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Now the pressures of interational capitalist competition iads the bosses to demand nat union leaders join them 1 reasserting control over the hop floor. Do you want to ee the model trade union he ruling class are aiming for? ook at the EPTU. The union nachine is a major weapon in he hands of the employers. ¡lectricians who don't want to ave their cards revoked and ›se their jobs can only protest t the scab leaders of their nion if they wear masks to revent being recognised! he bosses want that throughut the labour movement.

For the union leaders there i no half-way house between urrender and struggle - a Ight to defend trade unions, and herefore, ultimately, demands re subordination of the unions.

To see preserving the union inds as the major consideration • a recipe for surrender. It leads to a policy of paying up when fines are imposed, and of disciplining militants, for fear of having heavier fines put on or union assets seized.

But the union treasury - so seldom used to aid militant struggle — is the God of the union bureaucrat. Already Jack Jones, one of the most left wing of union leaders, has been prepared to pay the Tory court's fine.

Trade Unionism, as a fighting organisation serving the interests of the rank and file, must be protected from the union bureaucrats as well as from the Tories.

We need a major offensive against the Industrial Relations Act from the rank and file - and the militant rank and file itself will have to organise that offensive.

Councils of Action, linking up militants in each area, are necessary. In some localities, Trades Councils or local Liaison Committees may be able to fill the functions of a Jones: paid fine Council of Action. If not, an independent Council of Action must be organised.

Had an organised, nationwide, militant rank and file movement existed last week there need have been no demobilisation when the Five were freed. We could have continued the fight - and we would have smashed the Act and the Government, too.

Now we need a drive for Councils of Action, an effort to develop a programme of preparation, of action, and of struggle for democratisation within the labour movement.

There can be no compliance with any union leadership which revokes the credentials of a militant steward on the say-so of the bosses' Court. Strike action is the normal response to victimisation of militants.

As for the seizure of union funds - if they seize union funds, workers can seize factories. If the leaders won't fight, the rank and file must.

We must fight for an understanding in the Labour movement that the Tory monster will continually sprout new 'heads' or regrow old ones until we hit it at the heart and smash the system, replacing it with a working class socialist system. It is capitalism which is attacking trade unions. We must settle with capitalism, and arm the movement to defend trade unions with the understanding that it is either the laws of capitalism that are smashed or the unions.

104 mins Plati

THE Cause of Ireland is the best left wing documentary on the Northern Ireland conflict. Perhaps uniquely among proRepublican accounts of the Catholic revolt, it does not rely on the gross oversimplifications common to the pro-Republican left. The Cause of Ireland attempts to deal with the complexities and problems for revolutionary socialist politics in Ireland created by the Protestant working class's hostility to nationalism.

The uncensored version of the film is to have its London Premiere at the Brixton Ritzy on Wednesdav 7 Decemher • JAMMeRANA I ImAMA. USE form Films 1983 The film was shown by Channel Four on October 3, 1983, after the Independent Broadcasting Authority had ordered four cuts to be made. The uncut version was shown at the Tyneside Film Festival, where it was awarded first prize - the Tyne Award. Geoff Bell and those involved in making The Cause of Ireland, will be present to discuss the issues raised in the film.

*'The Cause of Ireland' and 'A Free Country', at the Ritzy Cinema, Brixton Oval, Wednesday 7 December at 7.30 pm. $2.00 (plus 30p membersbip), £1.50 with IRAN nr etudent card.

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LUKI WAGO councils and council workers The miserable record of many Labour councils in the residential social workers' dispute flows from the transformation of Lefts into administration December ISLINGTON The GLC elections in May 1981 were followed by a concerted effort, organised around London Labour Briefing, to secure left borough councils in London after the elections in May 1982. The effort was fairly successful - most so in Islington, which since May 1982 has been probably the most left wing council in the country ('Fortress Islington', for London Labour Briefing).

But yet again the 'local government left' settled for a posture of general defiance, rather than a hard-headed fighting strategy.

Old guard

Islington had previously been the seat of the most hardened old-style right-wing Labour municipal corruption. New applicants to join the Labour Party were told that it was 'full up' ' Nevertheless, new members did join, and eventually ousted the right wing after a battle through the 1970s. In the process, practically all the leftwing activists in the borough were drawn into the Labour Party. It culminated in the majority of the Labour councillors, and all three of the borough's Labour MPs, going over to the SDP. The Islington Labour Left was by no means incapable of fighting — so far as its politics permitted.

The 51 Labour councillors who swept the SDP out in May 1982 were almost all leftists, many of them leading figures in campaigns, trade unions, and tenants' organisations in the borough. A good many of them would consider themselves revolutionaries - a fair number quite close to SO.

But in the debate on the council manifesto, the 'no rate In this second part of discussion article, MARTIN THOMAS analyses the record of the Labour left in local government.

rise'/confrontation strategy (moved by SO supporters) had been defeated. The manifesto eventually said land this is not to caricature it) that Labour would not make cuts; that Labour did not like big rate rises; and if it came to the crunch, well then, there would be a problem, wouldn't there?

In July 1982 a joint meeting of the council Labour Group and of the Local Government Committee (the joint committee for council affairs of the Constituency Labour Parties: within the borough) voted for: a 'no rate rise' motion put by an SO supporter. Over the following months we struggled hard to build an effective confrontation strategy on the basis of that vote. It was soon clear, however, that most of the people who had voted for the motion did so as a gesture, and in reality saw rate rises as inevitable. In spring 1983 the local Labour Parties voted overwhelmingly to reject our confrontation strategy and support a 29.8% rate rise.

