This weeks features

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Tory taxes clobber all

THE "PARTY of low taxation" is bleeding us dry.

Tax rises this week mean the average family with a mortgage will be over £4.50 a week worse off.

Council tenants face rents rising an average 7.5 percent.

In total a typical family is paying £20 a week more tax than when John Major was elected.

This week's cut in mortgage income tax relief will cost a typical mortgage payer about £120 a year. Restrictions on the married couple's allowance cost an extra £86.

The government has a deliberate policy of telling local authorities to increase council rents by 5 percent more than inflation this year. Many councils will impose bigger rises.

The average council tax is rising 5.4 percent. That means £30 extra a year.

There are 800,000 more people paying income tax than at the time of the last general election. This week's changes mean couples earning as little as £93 a week will be paying tax.

Last weekend prescriptions rose by 50p to £5.25 an item.

Since 1979 the richest 0.5 percent of taxpayers have enjoyed tax cuts averaging £47,000 a year each.

The top 10 percent of taxpayers have seen income tax fall by £7,000 a year each.

The lowest paid 10 percent have seen their tax bill rise by £9 a week.

Bank job cuts to boost profits

BOSSES OF the big banks plan more massive job losses just as profits reach astronomical levels.

Lloyds says another 75,000 jobs are to go. Across the industry up to one in every five jobs could be axed.

The bosses say jobs must go because of automation--like cashpoints--and telephone banking.

It is rubbish. The job losses are being used to boost profits. Already this year:

Barclays' profits rose 300 percent to £1.86 billion.

NatWest's rose 61 percent to £1.59 billion.

Lloyds' profits rose 16 percent to £1.3 billion.

Midland's profits rose 7 percent to £905 million.

Over 100,000 banking jobs have gone in the last five years.

Some 20 percent of bank branches have closed in the last five years. That means more queues, more pressure on staff and a record level of complaints.

A Lloyds bank worker says, "We have to work harder and faster. Everyone is in a constant state of anxiety.

"Blue collar workers are used to insecurity. Now it has spread to us. They treat us like factory workers. But that means trade unionism has got more of a role."

Union and new crime bill demo

THE COALITION Against the Criminal Justice Act has called a national demonstration in central London on Sunday 30 April.

It will start at the Embankment and then march to south London. Marchers will be welcomed into the day long GMB union sponsored May Day 95 free family festival at Clapham Common.

The GMB union has 863,000 members and is affiliated to the Coalition.

"The GMB has a very straightforward policy on the act--exactly the same as the coalition's," says Steve Pryle of the union.

"We're more than happy that the anti-CJA demonstrators will be coming along to the May Day festival," says Steve.

Sunday 30 April, assemble 12 noon Embankment, central London

March to the May Day 95 festival at Clapham Common

For details phone the Coalition Against the Criminal Justice Act on 081 801 5285

Refugee report

THE HOME Office has published a report it commissioned on refugees--a year late!

The government sat on the report because the findings flatly contradicted Tory scaremongering over immigration.

The majority of refugees in Britain have substantial work and educational qualifications. A third had professional jobs in their country of origin.

Less than half of those refugees questioned wanted to live permanently in this country.

Class of hunger

TEESSIDE schools are to provide breakfasts before school, because young children are arriving complaining of hunger.

Ten primary schools in Middlesborough, Billingham and Stockton-on-Tees, will provide cereals, toast and a hot drink.

Tory MP Michael Bates said breakfasts were a "parental responsibility".

But, a spokesperson for children's charity Barnados pointed out, parents were going without food to feed their children. "This isn't about parental responsibility. It's about the low level of income support."

School Funding

Don't be conned

"BILLION POUND school payout", screamed the front page of the Mail on Sunday, claiming the government will find an extra £1 billion for schools this autumn.

Nobody should be fooled. The money is needed in our schools now. A promise for next year does not stop teachers being sacked and class sizes rising.

Major's aim is to derail the protests that have hit schools across the country.

Joanne O'Hara, a Warwickshire parent involved in the fight against the cuts, told Socialist Worker, "Other parents have rung me saying we've won. But for me alarm bells are ringing. We have yet to see the money."

In the next few weeks education secretary Gillian Shephard faces a round of teaching conferences.

The Mail quotes a "senior education source" saying, "It means she can now take this message to the conferences and say: `Boo me if you want, but look what I have been able to achieve. There are better times ahead'."

But the only way to guarantee proper funding for our schools is to keep up the fight now.

see page 14

Major's classless society

Social security secretary Peter Lilley is imposing cash limits on how much the government will pay out in benefits to cover the cost of funerals.

How long before the old style pauper's funeral, with bodies wrapped in a sack and dumped in a communal grave, is back with us?

These profits could give every NHS worker a 25 percent pay rise.

North West Water has announced it will give customers an average £6.50 rebate. But that barely matches this year's price rise and does nothing to claw back years of massive price rises.

Lotus sales have quadrupled, and Aston Martin sales doubled. But while bosses splash out, total car sales have dropped 0.2 percent this year.

Meat court claim

McDONALD'S HAS been accused in the high court of using beef supplied by a substandard slaughterhouse.

The allegations came in the trial of unemployed environmental campaigners Helen Steel and David Morris, accused of libelling the hamburger chain.

Marja Hovi, former official vet at the Alec Jarrett abattoir outside Bristol, told the court that rods used to stab into cattle brains were repeatedly used without cleaning.

She said she had been dismissed from the job for refusing to sign certificates stating that cattle were free from BSE--mad cow disease--when insufficient information existed.

Marja said key measures to prevent contamination of carcasses were ignored.

McDonald's lawyers were left complaining they had not been given notice of the evidence and asked permission to cross-examine her at a later date.

Want Major to cease to exist?

"OVER THE next month something remarkable will happen to the Conservative Party. It will cease to matter, indeed virtually cease to exist, everywhere outside London."

That was the prediction of voting expert Ivor Crewe as the Tories looked set to be hammered in local elections in Scotland.

Three years on from Major's election in 1992 everyone agrees his days in office are numbered.

Even the prime minister's attempt to relaunch himself on BBC's Panorama programme fell flat.

But Tony Blair and the Labour Party say we should wait another two years for a general election to get rid of his government.

Another anniversary shows we do not have to stick to the parliamentary timetable. Five years ago hundreds of thousands of ordinary people took to the streets to protest against the poll tax.

The riot in Trafalgar Square finished off the tax and led to the fall of Margaret Thatcher. It showed mass action gets results.

If Labour and trade union leaders threw their weight behind strikes over hospital workers' pay and protests against cuts in education we could push the Tories out.

Instead millions of people will this week find themselves shelling out more money to meet rising rents or mortgage payments and increased council tax bills.

Meanwhile the Tories slash benefits and insult nurses with a 1 percent pay offer.

Major is even more hated than Thatcher. We need to give him his own battle of Trafalgar.

No deterrent in death

A 32 year old man was to be put to death in the electric chair in the United States this week.

Right wing politicians back the death penalty in the US and want it returned in Britain.

They do not care about the risk of someone innocent being killed--like Derek Bentley, hanged in Britain in the 1950s.

The Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four and other victims of miscarriages of justice would all now be dead if there was the death penalty here.

There is not a scrap of evidence to suggest executions cut crime or act as a deterrent.

Those states with the death penalty in the US do not have lower crime rates than those without, and their murder rates are many times higher than in Britain.

In a society where poverty and brutality breed crime, most victims of executions will be poor. In a society riddled with racism, a disproportionate number will be black.

That is why 40 percent of prisoners on death row in the US are black--when blacks are just 12 percent of the population.

The death penalty is cold, calculated murder--a reflection of the brutality in society, not a solution.

Blair signals no dissent

WHY DID Tony Blair sack two of his frontbench MPs, Ann Clwyd and Jim Cousins?

Was it because they missed a crucial vote in the Commons? Hardly, since 35 other Labour MPs missed the same vote and no action was taken against them.

Was it because they accepted an invitation from the Turkish government which is waging war against the Kurdish people?

Not at all. Blair has not made one statement condemning Turkey's invasion of the UN-protected Kurdish "safe havens" in northern Iraq.

Blair's reason for sacking Clwyd and Cousins is simple. They did not do as they were told.

The game was given away by a Labour "frontbencher" who told the Guardian, "The day when people can do their own thing is gone for good."

It was a warning to anyone in the party who dares cross him.

Meanwhile, Blair himself continues to say nothing about the plight of Kurdish people in Turkey--the abuse of human rights, the mass destruction of villages, the death squads.

How to sell your paper

WHY SELL Socialist Worker outside workplaces? Jim, a student who sells every week outside a London post office, explains why he thinks it is important to be there every week.

"I'd not had much experience of selling outside a workplace before," he says.

"The first few weeks were unrewarding. But how else are we going to get to know people in local workplaces?

"You see the same people week in, week out. You start to gain respect for being there every week at the same time."

But it was during the London postal workers' strike in January that "things really clicked. We were there when they walked out. They took our leaflets and gave us the letter they had been given by management saying their strike was illegal," says Jim.

"People knew who we were already.

"At college we collected in support of the strike and took it to the picket line. The week after the strike we sold seven papers."

Since then the sale has gone up and down. "We've had weeks when we've only sold one. But normally we sell three or four, sometimes more."

However, Jim argues you cannot judge the sale simply by the number of papers you sell each week: "You have to get to know people. Even if they don't buy the paper, you can talk to them about what's going on.

"A lot of people want to talk about how much they hate the Tories, about what went wrong in the 1980s or whether strikes can achieve anything."

He stresses the importance of having the same two people doing the sale every week: "That's the only way you can get a relationship with people inside."

A postal worker explains what makes him buy Socialist Worker:

"I buy the Guardian, but I hardly get a chance to read it. If I had to choose one paper a week it would be Socialist Worker.

"It talks about issues that effect people's lives and who, or what, is making people's lives worse.

"I think some people at work are suspicious. They think you've got some hidden agenda. Others just feel cynical, that workers have no power.

"What's good about Socialist Worker is that there is lots of relevant information, especially about victories. You hear about successes and you know strikes can make a difference."

A Scottish message

If the results reflect the polls, Tory backbenchers will again be looking at the alternatives to John Major.

The elections are for the new "reorganised" local authorities which will take over from the present councils in April next year.

The existing nine regional councils and 53 district councils will be replaced with 29 "single tier" councils. The change has been pushed through by the Tories to cut back sharply on what little democracy presently exists at local level.

Community care, transport, education and social services are all likely to see cuts and less accountability under the new authorities. Thousands of job losses are threatened as workers move from one council employer to another.

But the most resented attack is taking water and sewerage from local authority control and transferring it to three new totally undemocratic "water authorities". These quangos are a form of back door privatisation.

Two years ago the Tories were forced into a humiliating retreat over plans to privatise Scotland's water by large demonstrations and threats of strikes.

Now, despite a referendum in Strathclyde region which showed 97 percent of the population opposed to taking water away from local authority control, the Tories hope to shuffle control to the quangos and then into the private sector.

Even the first stage of the plans is likely to cost the average household £234 a year more on water bills.

The water issue has increased the likelihood of a Tory annihilation.

