Union action against the Bomb

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"The men voted to black it. We were then called to a works conference and management said it was possible that American industrialists would give us other work if we went "The union went back to the workforce with no recommendations, but the vote against was even bigger than the first The workers must have known that the action could put jobs in danger, but they stuck to it. It is an inspiring proof that the Cruise missiles can still be stopped. The nuclear weapon bases cannot exist without supplies and services provided by Another proof of this was the Tory government's announcement, this week, that it will suspend the dumping at sea of nuclear waste. Minister Patrick Jenkin said that the decision was in response to 'public concern', ', but in fact it was forced on the Tories by a boycott of the dumping by transport Demonstrations, blockades and other protests can build the mass support that will be needed to make such union boycott action possible on a mass scale.

The CND conference last weekend also decided to erganise for 'warning strikes' against nuclear weapons. The West German TUC (the DGB) called a five-minute strike against The nuclear threat depends on the power of the ruling class to deploy and wield nuclear weapons as they wish. And that power in turn depends on passivity and acquiescence of the The ruling classes will never be quietly persuaded to disarm. Even if individual Establishment figures may become sincere unilateralists, the Establishment machine as a whole will never voluntarily renounce the 'ultimate deterrent' supporting its To get rid of the whole nuclear arsenal is, of course, a different proposition from stopping work on one part of Trident. It will need action on a much bigger scale than local workplace boycotts. It will face fierce resistance instead of the Rolls Royce bosses' relatively easy retreat.

So we need to be working not only for industrial action, but also for a workers' government - a government of the labour movement which, unlike all previous Labour governments, bases itself on the labour movement and acts against the capitalist class and their state machine.

But the fight starts now, with the campaign for industrial action, road blockades, and demonstrations against Cruise. A BOYCOTT of work on a part for Trident by n orkers at the Rolls Royce Hillingdon (Glasgow) factory has orced Rolls Royce to scrap the project..

Shop stewards' convenor Gavin Times:

through with this job.

time."

trade union labour.

If the unions put their unilateralist policies into action, they can paralyse the warmongers.

workers, in the first place by seamen.

help Pershing on October 5 this year.

labour movement.

world-wide power.

The working class mobilise their hands.

TAIQUESTION Published by Socialist Forum OF SOLIDARITN for Southern Africa Solidarity.

vidependent Available (at rade Unions 90p plus 20p post)

in South-Äfrice Gc/o SO, 28 Middle Lane, London N8.

90p BOb Fine SEAWEED by any other name still crackles and pops under the geiger counter on the shores by Windscale — sorry Sellafield -in Cumbria.

The latest debris from the deep will come as no surprise to those who have seen a succession of embarrassing admissions of leaks, cracks and blunders at the Windscale reprocessing plant.

But the blithely predictable government assurances that none of the waste products now finding their way back from the Irish Sea represents a danger to human life and safety carry less conviction each time around.

A month ago protestors dumped radioactive sand from the Windscale shoreline on the pavement in Downing Street: police nervously sealed off the block.

Contaminated

Now, as the weed begins to come ashore, contaminated with between 100 and 1,000 times the normal level of radioactivity, Department of the Environment spokespersons warned the public to avoid "unnecessary" use of the beach and not to swim in the sea.

Tory minister William Waldegrave, however, argued that it would be "too hasty" to curtail operations at Windscale following the latest revelations.

The Windscale plant, of course, is not primarily a power station - but an integral part of the industrial complex that maintains the British nuclear arsenal and reprocesses spent nuclear fueis from power stations around the world both for peaceful and military purposes.

Recognising this, and detemined that the military "needs" of the ruling class should override the health and safety of working class people in the vicinity of nuclear plants, the High Court last week fined the By Kath Crosby FOR FAR too long lesbians have been invisible in the labour movement.

Where there has been any support, it has been for gay rights, and that usually means gay men.

The demands that gay men nake, on issues like lowering of te age of consent or the use of entrapment against them by the police, are often totally unrelated to women. While we support gay men in their campaign in these areas, it is about time that we had some labour movement activity in the area of lesbians' custody over their children, or lesbian rights at work.

Groups such as the Labour Campaign for Gay Rights, whilst not anti-women, do not attract women because they are maleorientated and of course male-dominated. In the early to mid seventies, lesbian women left groups such as the Campaign for Homosexual Equality and the Gay Liberation Front to join the women's movement.

