeting called by the Robb aledon Shipyard Action Committee, there ere calls to co-opt Reid to the committee, as the only man in Scotland who can save ar jobs".

Such popularity, as is revealed in this sjointed collection of autobiographical etches and reprinted speeches, is a result a conscious attempt to break from the lyushch again ar Comrades, May I reply to the criticisms voiced by vid Buckner in Scottish Socialist No. 4, my interview with Leonid Plyushch? My interview does not deal with the oretical issue of how to characterise the riet Union (state capitalist, workers state, v class, transitional society, ctc.) I hed to prioritise in the discussion with ushch those issues which are of nediate and direct relevance to the sgie for socialism in both eastern and tern Europe, the Soviet Union etc., zely, the relation between socialism and 30 сгасу.

The bourgeoisie and the social ocracy (e.g. Shirley Williams attack on tskyism) attack the socialist ideal as demecratic". The Stalinist regimes of Soviet Union and Eastern Europe have assisted the bourgeoisie in this, with result that large sections of the western pean working class identify "communism" i the type of bureauciatic dictatorship exists in these so called "socialist" stries.

Therefore a key task for the socialist ement in western europe is not only to sarize through propaganda the "soviet el" of workers democracy, but to fight ery way possible the repression and uction of democracy that exists in the R and Eastern Europe. The fight against aucratic dictatorship, against the ssion of the working class and national rities in those countries, is not just line, but an essential and integral part y strategy for revolution in the west. nterview was meant to relate to this, or this reason only did not deal with hch's "state capitalist" views.

develop a political critique of the Communist Party. His final resignation was precipitated when a "shameful decision was taken by a committee composed overwhelmingly of communists and lefts..... as a result workers were betrayed. But he cannot explain why the CP repeatedly acts in this way.

Which ultimately explains why Reid is indeed a loser. His air of sincerity won him popularity with a working class jaded by the apparatchiks of the Labour and Communist Parties. But sincerity is not enough. Heroic symbol as UCS was, the fight was lost, and lost amidst wheeling and dealing as bad as that which later provoked his resignation. Reid's failure in the recent AUEW clections is significant not just because of the much publicised allegations of ballot irregularities but also because he was able to lose nearly six thousand votes to a candidate to his left in the first round. The failure stems less from any lingering association with the CP than a continued reliance on a Broad Left which has no programmatic alternative to the right wing.

This vacuum Reid has filled with vague notions of "Christian Humanism". They may satisfy a hungering conscience, but they will not save Robb Caledon. I call neo-Marxism" (interview with DIYALOH, a Ukranian language journal).

This further development of Marxism, the opposition to dogmatic and sterile "official Marxism" of the stalinist regimes, is, in my opinion, what Marxism is. Home Rule?

Scottish Socialist has received several queries about the "Home Rule" slogan used in issue 4. It was felt that the SAP's use of the slogan had made its synonymous with independence.

Scottish Socialist is against independence but supports the right of the Scottish people to determine their own form of government and to have an elected Assembly. It was felt that this corresponded to the demand for "Home Rule" as used by the carly labour movement.

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Books

CP and a genuine lovefor the West of Scotland working class the CP was betraying Reid explains, in vague impressions, his growing disenchantment with the Party even before UCS. He tells of his resignation as a CP fulltimer in 1969, and his return to the yards in an attempt to turn the party "outwards". For his pains, the archstalinists in the Scottish CP tried to expel him in 1972.

Yet nowhere in the book does Reid

Is Plyushch a marxist? His own answer to this is as follows: *I felt and feel that the way out of this difficult situation lies in the construction of a new society, in which there will be no class, national or other antagonisms. But l cannot call my views pure Marxism, classical Marxism, because 1 feel that great changes have taken place in the world in our century and that today classical Marxism must be developed further..... I thought and still think that Marxism must be enriched and made fruitful by arming itself with the best that has been developed in this century by bourgeois philosophy and science.

This further development of Marxism, this dialogue with all humanistic ideologies.

Letters

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WHAT IS THE SSL?

The founding conference of the Scottish Socalist League in Glascow on March 12th and 13th marked a new development for the socialist wing of the SIP expelled by Jim Sillars last October.

One year ago, socialists from all over Scotland Joined together to form the Scottish Labour Party. Its best known member was obviously Sillars, but its ranks included socialists from many different strands of the labour movement. For most there were two central questions; first the necessity to fight back against the disastrous anti-working class policies of the labour government. Secondly, an understanding of the importance of the national question in Scotland and opposition to its manipulation by the SNP.

The subsequent history of the SLP is well known. Its first congress saw a vicious witch-hunt against all opposition to the reformism of Jim Sillars. Members from all over Scotland including half the active branches were expelied.

