Thatcher's War

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-We reply: Our 'camp' is that of workers ON THE need to fight for Thatcher to be defeated and forced to withdraw the fleet, we have no disagreement with the comrades of the PST.

The analysis that 'the only aim of British diplomacy is to retain British possessions" seems to us false. In truth Britain has been trying to get rid of the Falklands since the early '70s. The war is to save the face and the prestige of Thatcher.

But the same conclusion follows: the British labour movement should campaign against Thatcher's war and attempt to stop it through blacking military supplies. And this is the policy SO has put forward since the start of the war.

Our disagreements with the PST and IWL come when they say they "will fight in the camp of the Argentine government' Marxists, it seems to us, should fight in the camp of the working class against Thatcher's war and against Galtieri's adventure.

The war over the Falklands, as the IWL points out, will mean more hunger for the workers and people of Argentina. And for Untouched Galtieri's invasion did not liberate anyone from colonialism or imperialism. It did not lessen the burden of imperialist exploitation, or improve the conditions ror the fight against it, for a single Argentine worker.

It deliberately leaves untouched the imperialist banks and multinationals which daily exploit the workers of Argentina.

It is of course possible to imagine circumstances where an attack on these imperialist interests in Argentina through expropriations and the repudiation of debts to Western bankers - might conceivably have triggered off a military response from Britain or the USA, in the course of which there might have been an attempt by the imperialists to use the Falklands as a base for their operations.

In such a situation, piainiy an Argentine invasion of the falklands would have been part and parcel ot a genuine anti-imperialist struggle, and would have had to be defended.

But instead the whole invasion has been a red herring designed purely and simply to divert the Argentine workers away from their mounting mass struggles against the junta.

Far from advancing the financing the debts of the Argentinian government.

The quickest and easiest way of bringing the Argentinians to the negotiating table is to exercise economic pressure on them. They are clearly vulnerable to such pressure, and it should be implemented.

The objective of our efforts should be to ensure a negotiated settlement and an administration which is neither British nor Argentinian, but based on the United Nations.

your view on the rights the Fi ilklanders?

clearly las struggle against imperialism it has strengthened the standing of a fiercely reactionary, pro-imperialdictatorship, and embroiled the Argentine people in a war in which they can hope to win nothing of significance.

The analogy with Israel or with Ireland does not hold. (Moreover, we would not be in favour of the Jews in Palestine, or the Protestant Irish in Northern Ireland - if it is they who are inaccurately referred to as 'Englishmen in Ireland'! -suffering the same fate that the Falklanders are likely to face under Galtieri's boot).

Community The Falklands have been a distinct community for 150 years, displacing no-one, oppressing no other community. They were not

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vice Service IN THE alth LOW PAY Staff Staff HEALTH NUPE SERVICE " service par CoHSE leader Spanswick:

no instruction. no instruction.

MEMBERS willing to fight. Leaders determined not to lead. That is the impasse facing militants in the health unions in this decisive period in their pay battle.

The unions are demanding 12 per cent. The Tories have offered derisory sums ranging from nothing at all through 4% to a top offer of 6.4% for some nurses. But instead of seizing upon this offer to go out and rally the united strength of the health unions in strike action to win the full claim, union leaders have dithered and deliberately divided the workforce.

CoHSE branches were last week 'authorised' to begin partial action - but none were instructed to do anything.

NUPE general secretary Alan Fisher, on the other sport other health unions. Yet it has become evident that the bureaucrats who sit on the TUC Health Services Committee have no intention of coordinating any. thing - let alone calling for any intensified action. Their meetings take place behind locked doors, with no minutes or reports available to the membership they supposedly represent.

Yet this Committee has unparalleled opportunthis year to mobilise a END • NUPF fight on pay. For the first time ever all sections of health workers haved a common review date and a common claim. United strike action - with strike committees locally deciding on emergency cover -could rapidly force the Tories to concede.

There is every indication that, where a lead is given along these lines, health workers will respond. Yet in many areas the fact that there has been no instruction to take action means that right wing branch officers, convenors or officials are sitting tight, while frustration and demoralisation grows among their members.

Two key meetings could change this situation. One, the NUPE NEC, begins this Thursday at the Charing Cross Hotel in London. It will assess the result of the ballot and decide the policy of the biggest health It is vital that the call is for national strike action.

The second is the TUC Health Services Committee at Congress House at 10.30am next Monday May 10. A call to action from this Committee could open up a major struggle against Thatcher's pay limits. Anything less could raise the spectre of a new sell out on pay.

Socialist Organiser supporters in the Health Service last week participated in the launching of an ad hoc rank and file group Health Workers for the Full Claim, which is taking up the struggle for a lobby of both the NUPE NEC and the TUC Health Service Committee, and publishing a mobilising bulletin. DESPITE THE efforts of Socialist Organiser sellers, calling • for the TUC to break links with the Tories now and organise strike action to stop Tebbit, the lobby of Parliament on the Tories' new anti-union bill last Thursday, April 29, was a subdued affair.

The organisers, the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions, had clearly made little effort to mobilise and publicise the event.

And this inaction by the official leadership looks like continuing.

The TUC has named Thursday June 10 as a day of protest - 'Union Day' But it is making no call for strike action.

It announces only that "On this day millions of copies of a special leaflet aimed at explaining to the public the positive role of trade unions and the threat posed by Mr Tebbit's Bill will be distributed throughout the country. The leaflet is to be given to members of the public by union members at railway and bus stations... etc"

The TUC is also launching "a booklet 'Put Your Employer on the Spot' which spells out key the workplace to put to their own employers about the Bill' Top union leaders are still pursuing the fantasy of an alliance with the bosses against Tebbit's Bill -when in fact the Bill is designed and tailored to serve the bosses' interests.

Some bosses, to be sure, are worried about Tebbit's tactics. At a conference organised by the Financial Times last week, James McFarlane, director-general of the powerful Engineering Employers' Federation, called for Tebbit's provisions on the closed shop not to be implemented until after the next Other managers also expressed worry about some Tebbit proposals backfiring.

But behind this lies the fact that these bosses, unlike the TUC, soberly assess the state of the working class movement, and know that the will to fight and the power to win still exist on the shop floor.

The way to push the bosses and the Tories from doubts to defeat is to fight for action, not to beg and beseech.

The Mobilising Committee for the Defence of Trade Union Rights is campaigning for such a fight. For latest campaign news,

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PHOTO JOHN HARRIS Lobby TUC May 10