Socialist Organiser

The weekly of the fused Workers Socialist League, July 1981 to April 1984

[We start working towards our March target with…]

Socialist Organiser no. 122, 3 March 1983 · scan p. 16 · about 451 words

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We start working towards our March target with a challenge from Sheffield. Socialist Organiser supporters there have taken a decision to raise money to clear their paper debt, and they'ré challenging other groups to do the How about your SO group? Many groups have collected debts by not paying regularly for debts in 1982. Why not take up Sheffield's And with only E67 so far, we need groups to set themselves a fund-raising target for March. If the fund hasn't reached £250 by next week, Don't just read this and think other people will send money in. Raising £183 in the next Send money to: The Treasurer, 214 Sickert Thanks to: Chris Hickey E5, SO supporters in Preston E5, Jeff Evans £1, Cheung Siu Ming E20, Ann McKinley E1, Bruce Robinson £20, Kevin Feintuck £10, Ann Duggan £5. JOHN HA same. we'll be seriously behind.

week depends on YOU. .• Court, London N1 2SY. thyr pit and throughout the coal industry highlights the destructive attitude of NCB management - wilfully abandoning seams of coal as who profits from the supply of overpriced of mining equipment by private firms, and who pockets the huge sums in interest paid each year by the NCB from the sweat of working While the City sharks be-. come even sleeker and MCR OUth fatter, whole basic industries are being jettisoned. Cars, steel, the railways; 'and the mines are following each other down a spiral of devastation. As long as the profiteers still make profits, they are not worried by whole areas laid waste and millions jobless. The future will be continuing decline - unless capitalist chaos can be replaced by rational! planning, common ownership, and workers' control.

Trade unions and Labour Parties should take up the demand for the complete opening of the books of the NCB to elected trade union committees to probe the Tory profiteers who grow fat on the mining industry.

The facts revealed would explode countless NCB lies, but also lay the basis for workers' control of the! nationalised mining industry, nationalisation of the supplying firms, and the development of a coherent workers' plan for energyi production.

In the short term, however, the demands are clear and well-developed. No pits should close unless coal is exhausted. Any: current surplus capacity in the industry, caused by Thatcher's policies of slump and redundancy, should be dealt with by a shorter working week acorss the mining industry, without loss of pay:

Miners have acted to stop the rot on jobs. They! could once again "spear• head the fight to stop the Tory government. The labour movement must give them every backing.

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in 'uneconomic' pits - and it raises wider issues, such

← Contents of Socialist Organiser no. 122

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