The Scottish Socialist Beague has been Tormed by these expelled socialists to carry through the original task of the SLP after its sabotage by Sillars reformism and capitulation to the SNP:

MEMBERSHIP

The founding conference brought together socialists from Glasgow, Paisley, Hamilton, Falkirk, Stirling, Edinburgh, Leith, Aberdeen, Perth and Ayrshire. The majority of delegates were active in trade unions including AUEW, T&GWU, G&MWU, NALGO, EIS, NUPE, UCATT, CPSA, NUR, EETPU and APEX. Many of the delegates were active in the women's movement, and the Aberdeen branch reported a majority of women members. REVOLUTIONARY PARTY

After a long period of internal discussion, the SSL unequivocally declared itself a revolutionary Marxist Party in the trudition of John MacLean and James Connolly. It expressed its commitment to the "creation of a classless society based on production for need not profit organised through soviel democracy". It committed itself to fight for a mass working class revolutionary party capable of providing the leadership in the struggle against the capitalist state", working class and its organisations in that struggle" REVOLUTIONARY UNITY The conference recognised that "general tactical differences separate the many groups of the far left today which should not be fudged over but debated and overcome in a democratic und fraternal manner". It believed, however, that where there was "agreement Published by Scottish Socialist, 64 Queen Street, Glasgow. Printed and typeset by Trade Union Labour.

, and for the unity of the

on the fundamentals of a revolutionary programme, tactical differences should not stand in the way of unification".

It lavoured the eventual reunification of all revolutionary organisations and the formation of a united British revolutionary marxist party. FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Noting that capitalism is an international system, conference rejected the notion of a Scottish road to socialism. Capitalism could only be combatted "by the working class developing a line and organising its intervention on an international scale," ie. by building an international revolutionary party. Conference decided to participate in the series of discussions the Fourth International is now having with a number of international currents with a view to joint work and eventual political association.

As a concrete expression of this internationalism, fraternal delegates from the ING, the British Section of the Fourth International! and Workers" Power participated in the discussion. It was also agreed to seck to participate in the Ilth World Congress of the Fourth International.

NATIONAL QUESTION On the national question, the conference committed itself to argue in all Labour movement bodies in Scotland and Britain as a whole for:

*Respect for the right of the Scottish people to determine their own relationship to the rest of Britain.

*The disciplining of Labour MPs who attempted to thwart this right by opposing the Devolution Bill guillotine. *A Labour Movement campaign for an clected assembly to be organised by the STUC and affiliated bodies in conjunction with all Labour movement parties.

Conference rejected a resolution that Scotland was an oppressed nation and that therefore the immediate task was to fight for separation from England and Wales. Likewise conference rejected another resolution that support for the democratic right of an elected assembly was a capitulation to the SNP.

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Conference declared its firm opposition to the capitalist nationalism of the SNP, which would benefit the oil bosses rather than working people. It called for a vote against the SNP and for labour movement parties.

WOMEN'S RIGHTS

Conference went on record as believing that any socialist party had to make the fight for women's rights a major priority. The SSI committed itself to supporting the call for a rally on women's rights One Year on from the Sex Discrimination Act, to be held in Glasgow on May 7. DEMOCRACY

In sharp distinction to the conference of Jim Sillars" SLP last year, the SSL founding conference provided a working example of democracy inside the labour movement. Ample time was allotted for differing positions to be put. The clection of a National Committee was carried out in such a way as to ensure adequate representation of these different positions on the leadership of the new party. Conference exercised positive discrimination in favour of women in the election of the leadership. DISTRICT COUNCIL ELECTIONS

Conference recognised the first task of the new organisation was to turn the SSL outwards after a long period of internal discussion first in the SLP and then in the new party.

It decided to stand candidates in the May District elections on the basis of opposition to the Social Contract, the need for the construction of a socialist alternative to the Labour Party and the SNP, and the call for immediate elections to a Scottish Assembly which would decide its own powers.

Iwant to know more about

Scottish Socialist, 64 Queen Street, Glasgow.

STEVEN KENNEDY. National Secretary, Scottish Socialist Leaguc.

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Notices

Scottish Socialist

BUILD A

LABOUR'S SCOTLAND

ISSUE NUMBER FIVE PRICE 15p (shops 20p) MAY - JUNE 1977 FULL STUC REPORT INSIDE

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The Worst * The social services have been bled dry.

In three years, capital spending has been cut by 38%. Hospitals, schools and

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Forecourt petrol pump attendants employed by the multinational Oil company ELF in the West of Scotland were on strike for eleven weeks. The attendants, mainly women, have organised in the T&GWU. They have forced the company to pay the

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