A new report from the Policy Studies Institute reveals the number in debt to water companies has risen ninefold since privatisation in 1989.

Three out of four British men work 40 hours or more a week--three times the European Union average.

But unemployment is 11.5 percent, nearly 3 percent above the national average.

Grimsby's mayor Alec Bovill says, "We have known for some time that high profits do not mean lots of jobs."

"THE OLD Clause Four commits us to change. The new one commits us to tampering at most.

I believe in nationalisation. The railways have been ripped off by the private sector before and it is happening again.

The mixed economy means capitalists lining their pockets while workers give their all and are sold out.

I think Clause Four should remain as it is. I am not a dinosaur I am a socialist."

"I THINK it's a sell out. It's a betrayal of everything Labour had. What Tony Blair is doing to the party is just rubbish.

He sounds more like a Tory than the Tories. There is no mention of full employment.

Labour never used Clause Four but it made the party slightly different from the Tories and the Liberals.

Now even that is lost. The Labour Party and socialism have got nothing in common."

"THIS IS the abandonment of the historic idea that ordinary working people should get the benefits of working all their lives.

Now in the future all we have to look forward to is Tony Blair letting big business decide how our earnings should be used.

That has never been part of Labour's constitution before. It's a disgrace."

"ON ECONOMIC issues it seems no different to the ideas the SDP put forward. But this doesn't mean a large majority of people who are active members of the Labour Party don't believe in the idea of common ownership."

"LABOUR HAS lost heart. It means it has abandoned any idea of renationalising the industries that have been privatised by the Tories, like British Telecom. The message this is sending to the electorate is that the free market is fine."

"I STAYED in the Labour Party to fight over Clause Four and becasue I believed Labour was the only major party where working class hopes were expressed.

Blair has now trampled on the idea that we can get a really decent society. I don't believe it will win votes and even if it does, it means we will get a government committed to running an economy in the interest of big business.

I'm thinking about leaving the Labour Party. It might be the only way to stop myself getting completely demoralised."

"THIS IS a sell out. The whole historical socialist basis of the Labour Party has now gone.

The new clause talks about the market, but look at education. It is badly resourced. It is underfunded. We shouldn't be looking at education in terms of the market, we should think in terms of need."

"BLAIR SAYS Labour has to change Clause Four and scrap its commitment to public ownership to attract people in white collar jobs.

That's crap. White collar workers aren't middle class. There are millions of us in trade unions.

What he is doing means we can have no faith in Labour to deliver any of the changes we need."

How to win at a casino

WHAT HAS happened to the economic recovery which was supposed to rescue the Tories?

The latest figures from the Central Statistical Office confirm the impression provided by everyday experience, namely that there is not much of it about.

The CSO's indicators designed to anticipate what the economy will do in a few months time all fell in January this year.

The Financial Times commented that "a sharp downturn could start by the middle of the year."

Industrial production, which rose quite rapidly for much of 1994, now seems to be stagnating.

Business confidence is also falling and perhaps this helps to explain why investment is so sluggish. In the third quarter of 1994 it was only 2.25 percent higher than at the low point of the recession in 1992.

During the boom of the late 1980s investment grew by 9.5 percent over a comparable period.

The low rate of investment is not because companies do not have money. Profits rose by 18 percent last year.

Much of this money is going abroad. Overseas investments rose by 70 percent in 1993.

The Financial Times reports, "Some large companies undoubtedly are expanding through acquisitions [buying other companies] or overseas investment rather than new domestic spending."

Low investment in Britain means that little new industrial capacity is created. According to the bosses' organisation, the Confederation of British Industry, more than half of manufacturers are already working at full capacity.

This increases the pressure towards higher inflation. If companies are working at full capacity they cannot meet extra demand for their products.

Either imports are sucked in or there are shortages and firms bid against each other for scarce stock--leading to price rises.

The fear of accelerating inflation led Tory chancellor Kenneth Clarke to increase interest rates three times in the past few months.

But this makes borrowing money to spend on investment more expensive at a time when it is growing too slowly anyway.

So Clarke could kill off the fragile recovery before anyone has really noticed it.

All this takes place against the background of wild swings in the currency markets. The past fortnight has seen the dollar sink, the deutschmark and the yen soar upwards.

What do these surges and slumps really mean? It is hard to prove they have much to do with the relative strength of the economies involved--what economists call the "fundamentals".

The cost of labour per unit of output has fallen in the United States by 14 percent since 1990, and risen in Germany by 9 percent and 45 percent in Japan.

The currency crisis has more to do with the fear that if the American recovery slows then the US government will have to lower interest rates in order to encourage people to borrow money to invest. But that will mean bankers and finance houses will get a smaller return on money they lend.

So they sell dollars and take their money elsewhere.

More fundamentally the currency crisis is a reflection on a global scale of the pattern we see clearly in Britain.

People with money, companies and individuals, are wary of risking their cash in new industrial plant and equipment. So they gamble in the vast casinos of the international financial markets.

At one time investors were keen to put their money into the "emergent markets"--the boom economies of Latin American and east Asia.

But the flow of funds into this sector has abruptly slowed after the Mexican financial crisis which began last December.

People who control big funds are obsessed with avoiding risk and hiding away in the currencies of what they believe to be strong, safe economies.

Whether or not these are wise judgements in their own terms remains to be seen.

But where the roller coaster swings next is less important than the fact that the basic decisions on which the fate of the world economy rests are being made in a way that is about as rational as the roll of a gambler's dice.

"MR Murray required a very highly specialised form of treatment." "SOME overseas investors are complaining the UK carries the same risk as an emerging market, no better than Mexico and Russia."

"WHO IN their right minds would buy shares from this government in future?"

"WE COULD be witnessing the beginning of a crisis that could engulf the entire world economy."

"I HAVE not come to reply to monetary questions. The system works."

"EVERYTHING Nick Leeson did, he did as an employee of Barings, he did it for Barings Bank."

"I WOULD put money into an oil rig or a butcher's shop."

"RACIALLY motivated attacks have not been specified as a service-wide priority."

"LORD Mountbatten was arrogant and aggressive. As Viceroy of India he'd been used to ordering people about like slaves. He'd throw his things all over--it was like a bomb had hit his bedroom."

Meat pies crime wave?

UNEMPLOYED TEENAGERS in Devon are so broke and hungry they are stealing from freezers, doorsteps and supermarket rubbish bins.

The Bristol and Somerset Sunday Independent reports police in Okehampton have recently arrested a number of youngsters over the theft of food.

Three teenagers were caught in a rubbish tip behind a supermarket taking food that was past its sell-by date.

Police arrested a girl they discovered in her bedsit with 40 milk bottles taken from doorsteps.

The police also report a spate of garage break-ins where the only thing that has been taken has been food from freezers.

Of course, the Tories would blame these thefts on lack of parental control and lax discipline in schools. They might blame drugs. They might even suggest they are committed by teenagers with a "criminal" gene.

But the police do not agree.

Detective Constable Graham Cruickshank of Okehampton CID says these young people are forced into crime.

"All of them are between 15 and 17 and live in bedsits. It is not a drug habit. They are stealing to eat.

"They are stealing to feed themselves. They break into garages and steal things like pies out of the freezer."

GIs turn blue

IT IS a dangerous life in the US army--though not so much from "enemy" fire as from Rambo loving drill instructors.

The New York Times reports that in the past six years seven US soldiers have died in training for every one killed in combat.

An American soldier is killed every four days.

Four US rangers froze to death in Florida's Yellow River during "training" last month after being left in the water for six hours.

General Wayne Downing, head of the Pentagon's Special Operations Command, defended this brutality saying, "Intense training to develop the capability to fight wars is imperative."

India beats Glasgow

THE INHABITANTS of a poverty stricken Indian village have a better life than people in Glasgow's deprived Easterhouse estate, according to a report by two Indian researchers.

In a report for two charities they concluded a penniless tribesman south of Mysore was better off than an unemployed man in Easterhouse.

"They are really worse off than the poorest in our village," say Stan and Mari Thekaekara.

"There's a heaviness in the air which you don't experience in an Indian slum.

"We had never in India met a man who had been unemployed for 20 years--20 years of meaningless, purposeless existence."

Prison Estates

COUNCILLORS in Dundee have plans to convert a tenement block in the city into "sin bin" homes for "offending families".

The three storey building would have:

Dundee District Council says this open prison would be for "vulnerable" families.

Smelling of roses?

TORY environment minister Sir Paul Beresford is bothered by how dirty London has become and wants ordinary people to make "greater efforts" to clean it up.

"Many of the problems stem from inconsiderate action by local people," says Sir Paul.

Yes it does--and one the most inconsiderate is Sir Paul Beresford, former head of Wandsworth council which pioneered the privatisation of street cleaning and cut one in four jobs.

A recent survey found Wandsworth is now among the dirtiest boroughs in London.

Labour man spills the beans

A NEW book out this week gives an astonishing insight into how Tony Blair's "Modern Labour Party" works.

Guilty by Suspicion--A Life and Labour is by Jimmy Allison, the Labour Party's Scottish organiser from 1977-91.

Allison recalls how, during the Gulf War, party leaders stamped on any discussion of whether Labour should support the war.

He says the then general secretary Larry Whitty told party workers, "Ensure the subject is not discussed at constituency parties and regional conferences."

Allison is no left winger. He supported the expulsion of Militant from the party and the leadership's attacks on the left in local government. But he was shocked by this.

"Here was the general secretary telling officials to gag the grassroots membership," he writes. "It was incredible."

Allison claims he was then reported to senior officials and subsequently pushed into early retirement.

"I had worked on the factory floor for 20 years and been a convenor," writes Allison.

"I had seen ruthless employers but I never thought I would be a victim of such tactics while working for the Labour Party."

This Tuesday a firm called Hilditch--"the country's only specialist medical equipment auctioneers"--were flogging off bits of the NHS to the highest bidder at the Auction Rooms in Malmesbury.

Its advertisements promised the sale, "on behalf of various NHS trusts", would include "ward furniture, baths, patient hoists, medical equipment and much more".