Every Labour vote will help to deepen the Tories' distress. We would like to see Labour win every council.

But Labour has done little to press home the attack. Although Labour leaders have been compelled by the strength of feeling to guarantee to take water back into local authority control, they have refused to call for non-cooperation with the new authorities.

Activists have also asked how committed Labour is to taking back water when Tony Blair is running a crusade to ditch Clause Four which binds the party to public ownership.

Instead of arguing for a real fight much of Labour's energy has gone into vicious internal battles over who should get seats on the new councils.

The experience of the councils already run by Labour shows nobody can expect real resistance to the Tories.

Strathclyde Labour council, for example, has proposed £107 million cuts this year.

Despite all this, people's hatred of the Tories is certain to see a big vote for Labour. In some parts of the country there are record numbers of Labour posters in windows as voters want to be clearly identified with the anti-Tory mood.

But in others the campaign has been lacklustre, and nobody was predicting a national turnout of more than 40 percent.

Labour has also been hampered in many areas by its low membership. In some parliamentary constituencies Labour has as few as 43 members.

The Scottish National Party has tried to pose as a more radical alternative.

But it has also rushed to reassure its more conservative nationalist supporters that it will keep council tax bills low and not act like "loony left" councils in England.

Although it talks of fighting the government, the SNP has shown that once in control of a council it is quite prepared to break promises and make cuts.

In Grampian and Tayside councils, which it runs, the SNP has betrayed those who voted for it expecting a revolt against the Tory offensive.

These councils have harried poll tax non-payers, dropped a promised £10 fuel bill hand out to pensioners, reneged on a further £26 power bills rebate and even failed to deliver on a pledge to give out free light bulbs.

While criticising other parties for daring to challenge government spending restrictions, the SNP proudly announced it had recruited a top businessman during the campaign.

The lack of a clear call for defiance of the Tories from Labour or the SNP could aid the left of Labour organisation Scottish Militant Labour which is standing 29 candidates. It iscalling for a fightback over water and more spending on housing.

This week's elections are sure to show the Tories' problems. But to make the most of them we need much more than Labour is offering.

"THERE HAS been more progress in the last three weeks than in the last four years. There's no doubt about that."

"I SENT them money and I will continue to support what they do."

"I OFTEN wonder why we haven't had any revolutions, especially when you look at the way people live."

"RACIST `banter' and stereotyping continue to be one of the cornerstones of police culture. Many of us have learnt it is easier to deny the existence of racism if we wish to enjoy acceptance in the workplace."

"WHAT really matters is that Blair no longer sees politics in terms of class. It is not Them and Us, Workers and Capitalists, Rich and Poor..."

"I AM the oilman."

"I HAVE the best friend anyone in politics can have--a source of ready cash."

Cash, courts and King Coal

THE GOVERNMENT has quietly written off £1.6 billion of coal industry debts.

Richard Budge, chief executive of RJB Mining, which bought up most of the coal industry, will be the main beneficiary. He will save £100 million a year in repayments.

The write off far outstrips the £960 million raised from the sale of British Coal last year.

These figures were released last month, and were timed to coincide with a major House of Commons debate on Europe to avoid publicity.

During the privatisation process the Tories repeatedly refused to reveal the scale of the coal industry debt cancellation.

The write off is not Richard Budge's only stroke of luck.

On the day Richard bought most of the British coal industry his brother Tony was in court charged with misappropriation and dishonesty.

The case arose from the spectacular bankruptcy of the Budge family building firm with £96.6 million of debts. Fortunately for Richard Budge, he withdrew from the firm just months before the crash.

Tony Budge and his wife Janet are charged with squandering £25 million on a yacht, hunting for sunken treasure, and collecting Scud missiles and tanks.

They are alleged to have illegally transferred cash and property to the Janet Budge Settlement Trust and other family interests. Some £900,000 has allegedly gone from the company pension fund.

The Budges are also accused of including the costs of building a swimming pool for horses and a rifle range at their Nottinghamshire mansion in the bill for a bypass.

As prominent Tory activists, they had entertained cabinet ministers in their home.

Mr and Mrs Budge, in court with fellow director Michael Yates, claim they did nothing wrong.

Tony Budge says he has been unfairly singled out for court action while his brother has been ignored.

"If you take action against three directors, I can't see why you don't take action against the other nine," he told the Sunday Times.

"Everything the company did was carried by unanimous decision of the board.How come Mr and Mrs Budge and Mr Yates are the only people being accused of impropriety?"

The court case is due to reopen later this month.

They were popular with the media, but less so with the troops.

"There's been scepticism all along," said a sergeant. "Why do we have to be using this stuff when we have M-16s?

"But the marines have adapted really well. At close quarters you can still kill somebody with some of this stuff. That made these marines feel better."

The right start in life

THE RICH certainly look after their own--from the cradle to grave.

For that extra special start in life wealthy mums can give birth in style at the Wellington Hospital in St John's Wood in London. One night will cost just £990--that's if there are no complications.

A caesarean will cost £1,200. Every extra night will put £475 on the bill.

But extras are thrown in--teddy bears, a T-shirt, a bag of baby toiletries, and that vital announcement in the Times.

To make sure toddler looks the part children's gear at Harrods is a safe bet. A romper suit is just £235, a cardigan £375 and, to complete the look, a matching ostrich feather trim is £35.

Rich mothers apparently always hire a maternity nurse--at around £350 a week for 24 hour care.

Nanny will take care of the child until they are old enough to be shipped off to a private school.

Birthday celebrations can be bought from Claridge's for a mere £18,000.

For that you get the ballroom Astroturfed as a football pitch and a cake shaped like a football and cut by a real life football star.

But if that's beyond your price range, the Savoy's birthday party will only set you back £8,000.

The bill, designed to defer the collapse of the hated Child Support Agency, is now before a Tory dominated committee of MPs.

Of the nine Conservatives on the 17 strong committee, no fewer than six hold government positions which, say Westminster insiders, is almost unheard of.

On the opposition side Labour left wingers Mildred Gordon and Terry Rooney want to see the CSA repealed. Labour front bencher Keith Bradley, however, supports the government position.

Taking sides

SO MUCH for the West's "concern" for the Kurds in northern Iraq.

Security photographs of the Kurdish "safe areas", taken by British RAF and French planes, are being handed over to the Turkish military.

No doubt they are proving invaluable in Turkey's invasion and occupation of Kurdistan.

The few spectators who bother to come and see Yeltsin were not impressed by the pomp and ceremony.

"When the communists came here it was the same," said one local worker. "Now his lordship comes again and they've painted the houses. They paint and paint."

Jane was right

REMEMBER the furore in the press about headteacher Jane Brown who turned down a trip to take her pupils to see Romeo and Juliet?

She was hounded by the tabloids in their crusade against "political correctness".

Now Jane Brown and her supporters have been vindicated.

In a recent "Ofsted" report, school inspectors praised standards at Kingsmead School in east London, singling Jane Brown out for special praise.

The report admired the school's caring ethos and the good behaviour of the children.

It also notes that pupils' social development was enhanced by visits to places of interest and said, "The school's provision for the pupil's cultural development is outstanding."

Not bog standard

WHAT PRICE a piss at Canary Wharf, the plush property development at the heart of east London's poverty stricken Isle of Dogs?

Apparently the marble lined loos cost a cool £4.6 million.

Toilet pod manufacturer ABB Customer Support originally won a £1.6 million job to kit out 40 toilets in marble surroundings.

Now the company has issued a writ against

management contractor Mowlem demanding it coughs up more than £3.5 million for changing the method of selecting and laying the marble for the loos.

But should you put a price on style?

FORCING THE SICK INTO `NO MAN'S LAND'

Tory lies on `work shy'

"THESE CHANGES are putting the fear of death into people," says George from Manchester, who is currently receiving invalidity benefit.

"If they get forced off invalidity benefit where will people go?

"It's a nightmare already. It's like going back to the days of the workhouse. Soon the sick and the disabled will end up queuing on the streets for cups of soup."

The introduction of the new incapacity benefit is part of a long line of Tory attacks on those on benefits.

For years the Tories have been filling the pages of the tabloids with stories of "scroungers" and the "work shy".

Two years ago the Tories turned their attention on those on invalidity benefit, claiming that many receiving the benefit were not really sick.

"People started to have to go in for medicals four or five times a year," says George. "They don't believe what your own doctor says."

Julie, a DSS worker, told Socialist Worker how the government "constantly tell us people are work shy.

"They produce glossy brochures for the staff full of propaganda. They want to show claimants as scroungers."

Now even stricter medicals are about to be introduced.

This will be used for any new claimants. Those currently on invalidity benefit will all have to go through the new test over the next two years.

The only people exempt include those aged 58 or older and others with severe handicaps like total blindness or terminal illnesses.

The new test includes a 20 page questionnaire for claimants.

"This is the first form we have been told we are not allowed to help people fill in," said Julie. "You have to remember this is a benefit for the disabled. I've had arthritic people who can't even hold a pen. What will they do?" she asked.

The medical test will in future concentrate solely on the claimants' medical condition and their ability to perform various tasks like walking, standing, lifting and stretching.

Applicants will be tested on their ability to lift a 5lb bag of potatoes or put on a hat, for example.

Many of those who would now get invalidity benefit will be found "capable of work" under these criteria.

"We've been given three jobs as examples," says Julie. "A car park attendant, a bingo caller and a labeller. To do those jobs you only need to have one able arm. It doesn't matter if there aren't any of these jobs--you are considered capable of work."

In the past more people were forced onto sickness benefit as the government tried to push down unemployment figures. Now those same people will be told they are capable of work.

As the Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation (RADAR) argues, people will be told "they are too well to qualify for incapacity benefit and too sick to qualify for unemployment benefit."

"We are already witnessing large numbers of people caught in a benefit `no man's land'," says RADAR.

Both the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux and TUC Centres report sick people failing to satisfy the government's "available for" and "actively seeking work" regulations.

A recent survey for the Invalidity Benefit Monitoring Group found 29 percent questioned had been unable to get benefits as a result.

The situation for the sick and disabled will only get worse from next year when the Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA) is introduced with even stricter criteria about seeking work.

As George says, "This is just designed to hammer the poorest in society."

`Good and bad days'

"THEY WANT to ignore what your own doctor says," explains Don from Barnsley who gets invalidity benefit. "They send you for a medical which decides if you can get invalidity or this new incapacity benefit. But I have good days and bad days.

"I can't put my feet on the floor some mornings. Sometimes I feel stiff and in pain all over and I can only move around on my hands and knees," he says.

Don is in no doubt that it was his job which has left him sick.

"I was a miner," he says. "That means I was bent double right through the shift. I paid national insurance contributions. Now they want to say I'm not entitled to benefits."

Research has shown that manual workers are more prone to work related illness or injuries.

From this month incapacity benefit will also be denied to those who are industrially injured and have insufficient national insurance contributions. In 1990 some 913,000 people qualified for invalidity benefit in this way.

The mentally ill are among those who could suffer most as a result of these changes.

Diane, a DSS worker, regularly works in a day centre with people who are long term mentally ill.