This has meant lesbians Greenpeace environmentalists a draconian £50,000 for their resolute attempts to stop the dumping of radioactive waste in the Irish Sea.

As an organisation which had - like the NGA - cocked a snook at the employers' "law and order" by defying a previous injunction, Greenpeace was told it was lucky not to face the sequestration of its whole assets.

No doubt the judge who inflicted this heavy fine was looking with one eye at the increasingly strident opposition to the government's nuclear dumping policy being voiced by some of Britain's main transport unions - the National Union of Seamen, the TGWU and ASLEF.

Last summer joint action by these unions brought a halt to deep-sea dumping of atomic waste in the Atlantic. Now the NUS is threatening to hold up shipments of waste from Dounreay in Scotland to Windscale unless there is a cutback in the outflow of waste into the sea. This kind of pressure has produced a significant retreat by the government, which has now agreed to suspend the seadumping of low-level waste -such as contaminated clothing, laboratory materials and building debris - pending an independent investigation involving both TUC and government participation.

This is important: but the pause in dumping will not halt the flow from the Windscale pipeline. And high level waste continues to accumulate, with the Tories now planning to store it above ground in special contains for the next 50 years.

Leaked

The small-scale accidents that have leaked to the press could yet build into a large-scale disaster, while no safe means of disposing of the lethal wastes have yet been devised. It is high time the labour movement took who want to organise on a class basis have been alienated by the radical separatism of parts of the women's liberation movement; and, not wanting to join the male-dominated heterosexual Labour Party and trade union movement, have become politically isolated.

Women who have braved the cold, often anti-feminist never mind anti-lesbian, waters of the labour movement have often had a hard time.

But on Saturday November 26 women from NALGO, T&G ACTSS, and Labour Parties in London, Reading and Coventry, met at A Woman's Place in London to set up a brand new lesbian organisation called Labour Movement Lesbians. The new group aims to make lesbians more visible in both the Labour Party and the trade union movement.

There was discussion around the need to join together socialism, feminism, and gay rights, as well as the need to organise on all fronts - with women and with gay men in the labour movement, as well as with other lesbians.

It was decided to go all out to draw attention to the group, to action plants torium to halt these nuclear and demand a moraon atomic power producreland!

OVER 100 people attended the 'Ireland: Peace Through Democracy' conference in London on November 26.

The Conference aimed in offer speakers to Labour Parties and trade union branches, and to follow the example set in NALGO and form Lesbian and Gay Groups within other unions.

It is hoped to encourage trade union branches, women's sections, and Labour Party organisations to become supporters of 'Labour Movement Lesbians'.

If you want information on how to join Labour Movement Lesbians, then write to Sara, c/o Feminist Library, Hungerford House, Victoria Embankment, London WC2.

Membership is free to unwaged women. We are asking waged women to pay £5 a year, though maybe not all at once, and there is a donation rate for supporters of £5 for Labour Party organisations and £10 for trade unions. Cheques to be made payable to LML.

The next meeting will be at A Woman's Place, Hungerford House, Victoria Embankmen:

London WC2, on January 22 1984 at 2pm. tion - while there are still green plants growing that do not glow in the dark!

BRUCE ROBINSON reports on a conference discussing solidarity work in the British labour movement.

particular to begin the difficult work of organising on the issue of Ireland in the trade unions, and, despite the relatively low attendance, the conference had some useful results in this area.

After hearing Tony Benn, Ken Livingstone, and Clive Soley, the conference split up into workshops to discuss the situations in different unions and the possibility of organising caucuses to take up the issue at rank and file level. Among the issues discussed was the effective ban on raising the issue in unions like UCATT, NUPE, and the TGWU which have members in the Six Counties.

In the report-back from the workshops, ASTMS members -who have the only permanent union caucus on Ireland existing at the moment - put a reso. lution proposing that delegates from the different unions form a committee to coordinate and back up the work. This was carried overwhelmingly by the conference.

If such a committee is set up, and functions regularly, it will be a considerable step forward. None of the existing organisations active on Ireland - including the Labour Committee on Ireland, which remains a Labour Party members only organisation - has the strength to carry this job alone. A broader committee could however ensure that efforts are coordinated.

Reports of the conference are being prepared for circulation to labour movement organisations. They are available from 'Treland: Peace Through Democracy' ', c/o Socialist Organiser.

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Socialist Organjser» 8 December 1983, Page 3