Police chief want more convictions

PAUL CONDON, head of the Metropolitan Police, last week came close to justifying police officers fabricating evidence to get people jailed.

He called it "noble cause corruption" against those the police "are certain are guilty".

Does Condon think the police behaviour that saw innocent people like the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four and the Tottenham Three jailed was "noble"?

Britain's top policeman justified his sick statement by claiming the "guilty" are walking free from court.

The real scandal of Britain's justice system is not the "guilty" walking free, but the number of totally innocent people who end up in prison because the police concoct evidence.

The probation officers' association NAPO says at least 900 people in jail right now are victims of miscarriages of justice.

Condon wants a new Criminal Justice Act to make it easier to send even more people to jail.

He wants a new law to limit a defendant's right to disclosure of the results of police investigation.

This would make it easier for police officers and prosecution lawyers to hide evidence that might prove the person in the dock innocent.

Condon wants to toughen up the recent Criminal Justice Act that removed the right to silence. He claims "smart lawyers" are still getting people who refuse to say anything acquitted.

He also wants the police allowed to carry poisonous CS gas along with their truncheons.

The effect of the changes demanded by Condon would be to give police unlimited licence to bully, harass and intimidate people and to send whoever they want to jail.

It would mean Britain's record jail population soaring still higher. It is already 50,000 and rising by 500 a month.

Four out of five of those now in jail who are "guilty"--that is not on remand--are in for non-violent offences.

They are overwhelmingly young, unemployed and unskilled, including a huge proportion who are homeless, poorly educated or mentally disturbed.

Condon wants to take away what little chance these people have of a "fair trial".

But Condon did say one thing that is true when he admitted, "We're perilously close to dangerous levels of lack of confidence in the criminal justice system."

That is not because the "guilty" are walking free.

It is because of the string of high profile cases of innocent people having been jailed.

And it is because if you have ever been on a demonstration, if you are black, if you are young and working class, or if you have ever been to court you have seen how the police really behave.

Payouts soar

CONDON'S Metropolitan Police had to pay out more than £1,400,000 in compensation to people it wrongly arrested last year.

This total is made up of pay outs to a lot of individual people, since the biggest payment was only around £40,000.

What is more, it represents only those cases where people proved their innocence in court after being charged, and then had the courage to make charges against the police.

Most people do not get off, and most who do understandably want no more to do with the courts.

A sort of conspiracy

A SURVEY by the police themselves in West Yorkshire last year found that officers fabricate witness statements in one out of five cases.

It concluded that two thirds of questions police ask in interviews are "risky" and "likely to produce misleading answers".

Two years ago the chief constable of Thames Valley admitted on TV, "There's a lot of scope to manipulate the system to ensure you get confessions.

"Judges, magistrates, the whole criminal justice system has become a sort of conspiracy."

Noble cause?

CONDON says that "villains escape time and time again from court, and that's when you risk `noble cause corruption'."

His "noble cause" is police fabrication of evidence, the beating of confessions out of people, lying in court to convict--in other words the framing of innocent people.

The Birmingham Six spent 17 years in prison for a crime they did not commit.

Hugh Callaghan, one of the six, tells how he was deprived of sleep, had a gun pointed at him, was repeatedly strip searched, beaten up, and then "at my lowest ebb they seized their opportunity. I agreed to sign a confession".

The police have immense powers. They are protected not only by fellow officers' code of silence, but by the courts and the legal system in general.

Who investigated the West Midlands police force to find out who had framed the Birmingham Six? John Evans, the then chief constable of Devon and Exeter police.

Evans decided that none of the police officers who had interrogated Callaghan and the other five would be charged.

Complaints farce

CONDON SAYS that, even though complaints against the police are rising, less people are successful in winning cases against the police.

But the system is heavily weighted in favour of the police.

They have a bottomless pit of public money to hire the best lawyers.

By contrast, even if the police kill someone in custody the family are not entitled to legal aid at the inquest. They then have to take out a private prosecution--if they can raise the money.

If the police think they are going to lose a case in court they offer what is effectively a no strings bribe to the person who has complained to buy them off.

At no stage do the police admit responsibility or guilt.

Even if a case goes against the police it can be a hollow victory.

Last week the high court awarded a black dancer £36,401 damages against the Met after a five year battle.

Gabriel Thomas was wrongly arrested by the police, badly beaten up and thrown into a cell. The injuries ruined his career.

Thomas won his case last week. But because he had refused an earlier £40,000 offer from the Met the damages he was awarded will be entirely swallowed up in legal costs.

Even the Police Complaints Authority was forced to admit that "the comparatively small number of complaints which have led to effective action does little to counter the commonly held belief that it is not worth going to the trouble of making a formal complaint".

Criminal Act

They want people in jail as scapegoats for the law and order scare they themselves whip up and for the growth in thieving that has come with 16 years of mass unemployment and cuts in benefit.

email: swp@hull.demon.co.uk

Defend the unemployed

THE INTRODUCTION of the Tories' Job Seeker's Allowance (JSA) will be disastrous for both claimants and Employment Service (ES) workers.

It represents the theft of millions of workers' national insurance contributions.

The JSA will also see thousands of jobs lost in job centres.

But union leaders treat the attacks simply in terms of how they affect workers' conditions. They do not defend the unemployed and as a result some claimants turn on staff.

Official figures for assaults against workers in local offices have soared in recent years.

In some places assaults are so common nobody bothers to report them. In 1989 there were 155 physical, or attempted physical, assaults on staff in Employment Service offices.

By 1992 the figure was 548 assaults. In 1993 it reached 716. Then in the third quarter of 1994 alone there were 612 assaults reported.

The violence is now getting so bad that in one office managers are even considering buying blankets for staff to throw over angry claimants.

In other offices they are talking about buying clip on ties so workers don't get throttled when claimants grab their ties.

ES workers do not want to harass claimants. We know we could be on the dole soon ourselves.

When the Tories first started the availability for work tests in 1986 there were staff walkouts in protest.

But we are coming under increasing pressure to meet management's targets. Some attacks directed at us parallel the attacks on claimants.

The JSA proposals include telling claimants how to dress. For example, claimants could be ordered to get a haircut.

Workers are also being told how to dress. unemployed. The union leaders have organised a day of protest against the JSA this Thursday, 16 March.

It is time the CPSA and NUCPS leaders led action against the attacks on the unemployed as a matter of principle.

SOUTH AFRICA

Support Socialists

THE SOUTH African working class is still very much on the move. There are small strikes and protests every few days.

Unfortunately, these actions are still fragmented and isolated.

At the same time the ANC government is starting to move to crack down on strikes.

There is no organisation except the ISSA, Socialist Worker's sister organisation, trying to build solidarity and link up struggles.

The ISSA is still small compared to organisations like the ANC but we have grown fast since the April elections.

At the beginning of this year we changed to a fortnightly paper.

This is where we come to money.

We have to print our Socialist Worker at a commercial printer, at about twice the cost we can sell it.

Very many of our members are unemployed youth. A lot live in squatter camps literally on the poverty line.

So we are left short of money. We have set up a special account in London. Any donations will help us, however small. Please send them to Socialist Worker.

Why agree with the right wing?

WHY DOES Socialist Worker have the same policy as the Nazis and the Tory right on the issue of Europe?

It may surprise you that British workers actually do want the social chapter.

The thinly disguised racism of the anti-European bigots on the Tory right has nothing to offer British workers.

Any true internationalist supports the European Community.

And any true anti-racist supports those of us who are trying to change Clause Four to include a commitment to racial equality.

The best thing about Britain in 1995 is that we are a multi-racial society--surely it is time Labour's constitution recognised that fact.

Unite against the CSA

THE GOVERNMENT did not foresee that men and women would unite to fight the Child Support Act. The Tories intended to divide and rule.

Thus the act and the Child Support Agency encouraged hostility between "absent" parents (mostly fathers) and the custodial parents (mostly mothers).

Encouraging acrimony between separated parents is a tactic to divert anger away from its proper target.

Fathers are being conned into directing their anger at women rather than against the politicians who introduced the scheme.

One example is the maintenance inquiry pack sent to "absent" parents.

As well as the inquiry forms, there is a covering letter which says, "We have recently received an application for child maintenance fromÉ Who says you are the parent ofÉ"

The spaces will contain the names of the mother and the children.

This form of words is deliberately designed to give fathers the impression that the mother has chosen to involve the CSA.

In fact she will have been threatened with a benefit reduction if she fails to sign.

Despite all this men and women are increasingly uniting to fight the Child Support Act. They are not playing the government's game.

Now the five leading anti-CSA campaigning groups have got together to call for abolition of the act.

They are demanding the Child Support Act be repealed and the agency be dismantled. They are demanding that, after the widest consultation, a new fair maintenance system be set up.

The groups are planning a week of action in early April and call upon all Socialist Worker readers to support our protests.

A VICIOUS HOME OFFICE

I AM writing to tell you of the disgusting decision of the Home Office to ignore the recommendation of the Immigration Adjudicator to grant Hemlata Patel the right to stay in this country.

Hemlata came to this country in 1986 to marry a British citizen.

Her marriage broke up a year later and she left her violent husband. The Home Office has been trying to deport her ever since.

Hemlata has had good support, especially from USDAW, the shop workers' union, of which she is a member.

After a long battle last month the adjudicator said that Hemlata should be allowed to stay.

In an act of vindictiveness the Home Office is challenging the decision.

Please rush protests to the Home Office Minister, 50 Queens Anne, Gate London SW1 (quote reference no. P199556).

Back FACE demo

I AM writing to you about FACE--the newly formed national organisation set up to fight education cuts.

The idea came up at a packed meeting against school cuts of about 700 people, mainly parents, in Warwickshire.

As a parent I felt it was necessary to set up a national group of those fighting the cuts so we could coordinate activity.

One idea was the national demonstration planned for 25 March and another was the idea, which came from Oxfordshire, I think, of lighting bonfires the night before.

Now the national leaders of the NUT teachers' union have sent out a circular saying that "national organisations are often used as a front by extreme political fractions" and pointing to a leaflet sent out by the Socialist Workers Party advertising the 25 March demo.

Many parents fighting these cuts have never been involved before. I know that local Socialist Worker Party members have turned up at our protests and meetings to support us.