"Community care means these people are being forced to survive outside hospital. That's hard enough. Now they could be sent to see our doctor when they are having a good day, but the next day they could be incapable of work. What will happen to these people?"

Assault on DSS workers to soar

"PEOPLE CAN be very abusive," said Julie, a DSS worker.

"But I don't blame them. I'd be very angry if I was in their situation."

Last week a leaked document produced by the Employment Service admitted staff will suffer as a result of the Tories introducing both incapacity benefit and the JSA.

The document said that "the impact of the changes is expected to lead to more occasions when jobseekers receive unpalatable and unwelcome

information."

The document went on to say there will be an increase in the "risk of actual and attempted assault and verbal abuse".

The memo lists 12 security measures including the removal of "potential weapons and missiles" at job centres, personal alarms, open plan layouts, security guards, shatterproof screens and liaison with local police.

The government expects 140,000 appeals will be lodged in 1995-6 against decisions that claimants are capable of work.

"We have been told to expect a 570 percent increase in appeals," a DSS worker told Socialist Worker.

Opposition could wreck Tory plans

"WHERE IS the campaign about this attack?" asks Don. "Why aren't Labour MPs doing something to stop this."

For the last six months the Labour Party has been saying it intends to get people off benefits. Now, when those on benefits are under attack and need defending, it has nothing to say.

The Tories are also planning to target the benefits of single mothers and young people who have left home because of a family breakdown.

But the government knows it will face opposition.

As the Daily Mail newspaper said last week, "Ministers are under no illusions about the unpopularity of the crackdown."

After the experience of the Child Support Agency the Tories know that opposition can turn into a nightmare for them.

Social security minister Peter Lilley has already warned the Tory cabinet that the backlash could be "horrendous".

FRANCE

`Black Thursday' hits the bosses

FRANCE WAS brought to a standstill on Thursday of last week as rail, bus, tube and airline workers all struck.

What French bosses dubbed Black Thursday was the biggest protest yet in a wave of strikes which have burst into the centre of the campaign for this month's presidential election.

That election looks set to be won by one of the rival Tory candidates.

The new president will work with a parliament in which 83 percent of MPs belong to one the country's Tory parties.

Yet neither the imminent election nor the Tory domination of official politics have stopped workers fighting.

Last week's transport strikes were solid right across the country and were an impressive demonstration of workers' power.

Bosses complained as the strikes disrupted industry and hit profits.

The transport strikes were over a range of issues, with Paris bus and tube workers demanding pay rises and rail workers guarantees on job security.

But the issues making people angry are familiar to any worker in Britain.

Valerie is an air hostess on France's Air Inter internal airline.

Workers there have staged a series of stoppages in recent weeks over layoffs and threats to working conditions like longer shifts and less rest time.

"I'm 100 percent behind the strike," she told the French paper Liberation. "It's about our future. I live alone with my two children, but I don't know what it is to have Sundays or holidays with them."

Felix is a bus driver in the run down Paris suburbs. "There are people here for eight or nine years but getting the same money as when they started.

"Some days you can be working 13 hours. You can have 100 people crammed in and you have to skip stops because the bus is full."

Postal workers in many areas of the country were also on strike over threatened job cuts.

Post strikes over job cuts in areas like Orleans and Marseilles have already paralysed the post for the last fortnight.

Christine, a postal worker in Marseilles, says, "Our rounds are getting longer and the sacks get heavier. Last year I was off sick because of that.

"Now they are getting rid of more jobs our work will become impossible."

The Renault car firm also saw more strikes last week.

Action had already forced bosses to up their pay offer to 4.5 percent.

But when Renault announced that profits nearly tripled last year to almost £500 million, workers struck again demanding more money.

"We're not bloody sparrows and we won't settle for crumbs," chanted 1,300 strikers who demonstrated at the company's Boulogne-Billancourt headquarters.

Other Renault plants also saw stoppages and demonstrations, with 2,000 strikers marching in Sandouville and 3,000 in Mans.

Behind all the protests is a growing feeling among workers, as the French economy recovers from the deepest recession in 50 years, that they have had enough of "sacrifices".

Workers see signs of economic recovery and they are demanding a share.

Broken promises boost the right

THIS MONTH'S vote is to replace the country's ageing Socialist Party president Franois Mitterrand.

Mitterrand's election in 1981 was greeted with a wave of euphoria. He promised change.

But now disillusionment with Mitterrand runs deep.

His promises have turned to dust. Unemployment has soared to over 12 percent and workers have seen their share of national income cut by over 10 percent.

That disillusionment saw the Socialist Party--the equivalent of Britain's Labour Party--smashed in parliamentary elections two years ago.

It is also why the two leading contenders for president are both rival members of the country's main Tory party.

Tories back protest in fight for votes

THE SUDDEN eruption of protests and strikes has rattled those at the top of French society.

The contest for the presidency is close, with all candidates desperately scrabbling for votes.

Tory prime minister Edouard Balladur and Tory mayor of Paris Jacques Chirac are engaged in an increasingly bitter fight.

The third main candidate is the Socialist Party's Lionel Jospin who could deny one of the Tories a place in the election's second round.

The close fight, combined with the strikes, has provoked all the leading candidates into some extraordinary statements.

Chirac, a right wing Tory, has backed the occupation of empty buildings in Paris by the homeless and promised to requisition more such buildings for the homeless if elected.

He has also backed workers' demands for higher pay, saying last week that, "the pay slip is not the enemy of employment".

Not to be outdone, Balladur too has said wages should rise and that it was "natural" that workers should demand the "fruits of growth".

He has also promised to cut unemployment by a million in five years if elected.

Similarly Jospin--no left winger--has started talking left.

He has called for a cut in the working week to 37 hours without any loss of pay. He has also boasted that he, unlike the Tories, has been on protest demonstrations.

Whoever is elected will break all these promises and do the bidding of the bosses and the bankers.

But the politicians know the strikes are a sign of a deep social malaise which could erupt in the months ahead.

Four in ten voters say they don't back any of the candidates--a sign of the deep disillusionment with official politics.

That disillusionment is reflected in support for candidates outside the mainstream parties--including the Nazis.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the Nazi National Front, is running at around 13 percent in polls.

The left is also benefiting though. The Communist Party's Robert Hue is rising in popularity, scoring around 8 percent.

And Arlette Laguiller, candidate of the small revolutionary organisation Lutte OuvriŽre (Workers' Struggle), has seen her support rise to 5 percent in the polls.

All these factors and the rash of protests point to deep anger at the bottom of society.

Jean Gandois, head of the CNPF bosses' organisation, expressed the fear of the employers last week.

He warned that with mass unemployment and deep anger among most of the population, French society could be "heading towards an era of turbulence" and in such circumstances to refuse pay rises could be "provocative".

Whatever happens in the election, last week's strikes show that the bosses' fears of large scale social revolt could soon become real.

Battered by the Market

"BACK CANADA'S fishermen", trumpeted the Daily Mail last week, demanding Britain take sides in the "fish war" between Canada and Spain.

The Tory media strained themselves trying to whip up nationalism--in which somehow Canada becomes a surrogate Britain standing against the nasty Spanish in particular and horrible cheating Europeans in general.

The dispute between Spain and Canada is only the latest in a series of increasing, frequent and bitter fishing disputes.

Last year we had the "tuna wars" involving British and Spanish fleets in the Irish Sea.

Around the world the last year has seen 30 serious and often violent fishing clashes, including one which saw Russian ships shoot up Japanese boats killing two fishermen.

In each case governments and press put out the line that foreigners are stealing "our fish".

But a closer look shows the nationalist rhetoric does not fit the reality.

A Spanish crewed boat was recently fined a record £310,000 in Britain over illegal fishing in last year's "tuna wars" dispute.

But the boat was actually owned by a British company, the Falmouth based Liners and Trawlers Association.

The fishing disputes are a symptom of the madness of the market that the very papers encouraging the nationalism tell us is the only way to run society.

Fishing today is big industrial business--worth around £46 billion pounds a year.

Fishing firms are backed by governments (to the tune of £36 billion in subsidies worldwide a year) and often linked to multinational food companies like Birds Eye and Findus.

They are all driven by the pursuit of profit and engage in ruthless competition.

And there is profit aplenty to be made, especially by the giant firms and supermarkets who control the distribution, processing and selling of fish.

Supermarkets make a typical 71 pence profit for every £2 piece of fish we buy.

But the unregulated chase after catches and profit has led to disaster.

As the fleets home in on one species of fish after another they catch such numbers that insufficient are left to replace those taken.

The fleets then clash with each other as they scramble to maintain their profits.

Recorded fish catches worldwide leapt from 60 million tonnes in 1970 to 90 million tonnes in 1989 but have declined since to around 83 million tonnes.

The collapse in stocks of some fish has been

catastrophic--Atlantic cod catches have slumped by over half in recent years because of overfishing.

Whole species could soon become rarities.

Anyone going into a British supermarket will have also seen strange new fish appearing in recent years.

These species are being dredged up from deeper parts of the ocean as fleets find there are no longer enough fish left on the shallower traditional fishing grounds.

It is not just the environmental disaster of disappearing fish that is threatened by the mad scramble for catches and profits.

Across the world the industrial high tech vessels are moving in on fishing grounds previously left to smaller fishing communities.

These are devastated as they cannot compete with the industrial fleets or live on the depleted stocks these leave behind.

The overfishing of Atlantic cod and the slump in stocks led to 20,000 Canadian fishing workers thrown out of work.

Around the Black Sea overfishing combined with pollution has seen 150,000 people thrown out of work in the last few years.

Off the coast of Senegal in Africa the industrial fleets have devastated the 35,000 local people whose livelihoods depend on fishing.

Those affected are not simply victims. Senegalese fishermen went on strike last year in response to their lives being devastated.

So too did fishermen in the Indian state of Kerala, who forced their government to retreat on its free market policy of opening up fishing grounds to "competition" from industrial fleets from around the world.

The worldwide crisis of fish stocks today is so acute that governments and big business may be forced to regulate, not least in order to protect their own future profits.

But a real solution which maintains fish stock, makes fish cheaper for all to eat and guarantees the livelihoods of those around the world who have depended on fishing will only come from a challenge to the whole profit driven market system.

The slaughter that shook the system

VIETNAM HAD been run by France as a colony but the Vietnamese fought back against their colonial oppressors.

A peace agreement was reached in 1954 which split the country in two--with the North run by Ho Chi Minh and the National Liberation Front and the South run by a dictatorship increasingly dominated by the United States.

A promise for "free elections" in the South--which US president Eisenhower admitted the liberation forces would win--was forgotten.

Those liberation fighters who had fought the French were persecuted and forced to take up arms again in the late 1950s.

They now found themselves fighting US military "advisors" based across South Vietnam.

At first the US government was unconcerned about Vietnam. "Vietnam...we have 30 Vietnams", said the US attorney general Bobby Kennedy.

But by 1961 the South Vietnamese state was collapsing.

President John F Kennedy responded by increasing the number of US "advisors" in Vietnam from 400 to 18,000.

Kennedy also gave permission for the South Vietnamese army to use chemical warfare against resistance to US rule in the South.

