International News International News International News SLUMP HITS SOUTH AFRICAN WORKERS

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Some 24 to 32 per cent of workers are unemployed The result is a further state, the black trade union attack on the already movement continues to depressed living standard grow and to wage militant of the black working class. struggles.

Teremy Keenan of the Ini- union confederations are GERRY Adams and Danny Morrison speak at a North Islington Labour Party public meeting: Tuesday December 14, 7.30pm at the Town Hall, Upper St. Other speakers: Steve Bundred, Sally Gilbert, Alan Clinton, Valerie Veness. Chair: Jeremy Corbyr FOR many years now the Labour Party in Islington has campaigned against the war being carried out by British troops in Northern Ireland.

All three Labour Parties in Islington have passed resolutions calling for the withdrawal of British troops from Ireland. We have also repeatedly opposed the Prevention of Terrorism Act and the use of plastic bullets.

It is entirely in line with this that we have been involved along with a GLC member Steve Bundred in inviting elected Sinn Fein representatives to London to speak un their policies. We will be holding a meeting in Islington town Hall on the evening of Tuesday December 14 to allow their views to be expressed and explained.

The invitation to Gerry Adams and Danny Morrison has caused a great deal of frothing at the mouth by the jackals of the capitalist press and the Tories. They have been joined by some leaders of the Labour Party whose connivance in 13 years of war in Ireland is a scandal to the working class movement.

The hypocrisy of all these attacks on the visit is December 26 5 12 21 22 2 23 30 24 31 8 25

plain to anyone who cares to think about it. They condemn Sinn Fein for 'supporting violence' . Yet when Sinn Fein members

put forward their views by standing for election, speaking at meetings and so forth, they refuse even to listen to their arguments.

Where is the much-vaunted commitment to democratic debate and Parliamentary rule? When the republicans look to other means than violence, Foot still attacks those who advocate listening to them.

The fact is that the issue in Northern Ireland is not 'violence' or 'terrorism'. It is the fact that a section of the Irish • population has been entrapped in a gerrymandered state for over fifty years.

Any decent socialist worthy of the name in this country has always opposed British involvement in Ireland. In this period British soldiers are used to prop up the illegitimate statelet in North East Ireland.

It is our duty to do what we can to end the war and our part in organising the visit is at one with our efforts to oppose British rule and to support a solution acceptable to the Irish people as a whole.

Community Centre, 61B Mansfield F.d.

SOUTH EAST London Socialist Organiser meeting: Bob Sutcliffe on 'Spain after the elections'. • Thursday December 16, 8pm, at the Lee Centre, Aslibie Road, off Lee High Road.

LABOUR Committee on Ireland, South-West London

EVEN the supposed EI Dorado of South Africa is feeling the pinch in the world-wide recession.

One aspect of the ecocomic squeeze now gripping the South African capitalist class hit British headlines recently when

they sought and - with British and American support, obtained - a $1 billion loan from the IMP.

The slump in demand for South African goods and the fall in gold prices had served to plunge economy into a deficit.

But within South Africa itself the situation facing big business is far from healthy. Bankruptcies (now 200 per month) and impending bankruptcir.

are running at four times the level of this time last year. Production cutbacks and redundancies are biting in the motor, textile, mining and steel industries.

Though unemployment amongst black workers is officially claimed to be only 406,000, two recent unofficial estimates by resarchers at the University of Witwatersrand dismiss this as ridiculous and suggest the real figure is between 2.5 and 3.3 million (24%-32% of the workforce).

The impact of such unemployment is particularly heavy in the industrial centres, producing a knock-on effect in local businesses, additionally hit by high interest rates.

Meanwhile inflation is estimated at 13.5%, and according to the Vice President of the SA Reserve Bank, the government is not hopeful of bringing it down below 10%.

Room 1, Digbeth Civic Hall, Birmingham. Contact: Heather or Mick on 021-771 7001. Adm.£1, 50p unwaged NO PASS Laws conference. Sunday December 12, 10am, County Hall, London SE1. Details: 146 Kentish Town Road, London NW5.

TROOPS Out Movement conference - 'Resisting the British state'. Saturday December 11, from 10am at Caxton House, St John's Way, London N19.

Contact: Troops Out Movement, PO Box 353, London NW5 4NH.