I am not a member of the SWP, but anyone reading Socialist Worker can see they want to support the campaign and want to do all they can to rally parents.

Union leaders say parents are important but then, instead of backing our march, they called their own lobby of parliament on 21 March.

I'd like to see the NUT, and all the other teaching unions, backing the demo. We have had support from the NUT locally but we should all be joining forces on 25 March.

NAZIS OUT OF FOOTBALL

LIKE MOST socialists I was appalled by the treatment of Chelsea supporters travelling to Bruges, in Belgium, for the recent match.

After the Nazi orchestrated riot in Dublin football supporters have been targeted by the media and police for special attention.

Most workers who attend football are fed up with the mess and misery caused by 15 years of Tory rule and are looking for ways to fight back.

The Nazis hope to capitalise on this.

But work by the Anti Nazi League at Chelsea and other grounds has been effective. It has proved the Nazis can be isolated and driven out.

POSTAL POINTS

ALTHOUGH Shoreham Port Authority has decided not to renew the contract for live animal exports, over 100 people are still facing charges.

The Shoreham Defence Campaign has been set up to provide support for all those arrested.

We are currently trying to raise money to help with people's legal costs, to video demonstrations and to publicise demos outside the courts. (Please write all cheques to Shoreham Defence Campaign, Prior House, 6 Tilbury Place, Brighton, BN2 2GY.)

BRIGITTE Bardot was at Jill Phipps's funeral because she is now an international animal rights campaigner and has every right to be there.

There is no sinister right wing plot behind her attendance.

She should not be judged by who she was once married to because if she was a male celebrity this would not even be mentioned.

SOUTH AFRICA

Winnie Mandela row reveals discontent

by CHARLIE KIMBER

WINNIE MANDELA was expected to be sacked as a deputy minister in the South African government this week.

She was set to be fired after allegations of corruption, of refusing to obey government orders and of making a speech angrily denouncing a police raid on her home.

Some of the criticism she faces is pure hypocrisy. The National Party politicians who are attacking Winnie Mandela are the same ones who spent 40 years defending and profiting from a system of murderous racism.

Some of her critics in the African National Congress should be careful about their own records too. Some now enjoy lavish salaries and lifestyles utterly divorced from the people who voted for them.

Nevertheless strong evidence has been presented that Winnie Mandela and several of her supporters have used money donated to the anti-apartheid movement for their own projects or personal gain.

Yet for all the allegations of corruption Winnie Mandela remains very popular among a sizeable section of people disillusioned with the slow pace of change since last April's elections.

When she said last week, "This is not the South Africa I ruined my life for," she was putting into words what many feel.

The rows about Winnie Mandela have revealed both the boiling discontent among millions of black South Africans and the failure of the Communist Party and the left in the trade unions to give it a focus.

More than seven million black people live in squatter camps with just a few pieces of cardboard or corrugated iron to make their home and under constant threat of eviction by the police or landowners.

Over half the black population have no proper job. The traditional left wing parties tell them to be patient while the unions do not offer a consistent fightback against redundancies.

So Winnie Mandela's rhetoric can seem very attractive. The pace of political killing is rising again--over 100 slaughtered in the Natal area alone last month. When Winnie Mandela calls for armed resistance to Chief Buthelezi's Inkatha rather than relying on the police, she strikes a chord.

The African National Congress government elected almost a year ago has tried to work in partnership with private industry and the multinationals.

But such forces are interested only in making money.

There is a vast gap between the rightful expectations of the black people who threw off apartheid and the reforms delivered by the government.

But in truth Winnie Mandela offers no real alternative.

Her criticisms of the government are never coupled with a genuine way forward.

This week's events have thrown into stark relief both the need for a real alternative to the ANC and the possibility of building it, however hard it may be.

MEXICO

Miracle disappears

CARLOS SALINAS, until last year president of Mexico, fled into exile in the United States last week.

It was the latest twist in a political crisis that has brought the world's longest surviving regime to the brink of collapse.

Salinas's brother Raul is in jail charged with masterminding the murder last year of the general secretary of the ruling PRI party to which both the Salinas brothers belonged.

Another leading PRI figure, the man picked by Salinas to be his successor, was also assassinated last year--the victim of a high level plot within the PRI.

For 66 years the PRI--Institutional Revolutionary Party--has run Mexico as a one party regime.

Some legal opposition was tolerated but the PRI monopolised control of the state and industry.

Under PRI control Mexico was held up as a model of stability in a Latin America plagued with civil wars and military dictatorships.

In the late 1980s under Carlos Salinas the country was praised by the US and the IMF for embracing the free market. Last year this led to Salinas signing a free trade agreement with the US and Canada.

Today the Mexican 1980s "economic miracle" is in collapse. This is what has led to the PRI feuding.

This "miracle" was based on shaky speculative foreign investments. When these started flooding out of the country before Christmas the currency, the peso, collapsed.

The new president, the PRI's Ernesto Zedillo, was only able to stave off a complete financial collapse which would have threatened the world's financial system through a $53 billion rescue deal with the US and the IMF.

To pay for it Zedillo has unveiled a savage austerity programme.

Some half a million jobs are predicted to go in the next two months alone. Prices are set to soar while wages are cut.

The Mexican stock market jumped upwards as the plan was announced.

But there is anger from below. In the last month three huge demonstrations of over 100,000 each have filled Mexico City.

Union leaders, for decades tied to the PRI, have been forced to reject wage cuts and call for a rise in the minimum wage.

And in the southern state of Chiapas the government's recent attempt to use military force to end the year old rebellion by the Zapatista peasant guerillas has become bogged down in the jungle.

As the infighting at the top deepens and the austerity measures stir up protest, Zedillo's plans may yet blow up in his face.

INDIA

India's Nazis election win

THE RIGHT wing Hindu chauvinist BJP and the fascist Shiv Sena won control of two key Indian states this week.

The BJP won a landslide victory in the north west state of Gujerat.

The final results for Maharashtra were not known but the BJP and Shiv Sena together are likely to form the largest single party, without an overall majority.

These are the two most industrialised states in India. Bombay, India's commercial capital, is in Maharashtra.

The BJP and Shiv Sena won by exploiting the anger against the Congress government's market reforms that are hitting the poor.

Congress has cut state subsidies, government jobs and state control over private business.

Inflation is now running at 11.5 percent and the price of foodstuffs has shot up by 46 percent since 1991.

But Shiv Sena and the BJP have no solutions for the poor they claim to represent.

The BJP is riddled to the core with members of the Nazi Shiv Sena who dominate the party in Gujerat.

They scapegoat Muslims--10 percent of India's population--for poverty, claiming they are "outbreeding" Hindus.

It was the BJP that organised the march on the Muslim mosque at Ayodhya in 1992 that sparked communal rioting and left hundreds dead.

But there are problems ahead for the BJP.

It campaigned in the election on a programme of opposition to "globalisation", claiming it would stop the entry of multinationals into the Indian economy.

But at the same time a BJP spokesman says the party is "committed to liberalisation as well as providing help to Indian industrialists".

They have exploited the anger of the poor but are pledged to support the very businessmen who want the reforms speeded up.

KOREA

OPPOSITION BANNED

THREE hundred riot police were deployed to end a protest by ten South Korean opposition politicians on Sunday, after the government banned political parties from standing in local elections.

The politicians had occupied the home of the parliamentary speaker.

The ruling DLP party fears an opposition victory in the elections in June.

Both the ban and the raid make a mockery of President Kim Young Sam's claims to have abolished authoritarian rule.

Kim was greeted by protesters demanding the release of political prisoners in South Korea when he visited London last week.

Socialist Choi Il-bung, facing charges under the National Security Law, was due back in court on Wednesday.

More details: Committee to Defend South Korean Socialists, c/o 265 Seven Sisters Road, London N4 2DE.

science report

by JOHN PARRINGTON

"THE ISSUE of ownership is at the heart of everything we do."

That is what Sir Walter Bodmer, director of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, recently told the Wall Street Journal, a US bosses' newspaper.

This statement will shock many people. After all, we are usually told science, and in particular something like cancer research, is about the pursuit and free distribution of knowledge for the good of all.

Reality is rather different, and Sir Walter Bodmer is simply being more honest than most in admitting the truth.

If "ownership" is key, is your body worth any money?

It might be, given current trends in genetic engineering.

Genes are strings of molecules contained in every living cell and play a key role in basic biological processes.

Your genes might be valuable to the biotechnology industry if you suffer from a rare disease or if you are immune to certain diseases--but do not expect an acknowledgement, let alone financial reward, as John Moore found out.

John suffered from a type of cancer called hairy cell leukaemia but made an amazing recovery.

It turns out John's blood cells carry a unique genetic resistance to cancer, so unique that the doctors who treated him decided to take out a patent on them.

They did not, however, inform John, who spent many years contesting the patent before finally being told he had no claim over any genetic material that had already been removed from his body.

Many scientists are banging in patent applications because, to put it bluntly, there is a fortune to be made out of something that ought to belong to us all.

There is a growing trend for leading biologists to become entrepreneurs. Many have founded biotechnology firms funded by banks and big business.

This is where the argument over patent law comes in.

At presen, the law prohibits the patenting of anything that is "natural". So, for example, there could be no patent granted if a rare plant was discovered whose leaves could cure cancer.

To get round this, those who want to patent human genes argue that isolated genes are not natural even though the source from which they are taken may be.

That is why the ruling against John Moore is so important. It is now possible to patent genes whose function is not yet known.

Against this background it was good that the European Parliament this month rejected calls for the patenting of human genes and genetically altered living organisms.

This happened largely because of lobbying by a variety of groups, with Greens and animal rights supporters the most prominent.

Socialists agree with many of the arguments put forward by such groups against the commercialisation of biotechnology, but we should be aware that they can conceal a more fundamental opposition to science as a whole.

Linda Bullard, adviser on genetics to the Greens in the European Parliament, has said she wants biotechnology products to stay within the laboratories for at least another 50 years.

This is a profoundly mistaken view. If applied properly, genetic engineering could revolutionise medicine and food production.

