Conference initiative to organise
Socialist Organiser1981 1981-10-22Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 13 →
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the national unemployed conference on at Goldsmiths College Students Union, gates are welcome from all unemployed Leicester UWU, 0533 898324.
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Fill in the form below and send it to: Socialist Organis THE POTENTIAL size foi an organisation of the unemployed to fight for the rights of the unemployed and for jobs is now over 3 Launch:
If you want to build such movement, then you should come to the conference organised in London next Saturday 31st and Sunday Ist to launch a national unemployed workers' movement.
At the moment the official trade union movement has a hostile or passive attitude towards organising the unemployed. The largest union in the country, the TGWU, offers unemployed workers looking for a fightback a place in a holding branch which never meets for 38p a week. This is of course under review - at the next T&G Rules Revision conference, in four years time.
We obviously need to build a mass organisation of unemployed workers which the TUC cannot ignore. That's what this conference is about.
On the first day there'l be discussions through workshops on the main questions facing the unemployed and AFTER throwing well over three million people onto the dole the Thatrher ant. ernment has already begun the process of cutting the benefits to which they are entitled.
In his last budget, Chancellor Geoffrey Howe anounced that • benefits would no longer rise with inflation, but rise at five per cent less than the rise in the cost of living.
This vicious attack on the MICK LIGI October 31 New Cross, groups: for YOP workers. After the riots the unemployed workers' movement has to turn that anger into organised action.
The position of ethnic minorities will be discussed. The myth of the 'immigrants having all the jobs' is smashed by the figures for unempl oyment among black youths in Brixton - 60 per cent. We unemployed was linked to the abolition of earnings related cannlement for those lau appea made redundant - a measure which takes effect in January. Earnings related supplement has been worth an average £9 to fIl per week to 500,000 workers every year.
On top of these cuts, the Cabinet is now discussing moves to slash in half the planned increase in unempl oyment benefit and social :INS previews /November 1, London. Dele details phone must organise against the discrimination that takes place among the few jobs that exist, and fight for black workers and youth to organise.
Women's unemployment will be on the agenda. Not only do the Tories deny women the right to work, they also deny women's unsecurity, and to tax all social security benefits.
The aim is to save £860 million - at the expense of the poorest and most oppressed sections of the working class.
• Only by organising in and alongside the labour movement can the unemployed fight back against this attack: that underlines the • importance of the October 31 conference. employment, keeping over half a million unemployed women off the official lists.
Relate
Lee Jeans gave the whole labour movement a lesson in occupying their factory, and showed that women will fight back.
The conference will also debate how to relate the unemployed workers' movement to the official trade union movement, and the health service and unemployment.
There will be speakers from BL, who go on strike On the march in Blackpool GET the next day, and trom Staffa Engineering, as well as other workers in struggle.
From the conference a national steering committee will be elected to coordinate the work in the coming months.
We've got two real choices concerning unemployment. We can sit back just like the TUC do, while the unemployed are becoming more demoralised and the fascists are growing; or we can fight to build a movement that can have a voice among the unemployed and force action alongside the employed against the Tories. DALL wish ....Phone ........ TU....
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