The idea was to separate the peasants from the national liberation forces--called the "Vietcong" by the Americans.

But resistance grew, and the South Vietnamese army used artillery and aircraft to force peasants into "strategic hamlets"--virtual concentration camps.

US forces brought in helicopters and gunships.

But they could not break support for the NLF.

By 1964 there were 23,000 advisors in South Vietnam. The war had become a test of strength for the US. They were afraid of a "domino effect" weakening US influence elsewhere.

As a general said at the time, "If we leave Vietnam with our tail between our legs, the consequences of this defeat in the rest of Asia, Africa, and Latin America would be disastrous."

Democrat Lyndon Baines Johnson was now US president. He gave the go ahead to carpet bomb the North, claiming the war in the South was due to "Northern infiltration".

The US dropped more bombs on Vietnam, North and South, than it had used during the whole of World War Two.

By the end of 1966 there were 485,000 US troops fighting in Vietnam.

But by then the cost of the war was beginning to worry US big business. The cost rose from $5.8 billion in 1966 to $20 billion a year later.

But it was 1968 that proved the turning point.

Coinciding with the Vietnamese New Year--Tet--the NLF staged uprisings in all the major cities in the South. Taking the US by surprise they smashed into the US embassy compound in Saigon, in front of the world's cameras.

As an advisor to Johnson ruefully admitted, "The enemy struck hard and with superb attention to organisation, supply and secrecy".

It was the beginning of the end. The US was revealed as conducting a war, not against a few guerillas, but virtually a whole nation.

The US military was exposed when it "retook" the captured city of Hue by demolishing 80 percent of it and when one colonel explained the shelling of Ben Tre by saying, "We had to destroy the town to save it."

Television pictures showed millions across the world how Vietnamese women and children were being butchered by American GIs.

Powerful opposition

THE WAR in Vietnam produced massive opposition.

At first the great majority of Americans went along with the war. Protests involved dozens rather than hundreds of people in 1965 and 1966. But all this changed by 1968.

US president Johnson was confronted at every turn by demonstrators chanting, "Hey, Hey, LBJ, how many kids have you killed today?"

He had been elected on the promise of a war on poverty, under the banner of making a "Great Society".

But the money set aside for welfare was diverted for war use. The great society was now dubbed "the sick society".

Older manual workers who had experienced World War Two now saw their sons being brought back in bodybags.

Blacks wanted no part of the war. This mood was summed up by boxer Muhammad Ali who refused to be drafted and declared, "no Vietnamese ever called me `nigger'."

In the summer of 1967 a riot erupted in Newark, New Jersey, followed by a mass uprising in Detroit.

In April 1968 black civil rights leader Martin Luther King was assassinated. It sparked huge riots that set 50 cities alight including Washington.

Students were radicalised by the growing mood. They burnt their draft cards and fought the police. There were "teach-ins" at universities across the US.

At Kent State University, Ohio, the National Guard shot dead four protesting students in 1970. Millions of students occupied their colleges in response.

In Vietnam the US army was falling apart. Twenty percent were heroin addicts. The command "search and destroy" became "search and evade" alongside the phrase "CYA [cover your ass] and get home!"

Mutinies and insubordination soared, alongside "fragging"--the killing of unpopular and stupid officers.

The new President, Nixon, knew that he had to get the troops out.

He began the process of "Vietnamisation", replacing US troops with the South Vietnamese army.

This proved to be a reluctant rag tag army with a massive desertion rate--and no match for the NLF.

At the same time Nixon escalated the bombing of the North, and spread the war to neighbouring Cambodia and Laos.

A peace agreement was eventually reached in 1973 with North Vietnam whereby the US withdrew all its ground troops and left the puppet army in the South to defend itself.

But by 1975 the South Vietnamese army collapsed in a way that made America, its commitment and power, look supremely impotent and pathetic.

The war was over. The people of Vietnam had paid a terrible price in terms of lives and the devastation of their country.

But for the next two decades the "Vietnam Syndrome"--the spectre of being bogged down in another unwinnable war--made the US ruling class wary of direct military intervention elsewhere.

Not until the Gulf War in 1991 did the US army engage in another large scale land war.

Vietnam was a defeat that weakened the hand of US imperialism and strengthened the

resolve of anti-imperialist movements everywhere.

Today the photographs, the news reports and the anti-war films remain as a powerful indictment of the horror of war.

Britain could lead the way

LAST WEEK there was a much trumpeted conference on "Britain in the world" organised by the Foreign Office and the Royal Institute of International Affairs.

This one day event cost £300,000 to put on, much of it taxpayers' money.

At the conference John Major tried to please both the Europhiles and the Europhobes, Prince Charles whinged about whingeing and Henry Kissinger bluntly informed everyone that, as far as the US was concerned, Britain was no longer of any special importance.

Apart from that nothing much happened. It was a classic non-event.

Nevertheless the fact that the British establishment should hold such a ludicrous gathering testifies to two things.

First that they are desperately worried about Britain's continuing decline. Second that they have no serious idea what to do about it.

The ruling class are right to worry. In the 19th century British industry dominated the world and was the force behind the largest empire in history.

But for over 100 years it has been gradually slipping down the league table of advanced nations.

Long since outdistanced by America, Japan and Germany, it is now falling behind most of Western Europe and being caught by Italy and Spain.

Meanwhile the "Asian tigers" (South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong) and others are coming up fast.

There is often a time lag between economic failure and the loss of military power and political influence.

Nevertheless one inevitably leads to the other. Britain's empire is long gone and its role as a world power is an illusion taken seriously only in the lower ranks of the Tory party.

However the ruling class want the rest of us to worry about this too. In fact they want us to do more than worry.

They want us to accept lower wages, longer hours, worse conditions, cuts in health education and welfare and even, if they deem it necessary, to fight in their wars in order to restore "Britain" to its former glory.

This we should reject outright.

For the truth is that the age of Britain's greatness, that is the greatness of the British ruling class, was also an age of the most abominable tyranny, exploitation and oppression both abroad and at home.

The rise of the British capitalist class took place over about 200 years from the 1640s to the height of the Victorian era in the mid-19th century.

At every point this rise was secured at the expense of the mass of people round the world and here in Britain. Much of the profit that launched the industrial revolution came from the slave trade to the Americas and the conquest and looting of India.

The industrial revolution itself was based on child labour and the 18 hour working day. The sailors who fought in Nelson's navy were press ganged (ie kidnapped), beaten and flogged to make them do it.

Wellington defeated Napoleon at Waterloo, but there were more troops in the industrial areas of Britain to suppress the workers and the poor than he ever had on the battlefield.

When British manufactured goods were conquering the world market over a million starved to death in Ireland. The infant mortality rate was well over 150 per 1,000 and the plains of India were bleached white with the bones of textile workers.

When Victorian morality was at its height there was no old age pension, no social security, no health service and prostitution was on a vast scale.

When it came to defending the empire and "Britain's role in the world" in 1914, young workers were required to die like cattle in their hundreds of thousands on the fields of Paschendale, Ypres and the Somme.

They were supposed to return to a land fit for heroes. In fact they came back to poverty and unemployment.

In short there was no link between Britain's greatness in the world and the welfare of the majority of its people. On the contrary it was only in the post-1945 period, when Britain's decline as a world power was well advanced and when the empire was disappearing, that ordinary people managed to get basic welfare rights.

Even in those years the economy and people's living standards were damaged by the enormous waste of resources on nuclear weapons and Britain clinging on to its role as a great power.

Of course, as the position of our rulers has worsened and slow decline turned into crisis, it is working class people who they expect to pay the price.

They try to restore their fortunes by robbing the poor to pay the rich. We can deal with this only by seeing through the lie of one nation and using our class power to defeat their class power.

From this point of view the weakness of the British ruling class has one major advantage. It makes them easier to overthrow.

If that were to happen then Britain really would lead the world, not in exploitation and oppression, but in opening an era of liberation for all humanity.

JOHN MOLYENUX

Concealing the class divide

"COMMUNITY" IS the new buzzword in British politics.

It is central to Tony Blair's new draft for Clause Four of the Labour constitution.

It is echoed by John Major who spoke recently of how "families and communities are the basis of our society. They are the central building blocks of progress and security."

"Community" sounds a pleasant idea. It suggests a society of common values where people look after one another.

But in the mouths of politicians such talk is a fraud and a snare. "Building Stable Communities" was the title of Westminster Tory council's strategy of fixing votes by driving working class people out of the borough.

"Care in the community" is a scheme to abandon vulnerable people on the streets.

Politicians, who in one breath talk of how much they admire communities and in the next how much they admire the market, are gross hypocrites.

The market and competition mean that firms put profit first rather than any notion of human need. They seek to expand at the expense of other companies.

The inevitable result is that some businesses are destroyed and that every boss must enforce the work discipline and low wages imposed by other managements. If they do not, they go to the wall.

So the market and competition mean redundancies, sudden catastrophic closures, cuts in wages and attacks on conditions. They mean some workers doing massive overtime to get a living wage while others are thrown on the dole.

Far from encouraging genuine communities, the market system shatters them. Go to any of hundreds of villages and towns where the pit used to be the centre of life and has now closed because "there is no demand for coal."

You will find despair.

A journalist who recently visited the Afan Valley in south Wales reported, "In the newsagents they are selling Easter eggs on instalments, 50p a week. `It's all that people can afford,' says the shop's owner. `The young people get out of here if they can. If they can't then they start stealing or breaking things. They're not bad kids, they're just not seeing any way out'."

A church charity found that in a town where a steel works had closed, "People no longer felt that they are part of a social whole."

The report concluded, "There is a myth that poverty always draws people together. More often it leads to a shrinking inwards. Community without work, without a social life, without shared well-being is an illusion."

Easterhouse, six miles from the centre of Glasgow, is another example. Here vast housing schemes contain 40,000 people. One in three of the men are officially employed.

Around 40 percent of households live on income support. Even in these conditions people try to create networks of support--a credit union offering cheap loans, a food co-op countering the extortionate prices charged by travelling sales vans.

But such initiatives inevitably involve only a tiny minority of the population. It is a mockery of meaning to call Easterhouse a "community" except in the sense of a desperate shared poverty for all but a few.

It is not just the people at the very bottom of society who get flattened by the howling gale of the market.

Unemployment or the threat of unemployment, overwork, strain on relationships and childcare difficulties dominate the thinking of even relatively well off workers.

No wonder young people are so fearful of the future. Suicide rates among young men have risen 70 percent in the last decade.

Everything the Tories do runs directly counter to the social sharing implied by "community".

Far from ever bringing people together, capitalism enforces a brutal segregation between rich and poor and does away with all social stability.

Ask Major and Blair how there can be security when your hospital is closing down or it has become a trust dedicated to profit and smart corporate logos rather than local service.

There was no community for Michael Murray who had to fly 200 miles from Orpington in Kent to Leeds before a hospital could be found to operate on his injured head. He died having been refused by at least 14 hospitals.

Blair's moral crusade

TALK OF community easily slides into a cover for cracking down on individuals. It takes the focus away from governments and big business and directs it back on to ordinary people.