The real problem is that the profit motive at the heart of capitalism is distorting and restricting scientific research and the application of new products.

An example was seen with the recent discovery of a gene for certain types of breast cancer.

This may allow earlier detection of cancer in women who carry the gene. But progress has been marred by a bitter six month battle between two research groups over who should be allowed to patent the gene.

The money wasted on legal costs could be better spent extending the breast cancer screening programme.

I don't expect the present government to do any such thing, but wouldn't it be nice to live in a society where women's lives are more important than the salaries of fat cat lawyers?

Are the right on the rampage?

PRESS AND TV coverage of the United States paints a picture of a massive right wing offensive since the Republicans won control of both houses of the US parliament in last autumn's elections.

Headlines have focused on huge welfare cuts, the return of the death penalty in New York, a man jailed for life for stealing a pizza, racist bans on Mexican immigrants getting health care in California.

But the media ignore the real and growing resistance to the Republican onslaught.

SAM ASHMAN looks at what is really happening in the US.

MILLIONS OF US workers are bitter and angry as "the American Dream" becomes a nightmare.

US workers have seen their living standards decimated while the rich have prospered. Average wages in the US are now lower than 20 years ago.

For the first time ever people are worse off than their parents and grandparents. Millions of people feel angry and betrayed.

The Republicans' aim is to create a climate of scapegoating--turning people's anger at the state of their lives against the poor and the victims of the system.

They claim they can solve the economic problems by balancing the government budget through slashing welfare.

In fact cutting welfare could never balance the budget--welfare payments only make up 1 percent of it.

That does not stop the Republicans pushing a barrage of vicious attacks on the poor, with huge welfare cuts hitting some of the poorest in society.

Last week, for example, they cut money for disabled children in low income families.

They deliberately attempt to exploit people's anger about lack of jobs, housing and health care and turn it onto scapegoats.

So the Republicans claim welfare for single mothers drains money from hard working taxpayers.

They talk of black "welfare queens", when in reality most of the poor and those on welfare in the US are white.

They attack the "affirmative action" schemes that reserve jobs for women and ethnic minorities.

They call for ever harder punishments to "tackle crime", encouraging people to believe that blacks and Latinos are to blame for it.

And right wing academics have sought to back up all these attacks by reviving old racist nonsense about race and intelligence and pushing new racist nonsense about genes, race and crime.

The papers say that the Republicans' sweeping victory in last November's elections shows they have a mandate for their attacks.

Some point to how 62 percent of white males voted Republican, describing this as the growing male "whitelash" against positive discrimination schemes for women, Latinos and blacks.

In fact the figures are only of those who actually voted. Some 60 percent of eligible voters stayed at home--a vote of no-confidence in the two main political parties, Republicans and Democrats, that both back business and the rich.

Only 17 percent of those eligible

to vote voted for the Republicans last November.

The Republicans have had some success in setting the political agenda, so that most people agree "welfare" is a problem.

But when asked about specific welfare cuts most people opposed them. So a Newsweek poll, for example, found 78 percent said they would be "upset if many poor mothers have to give up their welfare benefits and have to send their children to orphanages."

And some 73 percent said they would be "upset if new limits on welfare cut off benefits to poor families even when no work is available."

A revival of resitance

THE REPUBLICANS have no real solutions to the state of people's lives.

They use stereotypes to justify their cuts and attacks, but the attacks hit the very people they hope to fool with these stereotypes.

Single parents and blacks in the US are poor and will suffer from the welfare cuts. But the majority of the poor are white and will be equally badly hit.

And the cuts hit not just the unemployed, single parents and blacks, but employed workers, whether black, Latino or white.

So the Republican attacks are running into growing resistance. Some 40,000 people marched through New York two weeks ago in protest at hospital cuts that will decimate the city.

Students in New York's universities have organised pickets, rallies and teach ins against education cuts and a massive rise in tuition fees.

After a recent 8,000 strong march hundreds stormed a state building.

In Washington 500 people recently stopped a speech to be given by the speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich.

They broke into the luxury Washington Hilton, where Gingrich was to address 2,000 local government officials, and occupied the head table.

They carried empty lunch trays in opposition to the Republicans' plans to repeal the law that gives free school meals to poor children.

All Gingrich could do was bluster, "Why aren't they at work?" and, "Who paid them?"

In Virginia thousands protested against cuts in education and in aid to the poor and the mentally handicapped. They forced the state's House of Delegates to reject the budget.

And in California there have been big marches against Proposition 187--the racist measure designed to stop illegal immigrants getting schooling and health care.

Most important of all, workers' confidence is slowly reviving after years of bitter defeats.

Workers at General Motors in Flint, Michigan, have won two disputes in the last six months with strike action.

The 40,000 strong New York demo against cuts was sponsored by the city's two largest unions.

Many hospital workers demanded a half day off work to attend the rally. The union is now to print two million copies of its own newspaper because the media blacked out coverage of the march.

A socialist in New York says, "For the first time in decades unions are leading resistance."

That and the kind of power seen in strikes like those at General Motors can build unity in action--between women and men and black and white--and throw back the scapegoating and divisions the politicians are sowing.

What is happening in the US today is the breakdown of the old belief and consensus summed up by the notion of "the American Dream".

Out of that breakdown comes an enormous volatility in which people's bitterness at what is happening to their lives can see their mood swing in first one direction then another.

Two years ago in the presidential elections this was expressed in support for Bill Clinton and the maverick candidate Ross Perot.

Last November disillusionment with Clinton saw the Republicans and right wing figures like Newt Gringrich come to the fore.

But as more and more people become disillusioned with them and if struggles grow, the mood could just as easily swing to the left in the months and years ahead.

Sex and the church

THE Christian churches and especially the Catholic Church have always claimed the moral high ground in matters of sex.

For centuries they attempted, often successfully, to impose their moral code on everyone in society by force of law. In some parts of the world they still do.

But, even where they have reluctantly conceded that legal imposition is no longer possible, they still behave as though their sexual morality was inherently superior to that of the rest of us.

There are of course many versions of Christian sexual morality which vary from society to society, time to time and church to church.

Nevertheless, certain basic themes have predominated--again especially in Catholicism.

These are:

• That sex, in and for itself, is sinful.
• That sex is justifiable only as an activity necessary for producing children.
• That sex is only moral within lifelong marriage to one person.
• That gay sex is an "abomination".
• That celibacy is the most moral option of all.

In an effort to move with the times the church authorities have increasingly stressed their tolerance and sympathy for those who through human failings are unable to maintain these standards.

Yet even the language of tolerance and sympathy still embodies the claim of moral superiority. Certain recent events, however, have exposed the falsity of this claim.

First, there has been the exposure of a positive epidemic of child sex abuse by priests in Ireland, the US and elsewhere.

My point here is not that some, or many, priests were revealed as hypocrites--that would not be news.

Rather it is that the scale of the scandal and the nature of the Catholic hierarchy's involvement in it raise much more fundamental questions about the church's sexual code.

On the one hand, the Catholic authorities were shown to have been systematically covering up and colluding in the abuse for decades, perhaps centuries.

They not only kept allegations of abuse secret and protected abusing priests from prosecution, they also allowed known abusers to continue as priests and abusers by moving them to new parishes and suppressing the information.

On the other hand, the sheer number of cases suggests either that the priesthood is a profession which specifically attracts abusers or that the role of priest encourages abusive tendencies to emerge and gives them the opportunity to be acted on.

Secondly, there has been the issue of gay priests in the Church of England, highlighted last week by the coming out of the retired bishop Derek Rawcliffe. The bishop's statement was a step forward for gay rights and to be welcomed.

But it also revealed the hypocrisy and contradictions in which the church is mired on this issue.

The bishop explained that, although he knew he was gay, he married and tried to "reform", that he kept silent for more than 40 years and that while in office he instructed gay priests in his diocese to suppress their sexuality.

The Anglican Church's response has also reaffirmed that hypocrisy is the church's official position.

It has again stressed its "understanding and sympathy" but has insisted that priests must maintain "higher" standards than everyone else and that therefore gay priests must abstain from genital sex.

The real problem, however, is not that many priests, along with most ordinary people, are not able to live up to the high standards of the church but that those standards, far from being high, are completely wrong.

They are wrong because they are based on the denial and suppression of the biological and social fact that sex is a basic human need.

Moreover, their roots lie not in spirituality but in the ruling class's attempt to suppress and control sexuality and enforce the monogamous family unit so economically beneficial to capitalism.

A genuinely superior sexual morality recognises human sexual needs and aims to make sexual relations, both heterosexual and homosexual, as human, satisfying and free as possible.

The prime condition for this is that they should be voluntary and equal and unconstrained by law, economic pressures, social stigma or religious bigotry.

Making this alternative morality a real possibility for the mass of people involves freeing society from its domination by inequality, class and profit.

Nevertheless, even in present day society the majority of ordinary working people are ahead of the churches in their sexual morality.

It is the churches who are being dragged kicking and screaming towards a more human attitude to sex.

But, as it stands, Christian sexual morality is nothing but a recipe for misery, repression, hypocrisy, lies and even collusion in what is a real and horrible crime--the rape and molestation of children.

A HANDBOOK FOR STRUGGLE

by PHOEBE WATKINS, UNISON council union shop steward It should be in the hands of every trade union activist.

Alex quotes a recent survey of 100 top companies by solicitors working in employment law which found "considerably more industrial tension bubbling under the surface than the simple `days lost' government statistics indicate".

It predicted a possible "return to seventies-style industrial relations" when strikes and unofficial walkouts were everyday events.

We saw flashes of the potential to fight back in last year's strikes by signal workers and the recent unofficial action in the Post Office.

But the question is, how can we make a difference, how can we help make the unions fight?

The book starts by showing that the trade union movement is still alive and kicking.

Over a third of workers are still in unions--and they are not there for credit cards or travel offers.

A 1990 study of white collar trade unionists found only 9 percent joined because of services and benefits compared to 72 percent who looked for "support if I had a problem at work".

My own experience tells me it is action that builds organisation.

When a union argues over every issue management tries to sneak through at work, it shows you mean business and encourages more people to join.

