Support the Water Workers
Socialist Organiser1983 1983-01-27Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 7 →
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Scan page 7
FOR the first time since the 1980 steel strike, the whole of a major industry is on all-out indefinite strike. After many long months of lengthening dole queues, cuts and closures, struggles stopped halfway, and the Tories riding high on 'Falklands factor' jingoism, an opening has been created for the labour movement to see that the tables can be turned. The Tories can be beaten.
The previous Tory government also had a string of victories - though less dramatically - in 1970-72. Only after the 1972 miners' strike was it put on the defensive.
The water workers in 1983 can do what the miners did in 1972 - if they can develop the same sort of strong rank-and-file organisation, which can stop the top union leaders backtracking, and if the labour movement gives solid support.