The argument goes that housing estates are hellish places to live because your next door neighbour is "rowdy" or "feckless".

Schools are deteriorating because parents "irresponsibly" do not ensure that their children are in class or "cannot be bothered to give them a decent breakfast".

The answer is to make people "responsible citizens", and if they don't fit in then they must be punished.

So the Tories try to justify the Criminal Justice Act by saying that "communities are disrupted by rave parties, large gatherings, demonstrations and squatters."

Tony Blair suggest fines for parents of truant children, wants "bad tenants" evicted and backs Major's proposals to give the police power to seize music equipment from people's homes.

Social ownership of industry goes out of the window to be replaced by authoritarian coercion of working people.

Amitai Etzioni, the main theorist of the "communitarian movement" in America and adviser to President Clinton, is even clearer. On a recent visit to Britain, where he was welcomed by both Tory and Labour politicians, he said, "Fathers and mothers should stay together until their children are grown."

He wants divorce to be made far more difficult and for schools to pump out moral values which will provide "the social glue once provided by the church".

Such crusades deliberately ignore the real factors that shape people's lives.

The recent Rowntree report found that the number of children living in families with less than half average income has risen from 1.4 million (10 percent) to 4.1 million (32 percent) during the last 16 years.

Is it any surprise that families face problems?

The Rowntree report found that income inequality had reached the highest level since the Second World War.

The report found that the bottom half of the population owned only 8 percent of total wealth while the richest 10 percent grabbed 49 percent.

Academic John Gray wrote, "What the Rowntree report reveals is the awesome power of unregulated market forces to rip apart the delicate web of relationships or trust and civility that sustains social cohesion".

The solution is not more harsh laws but to do away with the conditions and the system that crush lives.

The idea of community distorts society, the idea of class illuminates it.

The central division under capitalism is between those who own and control the means of production--factories, offices and so on--and those who do not. That division runs through communities.

Politicians like to speak about community because it blurs this division and suggests that we should paper over class conflict.

Throughout its history capitalism has brought workers together in huge numbers and then, when they are no longer needed, hurled them on to the scrapheap.

It has created vast cities and then left their inhabitants without stability or hope.

It is class that explains why there is such inequality in society and why our lives get ripped apart.

It is also only an analysis based on class--and more particularly class struggle--that shows the way out of this mess.

City warms to this sheep in sheep's clothes

WHO'S AFRAID of Tony Blair? That is the title of a recent article in the Financial Times by someone who is obviously a bit sensitive about his name--Richard Wolffe. (Who's afraid of Richard Wolffe, geddit?)

Wolffe has been asking questions in the City of London about a Labour victory. The City, he concludes, is "rapidly revising its old attitudes to new Labour".

Of course it is, you might think. After all the breaking of pledges, the hedging, the reactionary utterances, it is hardly surprising the City and rich people everywhere are "revising their views" about a Labour government.

Wolffe's article makes a gesture in this direction, referring to the left wing policies to which Labour was committed when it last won an election in 1974.

He calls on Labour to commit itself to denationalising the Bank of England and to cut public spending. (If you want a bet, I would tip both as a certain double well before the next election.)

But most of the article is not about specific policies at all. Utilities and banks might lose from a windfall tax--but then retail firms and construction companies might gain from switches from VAT to income tax and the release of money stored up from selling council homes.

The attitude is very much, "Heads we might lose, tails we might win"--there is not much in it.

By contrast, 20 years ago an article about a forthcoming Labour government would have concentrated almost exclusively on specific policies and their dire consequences for the City.

It would have pointed, for instance, to the commitment to unscramble the NHS trusts as an expensive and unnecessary irrelevance.

It would have worried about the threat to companies which benefit from privatised prisons, about the remunicipalisation of privatised local businesses, about the increasing strength of the unions if the anti-union laws are in no way "reformed".

For all the sell outs, Labour is still committed to plenty of policies which strike fear and dread into the heart of any thinking millionaire. Why then are these matters hardly discussed in these important circles?

The chief reason is that the next Labour government will be far less in control of events than even the last one.

National governments, says Wolffe, are nothing like as much in charge of their economies as they used to be. In 1981, he reveals, international investors owned only 3.6 percent of the UK stockmarket. By the end of 1993 they owned 16 percent.

Then there is the movement of all European economies towards convergence, whatever the policies of the national governments. Wolffe quotes a "political analyst" of a Japanese bank saying, "On a European level the scope for drastic and frightening changes to economic and monetary policy is very limited. The agenda is set collectively."

Finally, Wolffe argues that the "markets" (the word financial journalists use for capitalism) are so strong they cannot any longer be touched by elected governments.

In a sentence which should be lit up as a monument to 100 years of social democracy, he quotes the head of strategy at City firm Kleinwort Benson saying, "All the hopes and fears about economics and financial markets are played out through bond yields. They act as guardians of low inflation and it is very difficult for governments to buck them."

This is another way of saying capitalist hierarchies rule supreme and elected governments have no influence over them.

It is an idea that has infected many of Blair's colleagues, who point to the strength of the international "markets" and argue it is futile to make commitments which try to buck them.

The fact is, of course, that the stronger the uncontrolled market, the more there is a need for tough policies from Labour, for more ruthless intervention, more public ownership and more co-operation with socialists overseas to coordinate the market bucking.

Instead Blair offers us weaker policies, less intervention and little or no cooperation with socialists overseas. No wonder no one in the City is afraid of him.

Feel for lives torn apart

by CHARLIE KIMBER

SEVENTY FIVE years after it ended, the First World War can still inspire modern writers.

Sebastien Japrisot's A Very Long Engagement, recently published in paperback, is a thriller which gives a real feeling of those years of slaughter.

It begins in 1917 with five French soldiers court martialed for deliberately wounding themselves in an effort to escape the mincing machine of the front.

They are pushed, hands bound, into the no man's land between the French and German trenches. Everyone assumes they have perished.

But Mathilde, the girlfriend of one of the condemned men, wants to know more about their fate. As she searches for the truth she uncovers people and evidence which casts light on the war.

The book is full of compassion for ordinary women and men who want nothing more than to enjoy a decent life but are plunged into agony by events beyond their control.

One character, "Six Sous", was an activist trade unionist before the war but "you're not to imagine he thought about nothing except trade unionism.

"He loved bicycles and the dance halls along the banks of the Marne just as much as he did the General Confederation of Labour."

The war takes this man to hell.

Above all else the book shows people who have learnt through their experiences that the talk of a "war for freedom" is a bitter lie.

A nun, hearing that a soldier has done terrible things, says, "When you told me your story the only sin I could see in it was the hypocrisy of the high and mighty of this world."

Although it deals with horror, the book is full of hope. Mathilde meets others who share her passion for justice. They believe, "We are people, not things, and no one, not even the war, can change that."

Mathilde is strong and refuses to allow the fact that she uses a wheelchair to hold her back from relentless activity and harrying the powerful who want to cover things up.

The book leaves you with a strong sense of how people could live happily together and that "a day would come when the French, the Germans, the Russians would refuse to fight ever again, for anything."

A Very Long Engagement, published by Collins at £5.99, is available from Bookmarks (add 15 percent postage)--phone 0181 802 6145).

Oscar for reaction

by HAZEL CROFT

FORREST GUMP, which picked up six Oscars and has been a huge box office hit in the US, is a thoroughly reactionary film.

Forrest Gump is a "simpleton" from small town America who makes it into the big time.

He embodies the "American dream" and becomes a success through a mixture of luck and his mother's old fashioned homespun values.

Its message is that anyone--no matter what their initial disadvantage--can make it to the top of American society.

But the film doesn't root for the underdog, rather it celebrates Gump's conformity and timidity.

Gump makes it because he does what he is told.

Rebellion, on the other hand, will only lead to disaster.

Civil rights activists and anti Vietnam War protesters are portrayed in a stereotyped way, as mean and corrupt figures.

The woman Gump falls in love with--an

advocate of sexual liberation--is rewarded with AIDS and death.

The film backs up those who want a return to some nostalgic age where "family values" and bigoted morality dominate.

And that is why the multi-million dollar film business has showered it with undeserved accolades.

Sins of the Fathers

by SIMON JOYCE

THE FILM Priest has caused a stir because it deals frankly with the Catholic Church's attitude to gay sex and child abuse.

Young Father Greg arrives in working class Liverpool armed with Tory style Christianity. He's going to tell his flock that being poor is no excuse for "sin" like drugs, drink and crime.

But the reality of workers' lives slaps him in the face and starts to shake his faith. Things aren't as simple as he learned in the seminary.

The dilemmas get worse when it comes to sex. His fellow priest is a raving leftie living "in sin" with the housekeeper.

During confession a 14 year old tells of being abused by her father. Greg wants to do something but his vows prevent him speaking out.

And he is tormented by his own gay sexuality, which his religion says is wrong but which he cannot deny.

The film's strengths are that gay sexuality is treated sympathetically and that it is savage on the hypocrisy and callous bureaucracy of the church.

But the film is disappointing in that the dilemmas it raises are resolved in completely unconvincing ways.

Spring offensive

AS HEALTH service workers took to the streets over pay, our sales blossomed. In Glasgow 101 copies of Socialist Worker were sold on the pay protests including 45 at the Western Infirmary, 27 at the Royal Infirmary and 16 at Gartnavel Hospital. In Manchester 90 papers were sold including 20 at Wigan Hospital, 15 at Gateway House and 12 at Manchester Northern General.

In south west London 17 papers were sold at St George's and ten at both St Helier and East Surrey hospitals. In Edinburgh 51 papers were sold outside hospitals, 57 in Tower Hamlets and Newham hospitals and 41 in Avon including 20 at Bristol Royal Infirmary.

Elsewhere 31 were sold at Barnsley General, 26 at Homerton Hospital, Hackney, 25 at Guy's, south London, 22 at Churchill Hospital, Oxford, 21 at Greenwich District Hospital, 15 at Southend Hospital and 12 at both Dudley Hospital and St Ann's Hospital, Tottenham.

On our Saturday sales 31 copies of Socialist Worker were sold on a new sale in Weston-super-Mare, 81 were sold across Bristol, 134 in Manchester's Market Street plus 25 in Longsight and 44 in Wythenshawe, 83 in Nottingham, 33 in Chesterfield, 54 in Wolverhampton, 33 in Mutley, Plymouth, 36 in Southend, 76 in Sheffield followed by 42 on the NUJ demonstration, 128 on Tyneside including 70 at the Monument and 22 in Gateshead, 36 in Crawley, 31 in Coventry and in Edinburgh 23 in Dumbiedykes and 21 on Easter Road.

Across north London 284 papers were sold including 29 in Holloway, 28 in Highbury, 24 in Archway, 22 in Finchley, 24 in Seven Sisters and 21 in Enfield. Elsewhere in the capital 61 papers were sold in both Stratford and Hammersmith, 35 in Poplar, 52 in Tooting, 45 in Sutton, 58 in Manor House, 30 on Hackney's Kingsland Road, 26 in Woodberry Down, 24 in both Hoxton and the Elephant and Castle, 31 in Deptford, 21 in both Wembley and Shepherd's Bush and 20 in Fulham.