People become alienated from unions when they fail to involve members in making decisions and in turning those decisions into reality.

If you assume that as an elected representative you "know best" for everyone, it gives management the upper hand.

One of the best negotiating meetings I went to as a steward was over a regrading claim.

Management was faced with the prospect of negotiating with a third of the shop who would not give an inch--and we won!

You cannot avoid the basic truth that Alex points out:

"Workers have only one strength--their collective ability to withdraw their labour.

"The great attraction of trade union power and the reason why millions of workers join unions is that they provide the organisation that can make this power effective."

But there is often a big gap between that ideal and the reality.

Even inside unions we are still divided by trades--council workers from Post Office workers, seafarers from nurses.

While the unions seek to improve conditions, they do it within the framework of the existing system.

"They combat the effects of capitalist exploitation rather than striving to do away with the exploitation itself."

Once unions become established they produce a layer of full time officials, a bureaucracy, who consistently hold back struggle or refuse to carry it through.

These officials are at worst open collaborators with the bosses and even the best get cut off from rank and file members.

Some of the salary figures for union leaders will shock you. Alan Johnson of the CWU communications union pockets £72,570--hardly the typical rate for his Post Office or British Telecom members.

My own union, UNISON, has three general secretaries--all on salaries way beyond the reach of the average member.

Such officials normally see struggles as a disruption. Removed from the day to day discipline of the shopfloor or office, they do not share the pressures and stresses that exist for workers.

In addition to their plush lifestyles, the union leaders' attitude stems from their social role--arranging compromises. They always back off when it comes to the crunch.

Alex gives the example of 1919 when British prime minister Lloyd George, facing mass strikes in key sectors of industry, told union leaders they were in a position to overthrow the state.

Instead of pushing Lloyd George aside, the union leaders reacted by saying, "We were beaten and we knew we were."

Some people argue we could change things by electing left wingers to replace the present union heads.

In one of its best sections the book shows that it is rank and file strength that really matters, not the views of people at the top of the unions.

When the rank and file is strong, union leaders come under pressure to reflect anger and militancy regardless of their own opinions.

Don't forget that the miners won their most brilliant victories in all out national strikes in 1972 and 1974 when their union president was right winger Joe Gormley.

In the year long strike of 1984-5, Arthur Scargill--who had much better politics--was in charge. But the miners lost.

So our task is to pull together people at the base of the unions.

The book covers the history of rank and file movements from the beginning of the century.

It ranges from the "Great Unrest" just before the First World War, when aggressive and unofficial militancy led to a doubling of union membership, through to more recent experiences.

Shop stewards' organisation arose out of the bosses' attempts to deskill jobs during the 1914-18 war. When workers fought back they combined into workers' committee movements.

Led in the main by revolutionary socialists, these pioneered the idea of independent rank and file movements.

They were part of the union, but ready to act on their own initiative when the union leaders failed to push things forward.

The book is full of inspiration as well as analysis.

My favourite example is from the 1972 miners' strike, the Battle of Saltley Gates--where the Tories ordered the police to keep the coke depot open at all costs.

Engineering workers across Birmingham walked out to join the picket line and the police had to retreat for fear of wider action.

As Arthur Scargill said, "The miners didn't close Saltley, the working class closed Saltley."

The story of that struggle should be prescribed for anyone feeling a bit demoralised at the moment.

The lessons of the past and analysis of how socialists should operate inside the unions are vital for us.

I started work for the council in 1979. The Tory attacks really hit home in the mid-1980s. Because we had good shop steward organisation we were able to call solidarity action over loads of issues.

In 1984 we had at least eight strikes in support of other workers!

But the battles over government restrictions on council spending left us weaker after we were sold out by the unwillingness of trade union, Labour and council leaders to take on the Tories and the law.

Today there is a lot of discontent over issues like pay, but the union leaders almost never call action.

Yet despite them dragging their feet, every little dispute gives us more confidence that we can make demands and sometimes win.

Only last week two stewards walked out of a meeting called by management because they were treated like shit.

We organised shop meetings to build support for the stewards and within a day we had a full apology and an agreement to start negotiations.

Everyone called it a "double whammy" for managment. It is things like that which help to hold organisation together and show what is possible.

Alex's book is a handbook for struggle. It deserves to be read and used by everyone.

BE READY FOR AN EXPOLSION

SOCIALISTS IN the Trade Unions by Alex Callinicos is published this week.

It appears as more workers look towards organising at work in response to attacks on pay and conditions, job losses and constant pressure from the bosses.

The book argues the decline in union membership has been exaggerated and that where membership has declined it is largely because union leaders have failed to seize opportunities to win new members.

It goes on to look at the strengths and weaknesses of unions and why union leaders always seem to hold back the fight.

It analyses the history of how ordinary union members have organised to combat both the bosses and the refusal of their own union leaders to spearhead resistance.

Alex sets out the lessons of trade union struggles from the beginning of the century right up to the battles against Thatcher and Major.

He ends by defining the tasks today and the need for socialist politics as well as militancy.

Socialists in the Trade Unions is packed with information--from the figures for strikes throughout the century to a list of addresses of trade unions, campaign groups and political parties.

"Experience teaches us that, sooner or later, the resentments that have accumulated during the long years of defeat will burst out in an explosion of struggles," says Alex.

This book will help us to bring that day closer and to be ready when it happens.

A message to Rosa

IT IS a sad fact of life that dead revolutionaries have their image used
for all sorts of causes they would have despised when they were alive.

So it was that statues of Lenin were erected by despotic Stalinists, "Che Guevara" became a chain of high street clothes shops and The Clash were used on an advert for jeans.

On top of this there are all the crackpots who claim that if Marx was alive today he would undoubtedly be a supporter of their organisation with its tatty two page newsletter and four members in Hull.

But take a browse through last week's Big Issue and you'll discover a new champion.

To celebrate International Women's Day a number of women were asked to name their heroine and what message they'd like to send them.

Glenys Kinnock said this: "I would send my message to Rosa Luxemburg, a German Social Democrat, an internationalist and a pacifist in World War One.

"In the European Union we deliberate together, we legislate and we share our common experiences.

"I belong to the Socialist group and I hope she would feel our perspectives are right and that we represent what she had hoped for at the beginning of the century."

Well, that would be a fascinating meeting to watch if it could ever come about. But would Rosa be as keen to meet Glenys as Glenys is to meet Rosa?

Here are some clues. Firstly, Rosa Luxemburg wrote a pamphlet called Reform or Revolution. In it she explained her uncompromising commitment to revolution not just as a long term goal, but also as the most effective strategy even for achieving reforms.

eNowhere--and I did check--is there a footnote that says, "However, in some circumstances working class conditions are best advanced by paying £100,000 a year to failed politicians for sitting around in Brussels debating the ideal standard for a gherkin."

Secondly, Luxemburg was an active opponent of World War One, left isolated by the rest of the German labour leaders even when her stance landed her in prison.

During the Gulf War, however, her admirers amongst the European group of Socialist MPs took a slightly amended position of complete and utter tub thumping, arse licking and patriotic screaming for maximum damage to any country that had the audacity to upset the West.

Thirdly, Luxemburg and her colleague Karl Liebknecht were murdered during the German Revolution in a rampage organised by the SPD, the German Labour Party whose members Glenys loves to deliberate, legislate and share her common experiences with.

Rosa would probably want to clear up that misunderstanding before going on to discuss proposals for taller lampposts in Lisbon.

So why do so many politicians who attack anyone with a spirit of rebellion today, try to align themselves with the fiery rebels from history?

After all, it never happens the other way around.

In 50 years time no one will write, "As a dedicated revolutionary the historical figure I most admire is Gordon Brown. His marvellous work "An outline for an investment and training programme to take Britain into the 21st century" remains a model for anyone wishing to smash the state and establish a workers' republic."

Rosa Luxemburg is clearly remembered because she was a fighter.

Maybe she's remembered in bizarre and distorted ways but, she's only remembered at all because she was principled and heroic.

Very few people now would know the names of Karl Kautsky or Phillip Scheidemann, the German labour leaders of her day. Fighters may be a minority but they're remembered and respected.

Toadies are invited to dinner but soon forgotten.

And it may be that every morning when Glenys wakes up, she looks across at her husband and thinks, "In 80 years time there is no chance whatsoever that absolutely anybody will remember you."

Aiming to belittle sexual harrasment

by MOIRA NOLAN

THE EQUAL Opportunities Commission received 800 queries about sexual harassment at work last year. Only three complaints were from men.

So why is Hollywood's new blockbuster Disclosure about male sexual harassment?

The fact that the film stars Michael Douglas should give us a clue. Douglas has rebuilt his film career as the champion of bigoted middle America.

He has been at the forefront of the backlash against women's liberation in the movies.

His films like Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct--and now Disclosure--are full of powerhungry, sex crazed career women who wreck their co-stars' career and marriage.

Their message is that women's desire for equality upsets the natural order of things.

In Disclosure Demi Moore steals the promotion Douglas wanted and, not satisfied with this, she then proceeds to try and seduce him.

When he rejects her advances (after a quick bout of oral sex!), she retaliates by accusing him of sexual harassment.

Threatened with the sack, up against his corporate bosses and the suspicions of his wife, Douglas is forced to sue for sexual harassment in order to clear his name and protect his rather yucky all American family.

The film's right wing message is couched in liberal language and style--Douglas is the little man up against the powerful and mighty. It is his lawyer who uses the idea that, "No means no", to argue for his case.

But there is no getting away from the film's central aim--to belittle the harassment many women suffer in the workplace, mainly at the hands of their supervisors and bosses.

The actual scene where Moore "harasses" Douglas is more reminiscent of a teenage boy's sexual fantasy than harassment, and Moore's description of the incident is there to remind us just how effectively women can make up stories about harassment.

But the picture it portrays of women at work could not be further from the truth.

Despite the massive changes in women's lives over the last 20 years, discrimination in the workplace still shapes women's experience at work.

Women are nearly half the workforce in both Britain and the US, yet they make up less than 10 percent of managers and still earn only two thirds of men's pay.

Put alongside these facts the hype surrounding Disclosure looks ridiculous and I'm not sure it will fool anyone.