EDINBURGH Latin American Solidarity: public meeting 'Stop US intervention in Central America'. Tuesday December 14, 7.30, Trades Council. Speaker from FDR-FMLN, film, and discussion. OXFORD Claimants' Defence Committee invites ; ou to continuous showings of the 'Oxfraud Incident' on video. 11am, noon, and 1pm on Saturday • December 11 at East Oxford Community Centre.

Figures from Professor versity of Witwatersrand show that black workers' wages did not rise in real terms between 1978 and 1980: in 1981 'any gains were offset by the rise in unemployment'. . And now in the recession of 1982, 'employers are using the recession as a means of flushing out trade unionists' and stepping up the fight for speed-up on the shop floor.

Yet even under these conditions and the harsh repression of the apartheid BAN PLASTIC BULLETS: a Labour movement delegate conference. Saturday February 26, from flam at UMIST, Barnes Wallis Building, Sackville St, Manchester 1. Sponsors include Labour Committee on Ireland. To sponsor, send delegates (fee £3), or to order leaflets (£6 100), contact: Plastic Bullets Conference, Box 15, 164-6 Hanging Ditch, Manchester M3 4BN.

Trotskyist International Liaison Committee (TILC) t-shirts. Hammer and Sickle around map of the world with the initials TILC overprinted. Cost : £3.00 plus 50p postage from WSL, PO Box 135, London N1. FROM WAR in the Third World to World War 3? Dayschool, Saturday December 11, llam, at Hargrave Hast, Hargrave Road, London Ni9, sponsored by CND, EISSOC, CAAT.

The main non-racial FOSATU (now claiming we n over 100,000 members) and SAAWU (claiming 94,000);

the Black Allied Workers Union claims 51,000 members and the Council of Unions of South Africa (CUSA) over 50,000;

and there are some 100 other independent unions.

And; in the teeth of the recession in the motor industry, even the Metal and Allied Workers Union (FOSATU) has doubled its membership in one district despite the lay-off and loss SPARTACIST Truth Kit - a 68-page analysis by John Lister, published by the Workers' Socialist League. £l plus 25p postage from WSL, PO Box 135, London N1 ODD.

MIDDLE East Solidarity night: Strathclyde Universit] Students Union, John St, Glasgow, Monday December 13, 7.30. Speakers, Stide how, discussion: jointly organısed by International Solidarity Front for defence of Democratic Rights in Iran, General Union of Pales tinian Students, and Turkey Solidarity Campaign.

HULL Labour Movement Polish Solidarity Campaign: demonstration, Saturday December 1!, _assemble of 2,500 members in the past year.

Strikes - against victimisation, against lay-offs, and for wage increases -continue almost right across the trade union field - from hospital workers to road builders, textile workers and carworkers, who have just concluded a 5-month pay dispute in the Eastern Cape.

Under such conditions, tensions have built up IN the USA a mammoth leap in unemployment last month has brought the total to 10.8% of the workA further 440,000 workers joined the dole queues in November alone in further evidence that Thatcher's policies can be as devastating in the USA as they are in Britain. 12 million US workers are now without jobs.

The "miracle' economy of West Germany too has plunged deep into the doldrums, with unemploy. ment rising to 2,038,000, some 8.4% of the workwithin the black unions. A repurt in October's Sowetan' reveals that:

'The South African Chemical Workers' Union, an affiliate of CUSA, has called on two executive memberş to resign because they are 'toothless' and for strongly believing in the industrial council system.

'At the union's general meeting at the weekend, speaker after speaker said the executive had not done anything for the workers and in fact worked hand in hand" with management.' Even in the conditions of struggle in South Africa then, there are problems of an emerging bureaucracy within the unions, counterposed to the rank and file.

The task there, as in Britain, is to construct a revolutionary leadership capable of offering a class struggle programme to trade unionists.

The defeat of apartheid must mean the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism in South Africa: and the key instrument for that is the black working. class supported. by the international workers' movement.

THE RIGHT wing government of President Gemayel in Lebanon is still earnestly canvassing for more 'peace-keeping' troops to be sent from the USA and pro-imperialist regimes.

South Korea may send 1,600 men to swell the numbers, while US officials are now estimating that up to four or five times the present 3,400 may be needed to bolster the Phalangist dominated Lebanese army.

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Islington Labour parties have joined with GLC councillors the invitation Alan Clinton

IN B USA

by HE Sloan

RIEF Mid-East

Labour democracy fight for a Orgorvser WORKERS GOVERNMENT

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