On our regular sales 11 papers were sold at both the Scotsman in Edinburgh and Tate and Lyle in Newham. In Bristol ten papers were sold at the Severn Bridge construction site, five at Bendix, and two at both British Aerospace and Temple Meads rail station.

In Manchester six papers were sold at both GEC and Princess Road bus garages and five at Kellogg's. Elsewhere six papers were sold at Albright and Wilson in West Bromwich, and five at Fresha bakeries in Leicester. In the post office eight papers were sold at both East Finchley and NDO in Islington, seven at Southend office, six at both West Bromwich depot and Copperas Hill, Liverpool, four at both Stockport Lane in Manchester and Tooting offices, three at Peckham office and two at Montpelier office, Bristol.

On a Brighton demonstration against the Jobseeker's Allowance 35 papers were sold, 21 on a school dinner workers' protest in Hounslow, 16 at a meeting on Clause Four with John Prescott in Derby and 28 copies of Socialist Worker and 21 of Socialist Review to the 33 delegates at the FBU women's conference.

Over the last week eight people joined the SWP at NUS conference; four in Nottingham; three in Aberdeen; two in Edinburgh, Dewsbury, Tooting and Worthing; one in Scunthorpe, Hammersmith, Ealing, Shoreditch, Elephant and Castle, Coventry, Radstock, Manchester City, Stourbridge, Telford North, on the protest outside Eric Cantona's trial and on the NUJ demonstration in Sheffield.

LECTURES PUSH MANAGEMENT BACK

`We've got to keep up the fight'

LECTURERS AT Southwark College in south London returned to work last Friday having forced management into a significant retreat.

But a sizeable number of workers wanted to fight on, knowing they could win more.

"We've won on points but everyone knows we've now got to keep up the fight," says a Southwark lecturer.

It is one of most successful disputes in the history of their union, NATFHE, and should be an example to further education colleges across the country that face redundancies and new contracts.

Southwark lecturers voted to suspend their strike against 38 compulsory redundancies after management agreed:

to give a commitment to try and achieve all job losses on a voluntary basis.

to supply all necessary information to do with finances and curriculum development to NATFHE to discuss courses and staffing.

that job losses need not necessarily take place in the areas that management had designated--so a job loss in one department could subsitute for the "failure" to achieve a job cut in another.

to extend the 23 April deadline for redundancies to 26 May.

to dock lecturers' pay for the strike over four months, not all at once.

But the threat of compulsory redundancies still remains. Management have reserved the right to introduce a "contingency plan" if the job losses are not met voluntarily.

That could mean phased retirement, the non-renewal of fixed term contracts and compulsory redundancies.

That is why lecturers voted to suspend the action, and pledged to strike again if there are compulsory redundancies at the end of May.

"We want to defend as many jobs at the college as we can," says a lecturer. "Even if jobs go voluntarily that still means lecturers have to work harder and the students' education is hit."

The strikers' NATFHE official urged them to accept the deal as "the best we could get out of them".

But a significant minority wanted to carry on fighting until management completely lifted the threat of compulsory redundancies. The vote to go back was 59 to 32.

"We don't trust them," said one striker at last week's meeting. "I remember their `consultations' over college reorganisation. They never listened. They did exactly what they wanted."

Southwark lecturers may well need to restart their strike, but the dispute shows all out action gets results.

The redundancies were announced last Christmas. Management would not even discuss them before the strike. Just days before the strike began, management vastly improved their voluntary redundancy package.

The strike was solid despite a narrow majority of only nine votes for all out action.

It stayed solid for 13 days despite lecturers receiving no strike pay and being docked two days pay for every day they struck.

A group of workers not known for being militant, many of who seem themselves as middle class, stuck firm. Many were involved in picketing. Most strikers took part in the democratic running of the dispute.

Strikers toured the country and won magnificent solidarity from other workers--raising £20,000 for their strike fund.

"The support we got was fantastic. Everyone knew our fight was a fight for everyone," says a lecturer.

"When we went back to work people were smiling from ear to ear. Support staff and canteen workers were patting people on the back saying, `Well done'."

It is now crucial that Southwark lecturers fight to maintain the unity and momentum built up during the strike.

They must fight to stop management from regaining the initiative.

That means strengthening the union in every section, department and site. That is the only way to stop management coming back with more attacks.

The union has also produced stickers saying, "I'm part of the union", for lecturers to wear at work.

The need to maintain the fight was seen clearly at the union's first meeting with management last Friday.

Management tried to limit how far the union could circulate information on the redundancies. The meeting broke down and ACAS negotiated with both sides for over an hour. The meeting eventually restarted on the union's terms.

But NATFHE must also resist being drawn into doing management's job for them.

It is not the union's responsibility to decide where jobs are to go or where cuts are to be made. It's the union's responsibility to fight them.

Crucially, Southwark lecturers must be prepared to strike again in May if necessary.

Student conference

No answer to poverty

THE NATIONAL Union of Students failure to fight effectively against poverty, grant cuts and worsening conditions had a profound impact on last week's NUS conference.

In what was hailed as a victory for "student centred" policies, delegates voted for a "review" of the present grants system.

The review was pushed through by cynical supporters of Labour leader Tony Blair who want to ditch the current NUS policy of restoring grants and benefits to their 1979 value.

They were able to capitalise on many students' desire to do something fast about the poverty in Britain's colleges.

The mood was summed up when one Plymouth delegate won applause when she declared, "When students march, they chant, `Grants not loans', not, `Give us a review'."

However, when it came to the vote, delegates backed the review, hoping it could provide an alternative to the NUS leaders' miserable failure to lead a fightback.

NUS will now look at options including a "graduate tax"--extra income tax paid by those who have been through higher education--

extending the loans system and student contributions to college fees.

But NUS president Jim Murphy and the NUS leadership did not openly support a graduate tax at conference.

But this could well change. The review will be completed by the end of May and will be circulated to student unions for discussion.

As a North London University student says, "The review will not stop poverty. We have got to make sure NUS continues its opposition to loans and graduate tax, but we need action now."

The wrong target

JIM MURPHY, the NUS president, talked about the "dangers of extremism" during his opening speech at NUS conference.

He was not referring to the fight against Nazi groups like the BNP or Combat 18, but to a small Islamic group, Hizb ut-Tahrir.

His remarks set the tone for conference, which reaffirmed its ban on the group and called for its prosecution for incitement to racial hatred.

However, Hizb ut-Tahrir is not to blame for the racist attacks which take place daily on Britain's streets.

It is not the reason why Asian and black students at some colleges have to look over their shoulders in fear. Nor is it responsible for swastikas daubed on Jewish cemeteries.

Indeed, Hizb ut-Tahrir has attracted the support of young Muslims reacting to the racism of British society.

Their philosophy centres on the belief that the horrors in the world can be overcome by returning to a very traditional form of Islam.

In the process some Hizb ut-Tahrir members do make anti-gay, anti-Jewish or sexist remarks.

If individuals are guilty of oppressive or violent behaviour, they should be excluded from NUS, but banning the group will not stop it growing.

The logic of the NUS leaders' position became clear during conference when attacks spread from Hizb ut-Tahrir to "fundamentalism" and then to Islam, with one delegate branding all Muslims "stupid", "backward" and ignorant.

Two Asian delegates were stopped by police outside the conference for being "suspected members of Hizb ut-Tahrir". Another Asian delegate had leaflets thrown in his face and was told to, "Go home," by a white student.

The NUS leaders should be uniting black and white students in a fight against their real enemies--the BNP and racist Tory deportations. And that means standing up against the abuse thrown at the one million Muslims in Britain, not adding to it.

Education is a right

BLAIR'S PLAN for a graduate tax is an attack on the principle that education is a right, not a privilege.

Many working class people would be put off college by the prospect of paying for their education for years.

A university degree is no guarantee of a good job. Record numbers go straight from their exams to the dole queue.

Almost half of all graduates with a job are no better paid when they leave college than they would have been without a degree.

Teachers strike against the cuts

TEACHERS IN several areas of the country were set to strike this week against education cuts which threaten thousands of teaching jobs.

They planned half day and one day strikes. Unfortunately, the lack of any lead from teaching union leaders meant the action was not coordinated.

There will be an opportunity at teaching union conferences over Easter to force them to call coordinated action next term. It is vital that it is not lost.

Any action at the moment has the backing of parents.

In Nottingham last week parents were out leafleting at local schools in support of the teachers' strike. "Many parents are joining the teachers' demo," says James, a local parent.

It is no surprise they want to see a fight to defend education. More and more schools are becoming dependent on parents' fundraising to survive.

Now parents at a school in Northamptonshire have been told they will have to pay £1 a week per child or see a teacher sacked.

The only way to force the government to cough up more money is to build the fight now.

Last Wednesday 2,500 parents, teachers and pupils from across Derbyshire travelled to London to lobby parliament. Council workers and firefighters joined the protest.

A rally in central London was addressed by Labour MPs Dennis Skinner and Tony Benn before protesters marched on parliament.

"We were told we couldn't march, but we did," a teacher told Socialist Worker. "The numbers show what people think of the cuts. About 30 schools came just from my area, the north east of Derbyshire."

So far the scale of the cuts has forced governors at six Derbyshire schools to set illegal "needs budgets" which reflect the needs of the pupils rather than the government's demand for cuts.

Governors at two other schools have resigned.

In some areas local education authorities are stepping in to take over the budgets of schools where governors have refused to make cuts.

In Shropshire--where the council is campaigning for more government money--the local authority has taken over the budgets of five schools.

This is disgusting. The councils should not be doing the Tories' dirty work and sacking teachers.

Parents and teachers need to make it as difficult as possible for local authorities to make cuts.

"We have got to back the governors," says a parent in Warwickshire, where 23 schools have set needs budgets.

Roundup

NEW RESEARCH shows the return of tests for 11 year olds this May is changing the way teachers work.

"The atmosphere in some schools was very 11 plussy", say researchers. "They had children lined up in ranks."

The Tories claim their tests will not lead to selection. Yet in the last week two Surrey grant maintained comprehensives have begun proceedings to select 40 percent of pupils on "academic ability".

Many teachers are furious that their union leaders called off the test boycott, and members of the NUT teaching union in Crofton Secondary School in Lewisham have voted to continue it.

Teachers from the school were set to leaflet pupils and parents this week. A meeting for parents is planned for Easter, at which parents will be asked to remove their children from the tests.

The protest forced the governors to keep the assistants on until October.

Governors at Poundswick agreed to spend the money on appointing another teacher for children with special needs.

However, the Labour council then announced the extra money would come from secondary school budgets.

This follows last week's launch of a defence campaign and lobby by parents and teachers.

"In the present crisis in education all our energies need to be focused against the attacks on our jobs and conditions of service," said Caitlan Wright, secretary of Bolton Teachers Association.

They are fighting the closure of voluntary sector nurseries and privatisation of council run nurseries.

The public meeting followed a lobby of the council where protesters forced their way into the town hall. A day of action is planned on 10 April.

FACE

THE PARENTS', teachers' and governors' group fighting cuts in education, FACE, has called a second national demonstration in September.

The group's national executive and activists from across the country met in Birmingham on Saturday.