THE SPRING Bookmarks list is out now.

It offers good socialist books at special discount prices.

The Consolidation of the Capitalist State (£5.50 plus postage) by socialist historian John Saville is an excellent way of finding out more about the class struggle in the last century.

The old order of the land owning aristocracy was overtaken by the power of the modern capitalist class.

Patronage and corruption dominated parliament. In the early 19th century Cornwall had 21 "rotten borough" seats, while the centres of industry, like Manchester and Birmingham, had no representation.

Working people didn't have the vote at all.

Saville sketches the way in which the new capitalist class organised itself to reform the system so it had the dominant say in how the economy and the affairs of state were run.

The new rulers hated the corruption of the aristocracy, but they hated the working class even more.

They feared the strength of the first mass workers' movement-- Chartism--which was gathering huge support.

Read this book--it will tell you how today's ruling class got its power and how workers fought back from the start.

Other books on offer from Bookmarks include two accounts of workers' struggles from the US, The Big Strike (£6.50) and The Communist Party and the Auto Workers' Union (£7), the book from the TV series Forbidden Britain (£10), a collection of short stories by socialist writer Edward Upward, An Unmentionable Man (£5), and a new book about the politics of writing history by Alex Callinicos (£10).

All books available (plus postage) from Bookmarks, 265 Seven Sisters Road, Finsbury Park, London N4 2DE. Phone 0181 802 6145.

Life's no game on the streets

by JUDITH LYONS

BAND OF Gold is a new television series which describes the lives of four female prostitutes working the streets of Bradford.

It shows the reality of life as a prostitute and how no woman "chooses" to be a prostitute.

Money worries lead Gina, who has kicked out her violent partner, into prostitution. Her daughter needs new shoes and Mr Moore, the hungry loan shark, must be kept sweet.

Tracy is a 15 year old runaway and trapped in a violent relationship with her pimp. Rose is in her forties, hardened by life on the streets but fearing for her future.

Women working the streets face violence from all sides--harassment from the police, violent punters, aggressive pimps and other prostitutes guarding their patch.

As long as human sexual relations are distorted under capitalism there will be a demand for prostitutes.

But if some basic measures were taken--such as improving childcare provision and offering women better job prospects--it could stop so many women being forced into prostitution.

At the very least those who wish to see prostitution legalised and the licensing of brothels should have their arguments born out by this series.

Band of Gold is on Sundays, 9pm, on ITV.

Bullying, lies, Blair and Clause Four

CHARLIE KIMBER reports from Inverness

LABOUR LEADER Tony Blair persuaded the party's Scottish conference last weekend to ditch Clause Four of the constitution which commits Labour to public ownership.

He did it with a mixture of bullying, lies and playing on fear.

He repeatedly said that Labour must "mean what we say and say what we mean". But Blair does neither.

His speech to conference called for Labour "to run the economy in the interests of all and not a small elite and to put power where it really belongs--in the hands of people".

This is completely meaningless when industry and services remain owned by private firms interested only in profit.

And that can lead to the next Labour government choosing to attack the living standards of its own supporters rather than lead an assault on wealth and privilege.

Blair's victory--by 56 percent of the conference vote to 44 percent--was based on the trade unions, the very organisations he has insisted must have less influence in the party.

Crucially he won backing from the Scottish leaders of UNISON, the public sector union whose who existence is based on services held in common ownership, and even from the Scottish leaders of the NUM miners' union.

They should know better than anybody what Blair's "dynamic market economy" really means.

In Labour's constituency parties, which people join as individuals, Blair won by only 2 percent.

Left wing delegates were dismayed and angered by the result. Roddy Robertson, a FBU firefighters' union delegate, told Socialist Worker, "Blair is trying to redefine socialism and you just can't do that. He is driving a wedge into the party."

Another trade union delegate was blunter. "Votes have been bought," she said. "People from the smaller unions have been told they can forget about getting positions in the party unless they toe the leadership line.

"Votes were switched away from Clause Four supporters for the executive elections."

Scotland on Sunday spoke of "the irony that this great modernising victory for `new Labour' was aided by old fashioned, old Labour Party fixing of the union vote, with threats, inducements, deals in smoke-filled rooms and ultimately the much ridiculed block vote."

But for all the heavy handed tactics, Blair did win a crucial political argument with the majority of the delegates.

As Gordon Archer, chair of Glasgow Pollok Labour Party, told Socialist Worker, "People are desperate to get rid of the Tories. They have accepted, however grudgingly, that we have to back Blair to do that.

"That does not mean they support everything he does. My local party nominated Blair for leader because they thought he would be electorally popular. But now people feel betrayed because he has dropped Clause Four which he never mentioned when he stood."

Blair homed in hard on the central belief of every Labour Party member that winning elections is vital and the fear that left wing policies lose votes.

Delegate spell out the issues

THE DEBATE on Clause Four saw sharp arguments.

Speaking to ditch the clause, GEORGE McGREGOR of UNISON said, "Public ownership is vital but we can't stick our head in the sand. We need a position that is not based on sentimentality."

IAIN GRAY from Lothians Euro Constituency Labour Party said, "This is not the time for poetry. We need concrete prose."

But BILL BUTLER from Glasgow Maryhill replied, "Clause Four is not a sentimental attachment, it is fundamental to practical socialism, accountability and democracy. The gas industry shows that regulation is not enough.

"Some people say ownership is not important. The Tories do not think so.

"They have privatised and privatised to save the system they love.

"Let's look at taking back what they have stolen from us."

FIONA FARMER, a delegate from the MSF union, was cheered when she argued, "The country needs a party based on socialist principles. Clause Four is the link between our values and our politics. It has been the cornerstone of all our advances.

"Without common ownership Labour cannot deliver full employment and social justice.

"Ditching Clause Four is one further step towards severing the link with the unions."

GEORGE GALLOWAY MP said, "However nice the butcher, and he is nice, nobody buys a pig in a poke. We're being asked to sell the banner that has been flown with great success.

"Clause Four is a glimpse of the possible, of what could be if we did not have the rat race of capitalism. We are told it is bad to be afraid of changing the party, but it is worse to be a party which is afraid to change society."

MARY McCORMACK from the Western Isles claimed that Labour had lost elections because it was "weighed down by the baggage of yesteryear."

ALEC FALCONER MEP replied that the "modernisers" wanted to "take us back to 1893 when a miners' leader had to stand as a Liberal to get into parliament. Clause Four is what divides us from the Liberals, the Tories and the SNP."

MARY PICKEN of Glasgow District Labour Party said Labour "should not be in the business of making the market economy even more powerful. We should be saying the free market does not work in the interests of working people.

"We shouldn't be trying to run the Tory economy better than the Tories."

KAREN BUTLER, a member of the party's youth section, said, "Clause Four means nothing to young people," and DEREK HODGSON of the CWU union added, "The only people who use Clause Four effectively are the Conservative Party."

DEREK CANAVAN MP replied, "Is it any wonder that party members suspect there is a hidden agenda? Today public ownership of the Post Office and railways is defended by shadow cabinet ministers. They used to say the same about gas, electricity and British Telecom, but no longer.

"The Labour Party's support for public ownership is only for the status quo. We should not just defend the bits the Tories have left but should be extending common ownership."

KEY VOTES SHOW PARTY'S FEARS

IN DEBATES after the Clause Four discussion delegates backed a series of much more radical polices.

By a large majority they called for privatised utilities to be brought back into public ownership.

The conference voted for "the next Labour government to introduce a legally binding minimum wage initially at half male median earnings and uprated over time".

Blair has made plain he does not want to put a figure on a minimum wage, and certainly not this figure, in case it scares off business supporters.

Delegates repeatedly defied their own leaders to push through left wing motions.

The Scottish executive opposed a motion calling for Labour to "phase out prescription charges, [charges for] eye tests and dental fees, to consider a windfall tax on drug company profits, to end Compulsory Competitive Tendering. The NHS must directly employ all staff working at its establishments."

Scottish Labour leaders regarded the language as "too extreme" and such policies "impossible to implement".

But the conference carried the motion clearly despite them.

On education, Sam Taylor, a delegate from the National Union of Labour and Socialist Clubs (which backed Blair over Clause Four), won warm applause when he spoke of the "absolute disgrace that the Labour Party is even considering extending student loans. We're demanding the same opportunity that you got Tony [Blair], that you got Gordon [Brown]--free education."

The executive was also defeated over two transport motions which called for the renationalisation of all rail services, a halt to all new road building schemes (such as the M77), and massive improvements in safety on roll on roll off ferries.

Delegates refused to accept that such ideas were "impractical".

With support from the Scottish executive, conference voted overwhelmingly for the "immediate scrapping of Trident nuclear weapons", reaffirming a position first passed 15 years ago.

But just days earlier Labour's shadow defence spokesperson David Clark made it clear he would ignore anti-Trident resolutions.

"Labour will retain Trident until there is a worldwide agreement on the elimination of all nuclear weapons," he said.

Labour's leaders may dismiss support for left wing motions as "an emotional spasm". In truth it shows how much people want a much more aggressive stance against the Tories.

WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE

THE BUSINESS backers that Blair craves were well represented at Inverness.

The back page of the conference guide featured a full page advert from Cedric Brown's British Gas and the company also had a prominent stall.

Other companies with stalls included Railtrack, Tesco, Scottish Nuclear and British Telecom.

Rolls Royce

Kilbride fights new jobs attack

WORKERS AT the Rolls Royce aerospace plant at East Kilbride near Glasgow are to vote on strikes against 600 threatened job losses.

The company wants to close the engineering and product support facility and move the work to Derby.

Graham Irving, senior shop steward at the plant, told Socialist Worker, "A mass meeting voted 99 percent to move to a ballot and we are confident we will get a vote for action."

Willie Gibson, an MSF regional officer, told last weekend's Scottish Labour Party conference, "The obscenity of this attempt at butchery is compounded by the announcement on Friday of over £100 million profits for 1994 by Rolls Royce.

"Yet another case of more dividends for us and the dole queue for you. The labour and trade union movement must rally round and support the workers in every aspect of their fight.