Council leader Margaret Hodge stressed:

Widespread 'The strategy we recommend is for this year only. What we do in future years will depend on which party is in government. We feel we can recommend a nulga rate for this year, but the return of a Labour Government will be critical for our future, as people democratically elected to implement a socialist manifesto. With a Tory Government returned, we may have to consider other strategies."

Gay rights

With a Tory government returned, however, in tact the Labour councillors have retreated into a defensive, cowed posture, with no strategy at all.

Stands like the council's refusal to delete union-labour-only clauses from its contracts have bèen dropped. The council leadership talks about the need to concentrate on the council's respectable' achievements in areas like 'housing and play down issues like gay rights.

Among the dozens of leftists elected to the council in May 1982, by spring 1983 only two would still argue with conviction against rate rises. The council has become a school in reformism for the Islington new left.

It would be false, however, to think of the retreats as being imposed on the lacal labour movement by a bureaucratic elite. The discussion on the 1983-4, budget was prețty democratic. We were not suppres sed. We lost the argument* Nor is it a matter of the local Labour Party members being resolution-mongers rather than campaigners. Not so. If they see their way clear politically, the Islington Labour Parties are well' capable of campaigning, as they did for example around the NHS pay dispute.

The problem is the lack of ideological clarity running through the whole labour movement, including the left.

THE GLC AND BRIEFING: 'STRIKING THE FLAG' Meanwhile, within a year of the May 1981 election, the Labour GLC's fighting stance had already crumbled..

OR ADMISSIOIS trapped in local government administration. This is no way to build and sustain a serious Labour Left.

"You talk about doing better next time, in a different fight later. But if the GLC left will not fight for its major manifesto plank, what will it fight for?

Comrades, the class struggle is always now. The struggle now is decisive for organising and training a serious Left that can secure the socialist future.

"Pass up that struggle, strike your flag in deference to the established leaders who are refusing to give a militant lead, confine yourself now to talk of what you will do in another fight in the future, and unavoidably you contribute to perpetuating the vacuum of militant political leadership in the labour movement.

THE POLITICS OF GESTURE Speaking to Socialist Organiser in June 1983, Ken Livingstone struck a very different note from in 1981.

'The GLC has a very limited range of responsibilities and powers, and nothing that the Labour GLC does challenges the strúcture of society. It raises issues, it promotes campaigns, it makes small shifts in wealth - they're alt things that a Thatcher government could live with if the truth wère told...

'Local government is not going to bring down central government. It never has been a possibility: into the problem that if you openly try and challenge the law, your officers won't carry out your instructions....

'There's a very amount you can do".

Ireland:*

Likewise, Graham Bash of London Labour Briefing, questioned by SO. (6.1.83) on his balance sheet of the GLC, the basis that by doing so it gets a chance to make a few radical gestures. For the movement to do so is to renouce socialist, class-struggle aims in favour of radical liberalism.

Moreover, the logic that led from the concept of the GLC as "a bastion of power for the labour movement" to the concept of it being essentially powerless but a good platform for political gestures, leads further still. From the gestures justifying the councillors' existence, the next step is for the councillors' existence to justify dropping the gestures. This logic can be seen operating in the GLC's decision to invite Royalty to open the Thames Barrier, for example.

THE LEFT COUNCILS AND COUNCIL WORKERS Some of the radical-liberal stances taken are courageous and deserving of full support. But some are not.

The local government left's strategy, logically spelled out, is one of local councils creating a string of 'fortresses' or 'bastions of power' , eventually to be crowned by an AES-type left Labour government, which will erode the power of capitalism in favour of 'popular planning'.

Industrial action

Industrial struggle does play a role in this strategy. Indeed, local government leftists sometimes give it an exaggerated role (to draw the conclusion that there is nothing much they can do unless the industrial 'big battalions' move first). The point, however, is that industrial action is seen as important in this strategy only to the extent that it promotes the creation of the 'bastions of power' - bringing down Tory governments, sustaining Labour governments, supporting councils and their initiatives, etc.

In 1979 Camden council did make a separate settlement with its workers on their £60/35 hour claim. Ken Livingstone asked in SO, "Should Labour councils surrender their rights to negotiate wages to Tory-controlled national bodies?" But the left Labour councils have continued to do just that.

General good"

And in July 1981, as mentioned above, the GLC came into direct conflict with LT underground workers over their pay claim. SO commented (11.7.81):

''The Left council has chosen to administer London Transport for the 'general good' (i.e. by cutting fares) and to cut loose from the interests of the tube workers who say that such improvements should not be at their expense..

"Have Ken Livingstone and all the rest done a political about-turn? Have they swung to the right?

"No. They are no different from what they were when they were elected. The Manifesto contains many good policies, many pro-working class measures, and a statement of the GLC's intention to take on the Tories. But the fact that it could all disappear like this when the tube workers' claim came up reveals a lack of a clear set of principles behind it.

'The issue is the same in essence as that involved in the decision of Lambeth, Camden, etc., to go for rate increases which cut living standards as a supposed way round a confrontation: the same choice is involved of administering an area as benevolently as possible within the limits and terms set by the Tory government. Choosing to be administrators, the Left are set on the road to ceasing to be militants."

Here the local government left strategy comes into direct

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