They agreed FACE would call on teaching unions to back the demonstration, planned for the weekend of 23 and 24 September.

It also launched a petition calling for more government cash for education and smaller classes, to campaign around the May council elections and to support schools which have defied the government by setting "needs budgets".

FACE national conference: Coventry, Saturday 10 June, 11am.

More details from FACE, c/o St Giles Middle School, Hayes Lane, Exhall, Coventry CV7 9NS. (To affiliate to FACE send £10 per individual, £25 per group--cheques payable to FACE.)

Section 11

TEACHERS across Ealing struck last Thursday in defence of Section 11 teachers' jobs.

These are teachers funded to work with children whose first language is not English. As a result of government cuts, they face the sack all over the country.

Around 200 teachers turned out to lobby the council.

Hackney

TEACHERS at 15 schools in east London's Hackney struck unofficially for 40 minutes last week in support of action at Hackney Downs School which is threatened with closure.

This was despite threats of disciplinary action from the Labour council and a refusal of support from officials of the NUT.

About 200 teachers and parents demonstrated outside the education authority offices and chased the director of education down the road.

Derby

MEMBERS OF the NUT and NASUWT teaching unions in Derbyshire planned a half day strike this Wednesday, with rallies in Chesterfield and Derby to follow their lobby of parliament last week.

Council union UNISON won a ballot to join the action with a 60 percent majority, but this was subsequently declared invalid on a technicality.

UNISON members were so angry, many decided to join the rally anyway.

Earlier, on Saturday, 300 people rallied against the education cuts in Dronfield.

School meals services are being particularly badly hit.

Hundreds of part time workers will lose their jobs, while the children will be fed only processed meat--nothing fresh--just one hot pudding a week and Smash instead of potatoes most days. Yet meal prices are going up.

Activists plan a joint shop stewards' meeting across the schools facing redundancies.

Rail workers

`It's time we got what the signal workers won'

RAIL WORKERS are furious with last week's 2.5 percent pay offer from British Rail.

In the run up to privatisation BR has repeatedly predicted profits of £400 million this year.

But managers have now told the unions this figure is an illusion and they must accept a rise below inflation.

"People are livid", a train driver told Socialist Worker. "They want to know why there is £400 million profit when BR talks to private industry, but the money does not exist when we want a rise.

"We want to strike," he added. "On our noticeboard we have a picture of the French rail strike.

"People are saying, `It is time we got our own back--the least we can get is what the signal workers got'."

Another driver complains, "You work all hours and come out with rubbish. How can they expect us to settle for 2.5 percent?"

Anger is spread across the whole industry. A workshop worker says, "People will definitely strike. It is not just our pay, it's everything."

However, union leaders cannot be relied on to turn this anger into meaningful action.

Last year leaders of the three main rail unions--ASLEF, RMT and TSSA--did their utmost to avoid action. Activists must ensure there is no repeat.

The train drivers' union ASLEF has already won overwhelming support for industrial action over pay.

Jimmy Knapp, leader of the RMT, insists, "BR is going to have to do much better than this if it is to avoid a confrontation."

Richard Rosser, leader of the white collar TSSA, says the offer is "not satisfactory" and wants more negotiations.

"We don't need more negotiations, we need strikes," explains an RMT activist. "I'm not waiting for the executive, I am taking a petition round my workplace against the 2.5 percent.

"We've got to move fast. Last year BR got away with putting the rise into our pay packets and convinced people it wasn't worth striking.

"This year the stakes are higher. If we strike we have got a real opportunity to finish privatisation."

Leaders of the three unions were due to meet this week to plan their next move. But real unity must be built on the ground. That means:

Circulating petitions demanding 8 percent like the signal workers.

Calling section and branch meetings to discuss strike action.

Organising joint campaigns across the unions.

FE lectures

More action needed in summer term

COLLEGE lecturers, members of NATFHE, should be bombarding their union leaders with motions demanding they name more dates for nationally coordinated strike action next term.

The last round of action, which saw 60 colleges strike, injected new life into the two year dispute over new contracts.

That momentum must not be wasted.

NATFHE members are asking what next. They know one, two and three day strikes are not enough to beat off the Tories and the college employers.

Many branches have rejected the union's suggested strategy of one college per region going on all out strike.

A ballot at Barnsley College, for example, saw a three to one vote for further nationally coordinated strikes.

Branches and regions should pass motions calling for more national action and for the union to escalate to an all out strike.

Around the colleges

They planned a rally outside the College Employers Federation headquarters in central London.

It cuts redundancy notice to four months and increases the working year to 41 weeks.

The deal was pushed by union officials. "People voted unhappily for it," says a Stockport lecturer. Lecturers need to build in every section to fight over the details of its implementation.

Andrew Price from Wales, a Fight the Contracts campaign supporter, was elected for Wales.

This was despite lecturers losing a ballot for strike action last month.

Students pledged support for any action the staff take against redundancies, and the meeting decided to refuse to cooperate with the job losses and called on the board of governors to resign.

Over £400 was raised for the lecturers' strike in Southwark.

The students plan their own series of emergency meetings across college sites, with the first on Wednesday and a rally organised for Thursday.

They shut down the entire college on 8 March and staged selective strikes in two departments on one day a week--the last, on Thursday of last week, culminated in a march and rally.

Now they plan to strike on 22-24 May to coincide with a college inspection.

Airports

WORKERS IN British Airports Authority airports have voted overwhelmingly against the company's 3 percent pay offer, plus an increase in shift pay and small lump sum.

Unions were awaiting management's response this week.

There are six airports in the group, taken out of local authority control by the Tories in 1987--Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Glasgow, Stansted, Gatwick and Heathrow.

The two biggest unions involved, the TGWU and AEEU, voted overwhelmingly against the offer.

Over 50 engineers responsible for terminal maintenance are members of the TGWU transport union. But the TGWU is not recognised for engineering grades at the airport.

Some 84 percent of staff at nine airports, including Stornoway and Inverness, have thrown out the deal.

Anti-Nazi

TWO HUNDRED black and white students at the University of Central England, Birmingham, staged a spontaneous march last week against a BNP member at the college.

The demonstration was in response to an assault on two black socialists on the campus.

It erupted after an emergency general meeting of the students' union, where the executive refused to accept motions naming the Nazi and talking about the assault.

Angry students, appalled by the executive's failure to act, are demanding a campaign to expel the Nazi, involving pickets of his lectures and demonstrations outside the vice-chancellor's office.

A lobby is planned to pressurise the hung council to shut down the Nazi headquarters.

Lobby 9am, Tuesday 18 April, Crayford Town Hall, Kent.

Send letters demanding its closure to: BNP Inquiry, Mr M Harrison, Bexley Civil Offices, Broadway, Bexleyheath, Kent DA6 7LB.

One of those in court was Chris Holmes, minder for failed BNP election candidate Derek Beackon.

The march was called at short notice by the local Crosby Community Association and the Anti Nazi League.

ANL supporters have been petitioning on the town's Riddings estate where the BNP has distributed leaflets. Almost everybody signed the petition.

Anti-deportation

MEMBERS of the NUJ journalists' union in Birmingham have launched a campaign to stop a colleague being deported.

NUJ member Raghbir Singh was arrested in connection with the recent murder of a Sikh newspaper editor in west London.

Police decided he was not involved, but the Home Office is seeking to deport him as "a threat to national security" and he is locked in Winson Green jail.

Raghbir Singh has a wife and two British born children in this country.

Send protests to the Home Office, Queen Anne's Gate, London SW1. (More information from the NUJ's Miles Barter on 021-523 9980.)

Rolls Royce

Three sites give Rolls two fingers

HUNDREDS OF workers in part of the Rolls Royce aero-engine plants at Derby and Ansty (Coventry) struck last Friday and Monday over pay.

They planned to walk out again this Friday and the following Monday and are threatening an all out strike.

At the same time, the result of a ballot for strike action against up to 1,000 redundancies at the East Kilbride site was due this week.

Workers in the main plant at Derby are operating an overtime ban, and those at Bristol plan their own strike ballot.

The escalating action has hit Rolls just as bosses thought they were over the worst.

A threat of an all out strike in the repair and services (RRAES) section at East Kilbride was averted three weeks ago.

Rolls dropped its demand for annualised hours--which would have meant the virtual scrapping of overtime pay and other allowances and people working whatever shifts the company

demanded--and agreed to pay a 2 percent rise for last year and 2.5 percent for this.

But union officials--led by the engineering AEEU which represents most of the workers--conceded the reintroduction of Friday afternoon working.

The same deal should have gone to the other RRAES workers at Ansty, Derby and Bristol.

Yet the company came back with new demands tied to the wage deal, including compulsory weekend working with no extra pay.

Workers would be expected to work one weekend in four. They would get time off in lieu instead of overtime, but the bosses would say when they could take it.

This is despite the company making over £100 million profit in the past year, a jump of 33 percent.

Talks broke down last week. More than 400 workers at Derby began their strike on Thursday night and hundreds more joined in at Ansty on Friday morning.

Now workers across Rolls are paying a £2 a week levy to support the strikes.

The action is hitting the company hard.

As one picket told Socialist Worker, "This strike has really brought us together. Before we were all keeping our heads down. The bosses thought we were bluffing about taking strike action."

However, the unions need to escalate their action and draw in every plant to win.

Bus workers

Merseyside walkout

OVER 900 bus drivers on Merseyside walked out on unofficial strike over pay on Monday. They did not wait to ballot.

The drivers work for MTL Trust Holdings, which incorporates Wirral Peninsula, Merseybus and St Helens based Lancashire Travel.

They are furious at the latest attempts to cut their pay, coming after a management share issue that was supposed to make the drivers part owners of the company.

"This is what privatisation has meant," explains a shop steward, "a £40 a week increase in pay over nine years. That's effectively a pay cut."

Drivers get no extra money for weekend working, and a driver who earned £42 for working a Saturday in 1986 now gets just £36.

They are claiming a 5.6 percent rise. The company wants a pay freeze.

One of its directors recently got a £13,000 a year rise.

The company has sought to divide and rule by paying some drivers on its subsidiary Merseyrider £1 an hour less than other workers.

It told them one route was axed, but then introduced drivers doing the run at a cheaper rate.

Anger was so high on Monday morning that they staged a sit-in.

The company responded by withdrawing all trade union facilities and threatening some drivers--including a shop steward--with the sack.

Chelmsford

THE STRUGGLE for reinstatement by 105 Chelmsford bus workers, sacked after staging an official half day strike last November, has won huge support.

Their strike committee has raised over £50,000.

"The money shows the support there is for the dispute," says secretary Bob Arnett. "People are looking to us."

Bob recently drove a bus for TSSA rail workers after they refused to use one provided by Eastern National--owned by the same Badgerline company that sacked the Chelmsford drivers.

"They gave us £74 for our funds," says Bob. "Their action was typical of the support we're getting. But we need to step things up."

One way to turn this support into action would be to call a mass picket of the Chelmsford depot. But what is really needed is solidarity action across the Badgerline group.

Council workers

FIGHTBACK

THE "FIGHTBACK" network of branches of the public sector workers' UNISON union will hold a conference in Birmingham on Saturday 29 April.