"Workers at East Kilbride cannot wait for the next election."

He pledged demonstrations as well as the move towards a strike.

An MSF member told Socialist Worker, "The whole town is in uproar over the threat to jobs. We could give a lead to lots of other people if we fought."

There is no doubt the potential exists to make a stand at East Kilbride.

Workers must make sure the campaign does not go down the same path as those at Ravenscraig and Caterpillar where hopes of an effective fight were eventually sacrificed for "broad unity" with bosses and Tories.

Battle on all fronts

TRADE UNION convenors from every site of Rolls Royce were to meet this week with the company on the offensive on a wide range of fronts.

Rolls's attack on the full time convenor in the repair and services (RRAES) section at Ansty, in Coventry, is serious.

If management get their way, it will lead to further job cuts at Ansty and attacks on union reps elsewhere.

But AEEU engineering union members' action to defend their convenor--they walked out for three afternoons--was undermined by union leaders who disowned the strikes.

At the same time Rolls is trying to get away with a rotten 2 percent pay deal in the RRAES sections at Ansty, East Kilbride, Derby and Bristol.

Workers at East Kilbride voted 92 percent for strike action a fortnight ago. Ballot results at Ansty and Derby were due on Monday.

Rolls paid these workers no increase at all last year, but has just announced profits of £101 million.

It is demanding annualised working hours which would abolish overtime and bonuses for night time, weekend and holiday working and put workers at management's beck and call.

The company will want the same working hours and lousy pay everywhere.

The attacks are not confined to the aero-engines division of Rolls either.

Hundreds of jobs at the diesel turbine manufacturing subsidiary Parsons, in Newcastle, are also threatened.

A united fightback in defence of jobs, pay, conditions and union representation is what is needed.

The unions need to call out people who have balloted to strike immediately and hold mass meetings in every other plant and section to extend the action.

Exel

MICK DANAHER, the victimised TGWU branch secretary at Exel Logistics, Rotherham, lost his final appeal last week.

Latest supporters of the campaign include Barnsley AEEU District Committee, BOC Transhield, and Mick Clapham, MP for Barnsley West.

Mick Danaher has been victimised by Exel Logistics to intimidate the rest of the workforce. More follows

CJA

Anti-Nazi

FREDDIE WILSON, a Sainsbury's warehouse worker in Norwich, is taking the company to an industrial tribunal following continued racist abuse at work.

He told the press one manager wore a Ku Klux Klan hat, while another boss pretended to whip him like a slave. He was called racist names and when he complained was told he should be able to take a joke.

The Anti Nazi League petitioned outside the store last week and got a good response.

Posters showing Nazi symbols and racist slogans have appeared around the estate.

Clause Four

SOME 100 people were at a public meeting addressed by Dennis Skinner in Falmouth, Cornwall, last Friday, and gave strong support for keeping Clause Four.

Teachers

THREE NUT reps in Trafford, Manchester, are being charged under the union's disciplinary procedures.

Their "crime" is selling Socialist Worker and handing out leaflets after a union meeting.

A petition and open letter have been launched in defence of free speech and the right to campaign within the union.

Durand

ONE TEACHER has been sacked and another suspended at Durand Primary School, in Stockwell, south London.

They and one other teacher are refusing to run an after school playcentre. All three workers are black.

The school is grant maintained and the head wishes to set a precedent by changing teachers' contracts.

A campaign has been launched, supported by parents, ex-governors and teachers from other schools.

Messages of support and further details of the Durand Support Campaign: c/o NUT Office, Lawn Lane Centre, Lawn Lane, Vauxhall, London SW8.

Haringey

TEACHERS in Haringey, north London, took four days of strike action over the teachers' £822 London allowance before half term. Support for strike action remains solid among NUT members in Haringey.

The NUT's Action Committee has approved the balloting of further schools. Now Haringey council has requested an urgent meeting with the Action Committee.

FIGHT THE CUTS ROUNDUP

Keeping up the pressure

SHEFFIELD: Council service users and workers marched last Friday, the day the council set its budget.

Many council workers walked out to join the hundreds strong protest which included teachers and youth workers. Friday's march was followed by a demo of over 2,000 against education cuts the next day.

The Labour council's budget broke the government's spending limit and it is now to appeal to the Tories to be allowed to raise extra funds in council tax.

But many people are angry about the prospect of having to pay more council tax for less services. Bills are set to rise by 13.29 percent, yet that will not stop up to 400 jobs being axed by the council.

"I don't want to see any cuts," Mary told Socialist Worker. "I've come on this march because without the day centre I'd be devastated. Protests do have an impact."

Teachers in both Sheffield and Rotherham are to ballot for action on the same day.

Although the council has now provided more money for education, up to 100 Sheffield teachers could still face the sack.

Faced with class sizes rising and teachers getting sacked, local parents, teachers and governors have now booked 14 coaches to go to the national Fight Against Cuts in Education (FACE) demo in London on Saturday 25 March.

NOTTINGHAM: over 100 parents, governors and teachers attended a FACE meeting in Nottingham last week. Another local meeting was set to take place in Arnold on Tuesday night.

Parents at Winderly and Rally schools are fuming about cuts which will affect their kids.

They have been leafleting door to door and collected donations from workers at the local JMLS factory.

A coach has been booked for the FACE March on 25 March and last Saturday parents petitioned in Nottingham city centre and collected £65 for the bus.

BARNSLEY: 200 people marched through Barnsley on Saturday to protest against proposed education cuts.

Speakers declared the fight had just begun and urged a strong local contingent on the 25 March demonstration. Three coaches have already been booked.

Members of Barnsley FACE addressed a meeting of 40 parents at a primary school last week.

Protesters lobbied the council's ruling Labour group last week.

A second lobby saw 80 people demonstrate outside the full council meeting that set a budget over the Tories' capping limit, but this will still mean cuts.

HARINGEY: FACE held its first meeting last week in the north London borough, addressed by a parent from Tiverton School that recently forced the council to do repairs.

A mass leaflet to publicise the 25 March demo is now planned.

OXFORDSHIRE: A 300 strong meeting of school governors voted overwhelmingly to prepare illegal budgets last week.

EAST OXFORD: Some 80 parents, school governors, teachers and school students met last week for a FACE meeting.

They heard Mike Kelly, a governor from Temple Cowley School which faces cuts of at least £60,000, say that "education is going out the window and we have to do something to save it."

His school has decided to set a "needs budget".

Several speakers from the floor said how disappointed they were with Labour's failure to support governors setting illegal budgets.

The meeting unanimously passed a motion pledging support "to everyone and anyone who takes action in defence of our children's education" and urging governors to set needs related budgets.

STRATHCLYDE: UNISON is balloting council workers for a one day strike action against the cuts on 4 April. Workplace meetings will now be taking place throughout the council.

Strathclyde UNISON plans to join with the Lothian region for a joint lobby of the Scottish Office in Edinburgh on 4 April.

EDINBURGH: The school board at Drummond High School, where cuts amount to £20,000, say they are to organise public opposition from teachers, parents and school kids.

HACKNEY: A joint meeting of manual and white collar stewards in Hackney council, east London, was planned this week to discuss a council wide strike against cuts on 30 March.

The strike, proposed by the manual workers' Joint Works Committee, would coincide with action by Hackney teachers.

A 300 strong mass meeting of manual workers in the environmental services department has also voted unanimously for an immediate overtime ban in protest at the council's plans to increase the working week from 35 to 40 hours.

NEWCASTLE: A FACE meeting in Newcastle last week agreed to step up the campaign against education cuts. A number of schools are planning to hold meetings before the 25 March demonstration.

SUNDERLAND: Some 600 people attended a rally against the cuts at Sunderland Civic Centre last Wednesday.

It was timed to lobby the full council meeting being held that afternoon, where the final cuts budget was due to be passed.

A speaker from Sunelm (a council furniture factory for disabled workers that is being shut down) received a brilliant response when he attacked the Labour council for taking people's votes and then betraying them, and for just paying lip service to disabled people.

The leader of the council got a rough ride when he attempted to defend the decision not to set an illegal budget.

Now UNISON members in Education and Social Services are to be balloted for a one day strike.

ISLINGTON: There was an anti-cuts lobby of Islington council, north London, last week.

DEVON: 300 people demonstrated through the small south Devon town of Totnes last Saturday against education cuts.

In nearby Plymouth 1,500 signatures were collected at a rally in the shopping centre, with speakers from local schools and social services user groups.

Devon NUT and NASUWT are balloting teachers for strike action in early April to coincide with UNISON and FBU industrial action.

UNISON members in Devon Social Services Department have also voted to ballot for ten days of strike action against cuts of £3.5 million and a possible 89 redundancies.

LEWISHAM: Around 50 people lobbied a full council meeting of Lewisham council last week against £13 million of cuts in the south London borough.

The council meeting had to be adjourned when demonstrators went into the public gallery to shout the councillors down.

TELFORD: Pensioners demonstrating against the closure of homes for the elderly got a good response in Telford town centre last Saturday.

Over 50 people joined the protest called by the Pensioners Action Group against council cuts which will axe four residential homes for the elderly and privatise others.

A lobby of the Social Services Committee was planned this week.

LAMBETH: Lobbies took place last week outside Lambeth Town Hall, south London, against massive education cuts.

The council still agreed to £8.95 million worth of cuts in education, which could mean over 500 jobs being lost.

LANCASHIRE: The NUT teaching union is consulting its members on whether to ballot for strike action over council cuts.

In Lancaster the NUT association is booking a coach to the 25 March demonstration.

NORTHAMPTON: Some 30 parents and teachers attended the FACE launch meeting last week, representing 20 schools.

Around 600 signatures were collected on a petition in Northampton town centre last Saturday and five coach tickets were sold for the 25 March demo.

LECTURERS

College strikes show a real mood to fight

More than 100 students attended a lunchtime rally.

Up to 50 students picketed the teaching block and then marched to the vice-chancellor's office.

STUDENTS AT the University of East Anglia boycotted classes on Wednesday in protest at downgrading of exam and coursework marks for modern languages.

Students

Wreaths were laid in memory of David and other miners who had died during the 1984-5 strike.

AROUND 300 people supported the annual David Jones memorial march in Barnsley last Saturday.

Miners

"This is a chance to put a bitter taste in management's mouth and give a lead to other trade unionists fighting for decent pay," says one worker at the plant.

The workers' TGWU and GMB unions are recommending rejecting the offer.

WORKERS AT British Sugar, based in Newark, are balloting on management's pay offer of 3.7 percent.

British Sugar

The Scottish executive of the CWU communications' union has agreed to ballot all Scottish CWU branches in the coming weeks, calling for a one day strike.

A MASS meeting of 500 post office workers in Edinburgh voted unanimously by a show of hands to back a one day strike if management go ahead with their plans to move the May Day public holiday to VE Day a week later.

Post

Thirty members of the TGWU, who work for sub-contractors, imposed a work to rule.

WORKERS HANGING the electrical cables on the main bridge of the Second Severn Crossing near Bristol took action last week to fight for decent bonus payments.

Severn Bridge

They won their industrial tribunal last month but are still waiting to hear if they will get their jobs back.

Activists must ensure their union leader, Jimmy Knapp does not allow a re-run of the Manchester guards' dispute, when the union scuppered industrial action and left four leading militants on the dole for three years.

That is good, but if the RMT had organised an immediate walkout, management would have been forced to back down immediately.

An appeal was due this week and the RMT executive is set to sanction a strike ballot if BR does not back down.

This is the latest in a spate of victimisations of union activists in the run up to privatisation.

"This is an obvious set up. It is an attack on the union. If they get away with this, none of us are safe," said one RMT member.

BR claims they were being paid and were technically on duty, breaking a no drinking at work rule!

They were sacked, although neither was on duty and Bert broke off his holiday to attend the meeting.

Their supposed crime is that on the way home Bert had a pint of beer, whilst Mike had a shandy.

They both attended a meeting in Swindon where they refused to accept management demands for job losses.

The other, Mike Burgess, has worked for BR for 24 years.

One, Bert Stapleton, has worked on the railways for 44 years and was sacked three days before he retired. He has lost an £18,000 pay off and his £45 a week pension.

MEMBERS OF the RMT rail union in South Wales and the West Country are set to ballot for strike action after two activists were sacked by management.

Rail

The more bus workers and other trade unionists on the march, the more pressure the strikers will be able to put on TGWU leader Bill Morris to call national action.

Bob Arnett--secretary of the strike committee--told Socialist Worker, "The support is there. Now we need a lead from the union."

They also addressed meetings of Yorkshire Rider bus workers, also under attack from Badgerline bosses.

Delegates from the strike committee, members of the TGWU, spoke to teachers, postal workers, civil servants and car workers. They raised £700 for their solidarity strike fund.

Strikers spent three days in Bristol last week--where the Badgerline company which owns Eastern National is based.

THE 105 Chelmsford Eastern National bus workers sacked for going on strike are gathering support for their national demonstration on 25 March.

BUSES

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CWU branches must insist that the balloting and action are coordinated.

In London over 1,400 engineers, a quarter of the total, have refused to sign up for a CSIP option.

BT is vulnerable to action. It is facing shortages of engineers in many areas.

Those engineers who have taken their "voluntary option" not to sign up for CSIP are being victimised by managers.

But now BT is introducing attendance rosters under CSIP that breach the national agreement with the union.

Unfortunately the BT workers' CWU union leaders made an agreement with the company over the implementation of CSIP.

The dispute is about CSIP, the new attendance patterns which mean evening and weekend working are part of the normal working week.

The four regions together account for a majority of BT engineers in the country.

Engineers in London could be set to join the balloting if talks with management fail to produce an agreement.

BALLOTS FOR industrial action are being planned for BT engineers in the North West, Midlands and South West regions.

Telecom

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BIFU members in Barclays should be supporting BGSU members and pressurising their union leaders to ballot too.

All BGSU members should vote yes.

The cost of settling that claim would be only one week's worth of the bank's profits.

The Barclays Group Staff Union--the staff association--is asking for a 5 percent rise.

But a clerk at Barclays, on a wage of only £11,500 a year, is being given a rise less than the rate of inflation for the third year running.

Martin Taylor, the head of Barclays, has awarded himself over £1 million this year alone.

But management want to impose a 2.75 percent pay offer on Barclays workers.

The bank announced record profits of £2 billion last week, a 181 percent increase.

SOME 32,000 workers at Barclays bank are to ballot for action over pay.

Bank Workers

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Management want to cut costs by creating new jobs which will combine cleaning, administration and medical duties.

• WORKERS AT Wirral Trust Hospitals were to hold a mass meeting this week to protest at management's plans to restructure jobs.

  Local people and staff fear this could lead to the hospital's closure and there have been large public meetings in opposition to the moves.

• ANGER HAS erupted in Shropshire over health authority plans which include the loss of accident and emergency services at the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford.

The march is supported by the workers' local UNISON and MSF unions.

• WORKERS AT the Lancaster Blood Centre have called a march and rally to protest against its threatened closure.

  Morecambe Bay Health Authority plans to move the urology, dermatology, ophthalmology and ear, nose and throat departments to just one hospital.

• OVER 200 people attended a rally in Barrow to protest against services under threat at Barrow's Furness General Hospital, Lancaster's Royal Infirmary and Westmorland General Hospital.

  Roundup

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• Lunchtime protests planned for 30 March include: Newcastle city centre, Glasgow Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and the Royal Edinburgh Hospital, Aberdeen Royal Infirmary and the Ladysbridge Hospital outside the city, Queens Medical Centre in Nottingham, Oxford's Radcliffe Hospital, Sheffield's Hallamshire Hospital, Southampton General Hospital and the Royal South Hants, University, Ely and Whitchurch hospitals in Cardiff, Sazakerley and Walton hospitals in Liverpool, Barnsley District Hospital, Dudley's four hospitals, and in London outside UCH and Middlesex hospitals, the London Hospital in Whitechapel, St Clements and Mile End hospitals, and at Parson's Green in west London.

  "We're distributing 6,500 leaflets," says a worker at the Royal Aberdeen Infirmary. "We've organised a workplace meeting and invited a signal worker to talk about how they took on the Tories."

  The day of action on 30 March is a chance to show what can be done to resist.

  Local deals will open the way for trusts to attack nationally won rights.

  Of those trusts which have made offers, three in ten fail to meet the full 3 percent. Some 350 trusts in England and all the trusts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have yet to offer anything.

  Guy's and St Thomas's trust in London is reported to have offered a deal worth 3.25 percent. But the trust has already linked the offer to "serious discussions" about conditions.

  Some local NHS trusts are now offering an additional 2 percent to top up the national offer to 3 percent.

  The union should be organising meetings over pay in every hospital and building for its promised strike ballot.

  UNISON is pledged to build its NHS Fair Pay day of action on 30 March. But some hospitals have yet to receive leaflets advertising the day.

  The biggest cheer was for a nurse from UCH hospital who asked, "Why are we talking about 3 percent? I want to hear UNISON talk about an 8 percent rise."

  Nurses at the meeting were furious at UNISON head of health Bob Abberley for not pulling out all the stops to build the campaign against the government's 1 percent pay offer.

  "If the Tories succeed in beating the nurses," said Tony Benn, "then they'll succeed in what they really want--to run down and privatise the NHS."

  Over 100 hospital workers heard Labour MP Tony Benn and journalist Paul Foot say that the Tory assault on nurses' pay was part of their attack on the health service.

  That is how one nurse summed up the mood at a "Pay the Nurses" rally in London last week.

  "WE'VE GOT public support. We know our patients are on our side. But we've got to act quickly or else nothing is going to happen--30th March could be massive if the union built for it."

  BUILD 30 MARCH PROTESTS

  National health Service

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  A NATFHE meeting was set for Wednesday, and the action is likely to start next week.

  This will mean over 100 people will lose their jobs. Two sites of the college have been marked for closure and over 40 courses face the axe.

  The college is facing compulsory redundancies that amount to 67.4 full time equivalent posts.

  LECTURERS AT Hackney Community College in east London have voted by 62 percent for escalating strike action against redundancies, site closures and course cuts.

  HACKNEY

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• Fax messages of support to strike HQ on 0171 928 1148 or 0171 401 7374
• Lobby of Southwark College governors: Tuesday 21 March, 5pm, Waterloo Centre, The Cut, London SE1. Phone: 071 401 7374.

  Southwark governors meet on 21 March. We hope to persuade them that compulsory redundancies are unnecessary. Like school governors they should be questioning the funding formula and joining with lecturers and students to demand a fair deal for further education.

  Our campaign has met with great support from the local community because people don't want to see course hours cut and students left to study by themselves in the library.

  But the only way that people in boroughs like Southwark and Lewisham will get the education they deserve is if colleges learn to work co operatively with each other.

  The Tories--and our managers--want us to operate in a competitive market.

  We now need a properly organised national levy to give our members the confidence they need to continue the action.

  It is official NATFHE policy to support lecturers striking in defence of jobs. Thousands of pounds has been pledged and money has already come into our strike fund.

  NATFHE members throughout the country recognise that the struggle at Southwark is one they could be facing and support has been fantastic.

  We don't believe we should operate with 38 fewer teachers, whether they go voluntarily or not.

  We are striking to save jobs but our dispute is also about saving further education.

  If we had gone onto the new contracts we would just have got the three months notice--a massive victory for the union! But it leaves the principle of compulsory redundancy intact.

  The package includes working for three months and getting nine months' tax free pay in lieu of notice.

  In the face of the strike threat, which has solid support from NATFHE members, college managers offered an eleventh hour greatly enhanced, voluntary severance package.

  LECTURERS AT Southwark College in south London began all out strike action this Tuesday against threatened compulsory redundancies.

  by a Southwark College striker

  All out is the way to win

  Southwark

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  Its members will have worse pay, and fewer rights over notice and redundancy payments than current part timers.

  Education Lecturing Services is to launch an advertising campaign next month and has the backing of the CEF.

  A private agency is to be set up to hire out part time lecturers to colleges.

  THE EMPLOYERS' intentions to drive pay rates down and bust union organisa