It is open to delegates from all UNISON branches and shop stewards committees.

As well as continuing the discussion over resistance to cuts in the councils, half of this conference will be given over to rebuilding organisation in the NHS.

The potential for that was shown by last week's excellent NHS protests. But in many areas of the NHS organisation remains weak.

For that reason this Fightback conference is open to INDIVIDUAL health workers.

Every UNISON activist should argue for their branch or shop stewards committee to send delegates, and everywhere people should encourage health workers they know to attend.

Fightback Conference, Saturday 29 April, 10am-4pm, The Union Club, 723 Pershore Road, Birmingham. Disabled and Creche facilities available.

For more information contact: David Hughes, UNISON Birmingham No 1 branch, Phone: 0121 233 3048, fax: 0121 236 0264.

Defend Sefton UNISON

SEFTON COUNCIL on Merseyside has sacked Nigel Flanagan, branch secretary of the UNISON council workers' union branch.

Nigel was one of the Sefton Two, fined in the High Court last year after leading a successful but illegal strike against privatisation.

Nigel's contract ran out last Friday after his job was cut. He applied for redeployment to another job as would normally happen.

But after a string of interviews, including several for jobs for which he was the only applicant, Nigel was refused redeployment.

In some cases interviewers made it clear his trade union activities were to blame.

Sacking Nigel is a clear victimisation of a trade union activist and an attack on the Sefton UNISON branch.

Sefton UNISON branch is determined to win Nigel's reinstatement, and will be meeting next week to confirm Nigel as its union branch secretary.

A mass lobby of the council is planned for next Thursday, 13 April.

Paul Grimes, acting branch chair of Sefton UNISON, says, "This is not just about one individual. It is an attack on our union branch.

"But solidarity can win Nigel's job back."

Already council workers are planning to travel from Sheffield, Manchester and elsewhere to join the protest, and Sefton UNISON wants other groups of workers to come.

National and regional UNISON officials have also given the go ahead for a strike ballot starting on 13 April.

The ballot will be for a council wide two day strike followed by all out strikes in some areas unless the council backs down.

Messages of support: c/o Sefton UNISON, Phone: 0151 920 6140, fax: 0151 928 0298.

Fax protests to Sefton council's chief executive, 0151 934 2268.

Demonstrate: Reinstate Nigel Flanagan, Thursday 13 April, 5pm onwards, outside Sefton council meeting, Bootle Town Hall, Bootle.

Scotland

HUNDREDS OF people joined a protest outside the Scottish Office in Edinburgh on Monday.

It was called by Strathclyde and Lothian UNISON union branches over the threat to around 5,000 jobs after the reorganisation of councils (see page four).

Unfortunately a strike ballot was narrowly lost last week in Strathclyde.

Councils in brief

The workers have asked their UNISON union to organise a ballot for escalation.

The Labour led council plans cuts of £3 million this year and more next year.

The workers' action has already forced a climbdown over compulsory redundancies.

Postal Workers

SCOTTISH POSTAL workers are expected to start a strike ballot soon over the issue of May Day holidays.

Royal Mail wants to shift the 1 May public holiday to 8 May because of VE day ceremonies. But workers want to have both dates as days off like most others in Scotland.

John Keggie, national executive member of the CWU union, says, "We have never experienced such ill feeling among our members towards management."

But some union officials are merely trying to get the holiday shifted to 1 May rather than defending both.

The CWU should delay no longer.

Civil servants

CPSA CIVIL servants' trade union members at Toxteth Unemployment Benefit Office in Liverpool plan to send a delegation to Hackney in east London to encourage CPSA members in the two UBOs there to fight management plans to remove counters and screens.

The Toxteth workers have recently forced Employment Service management to back down from plans to relocate them to an open plan office.

There has been an increase in violence at local offices in recent years as Tory attacks force claimants over the edge.

In brief

The celebrations were in stark contrast with the city council's refusal to allow the NUM to march through Cardiff in the year following the 1984-5 strike.

Activists should demand to know why no action is being called and use the feeling over pay to improve union organisation.

It would be the first ever strike since trust status in the Grampian area.

Workers on the ferries want their bosses to implement a two week on and two week off system of working--which they have been demanding for over two years.

Transtar

SEVENTY SIX workers at Transtar in Hebburn, South Tyneside, have staged a series of one day strikes against attempts to force a productivity deal through which would cut wages by up to £8 a week.

The workers, who make strip lights, have won solidarity on the picket line. Some strikers want the action to be escalated to all out.

Labour women's conference

TONY BLAIR forced through support for his changes to Clause Four of the party's constitution at the Labour women's conference last weekend. But although he won the vote by four to one, he could not take comfort from everything he heard.

There were big abstentions in the Clause Four vote including delegations from the TGWU and MSF unions.

Pat Harvey, a delegate from the TGWU union, said that the new alternative failed to deliver explicit support for the rights of women or black people.

From the RMT rail union, Stephanie Thompson said the leadership had used the question of women's rights to say the present clause was outdated, but then had failed to deliver.

The conference backed a motion calling for a specific figure (half male median earnings) for a minimum wage.

Firefighters

A WOMAN firefighter has won her case of sexual discrimination against Hereford and Worcester brigade.

Tania Clayton joined the fire brigade in 1989 but six years later she was forced out of her job as a result of consistent discrimination.

Management ignored her pleas for help, but she won backing from the FBU union.

Tania's case sets a precedent that will have repercussions across all brigades.

She may win compensation, but the penalty she paid is the loss of a job she loved and a nervous breakdown.

The FBU has to continue campaigning against sexism, racism and homophobia in the fire brigade so that everyone can see it as a profession they can join.

NHS-NOW IT'S TIME TO STRIKE

by HAZEL CROFT

THOUSANDS OF health workers protested outside hospitals last week.

Health union UNISON's NHS Fair Pay Day was a magnificent show of strength in the fight against the Tories' 1 percent pay offer.

Protests took place outside more than 400 hospitals and health centres across the country. It was the biggest display of anger and unity in the health service since 1982.

Many health workers were protesting for the first time. Members of the Royal College of Midwives--which recently voted to drop its no-strike clause--stopped the traffic outside the George Elliot Hospital in Nuneaton.

"I never thought I'd ever be doing things like this, but it's got so bad," one of the midwives told Socialist Worker.

This picture was repeated around the country as nurses and midwives were joined by radiographers, physiotherapists and pharmacy workers, admin and clerical staff, porters and domestic workers.

At many hospitals health workers were joined by delegations from other workplaces.

"Our visit to the local fire station paid off," said a nurse in Nottingham. "Firefighters turned up on the demonstration outside QMC Hospital to show solidarity."

Workers from the NestlŽ factory, threatened with closure, joined the 100 strong picket outside the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital.

And at Barnsley General, health workers were joined by delegations from Beatson Clarke glassworks, the teachers' NUT and the lecturers' NATFHE unions.

Everywhere the protests received marvellous public support. "It's been a great success, people tooting their car horns in support. It has given everyone a boost," Beverley, an east London nurse, told Socialist Worker.

The demonstrations have shown the anger in the health service and the level of public support.

Now that must be translated into action which can force the Tories into retreat.

The Royal College of Midwives is already balloting its members on action.

The Royal College of Nursing says it may drop its no-strike clause.

Health union UNISON has promised a ballot on strike action.

Health workers need to start agitating now to make sure the vote is for action if a ballot is called.

The Tories are already on the defensive about the NHS. A national pay strike could force them into a humiliating retreat.

Fight for full claim

UNISON should not backtrack on its original 8.4 percent claim for nurses.

Instead it should extend the claim to cover all health workers.

Everyone knows the Tories' 1 percent offer is an real insult.

But with inflation running at 3.4 percent, a 3 percent rise would also be a drop in living standards for thousands of health workers.

UNISON says health workers need at least 5.1 percent just to keep their standard of living at current levels.

They need more to make up for years of rotten pay settlements.

A fight for 8.4 percent could unite everyone working in the NHS.

Official:NHS in crisis

TORY LIES about the health market are exposed by the government's own figures.

The number of hospital beds in England fell by more than 9 percent between 1991 and 1994.

Waiting lists have increased in two thirds of trusts since 1991 and are up 11 percent overall.

Worst hit is Christie Hospital in Manchester where waiting lists have increased by 125 percent since trust status.

The average length of stay in hospital has been sharply reduced and there is mounting evidence of repeat hospital admissions because of premature discharge.

SAY NO TO LOCAL DEALS

THE TORIES want to end national pay and force health workers to negotiate locally.

Local deals will mean workers doing the same job but receiving different rates of pay depending on where they work.

It is a divisive move designed to set workers against each other.

Some health workers will not be offered anything locally. Many hospitals still do not have negotiating mechanisms in place.

Only 90 out of 400 trusts in England have made any offers so far. In Scotland only three out of 39 trusts have yet made offers and only one offer brings pay up to 3 percent.

Even the health managers' association says many trusts will not be able to afford local pay rises this year or will cut patient care and services to fund any rise.

Things are set to get worse. The Tories plan a real cut in NHS spending next year, according to economist Chris Tinder.

NHS trusts will use local deals to try to impose massive attacks on health workers' already rotten conditions.

Some trusts want to withhold part of any pay rise unless workers take fewer days off sick.

The NHS Trust Federation, which represents health service bosses, has launched an inquiry into sickness absence.

Cutting sickness levels "has emerged as a prime target of trusts in negotiating local pay deals", reports the Observer newspaper.

But the Tory market causes high sickness levels. Stress, back injuries and other work related injuries have all soared in recent years.

A recent survey found women working in the NHS have the highest levels of suicide of any group of workers.

Understaffing on hospital wards means nurses work harder and for longer hours. Now trusts want to increase "productivity".

"How can you be `productive' in a hospital? It means less nurses treating more patients," says Carol, an east London nurse.

Hospital bosses have already started to introduce schemes to try to cut costs and introduce "market" rates.

Clerical and admin workers at UCH and Middlesex hospitals in central London were set to strike this Wednesday in the first of three one day strikes against "multiskilling" and "market testing".

Managers want to get two jobs done for the price of one by making porters, domestics, clerks and nurses all do each other's jobs.

Similar proposals have sparked anger in Birkenhead, where over 300 attended a recent protest, and in Sheffield where secretaries at one hospital have been asked to do lab assistants' jobs.

The GMB union, which represents 100,000 ambulance staff and ancillary workers in the NHS, has now withdrawn from an existing agreement which allowed for local deals.

But all the NHS unions should be pressured not to sign any local deals.

"It is a national health service--we need national pay to keep it that way," says east London nurse Carol.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Take petitions calling for a ballot for strike action around every ward and department in your hospital or health centre.

Pressure local union leaders to call indicative ballots on strike action.

Organise meetings of local activists and call local marches and protests.

Produce local bulletins to let everyone know what's planned in the fight nationally and locally.

Turn UNISON's lobby of parliament on 20 April into a mass protest. Organise transport and delegations from your hospital or health centre.

Send results of local ballots and petitions to Bob Abberley, UNISON Health, Mabledon Place, London WC1.