Where we stand Solidarnosc on show

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* Organise the left to beat back the Tories' attacks! No to labour movement. Organise full support for black interference in our unions! No to any wage curbs. Labour attacks on union rights; defend the picket-line; no state must support all struggles for better living standards and Support all demands to weaken them as a bosses' striking * The capitalist police are an enemy for the working class. force: dissolution of special squads (SPG, Special Branch, increases. For a price index calculated by working class * Wage rises should at the very least keep up with price *Free abortion on demand. Women's equal right to work and full equality for women. Defend and extend free state organisations, as the basis for clauses in all wage agreements of living for the working class. The same inflation-proofing to provide automatic monthly rises in line with the true cost * Against attacks on gays by the state: abolish all laws which discriminate against lesbians and gay men; for the right of the should apply to state benefits, grants and pensions. gay community to organise and affirm their stand publicly. * Fight for improvements in the social services, and against cuts. Protection for those services against inflation by auto- matic inflation-proofing of expenditure. For occupations and * The Irish people - as a whole - should have the right to determine their own future. Get the British troops out now! Repeal the Prevention of Terrorism Act. Political status for supporting strike action to defend jobs and services. * End unemployment. Cut hours, not jobs. Fight for a 35 * The black working people of South Africa should get full Irish Republican prisoners as a matter of urgency.

for a programme of useful public works to create new jobs without loss of pay. Organise the unemployed - campaign support from the British labour movement for their strikes, struggles and armed combat against the white supremacist regime. South African goods and services should be blacked.

* li is essential to achieve the fullest democracy in the labour movement. Automatic reselection of MPs during each parliament and the election by annual conference of party leaders. * Defend all jobs! Open the books of those firms that threat- en closure or redundancies, along with those of their suppl- Annual election of all trade union officials, who should be iers and bankers, to elected trade union committees. For * The chaos, waste, human suffering and misery of capitalism nationalisation without compensation under workers' occupation and blacking action to halt the closures. For now - in Britain and throughout the world - show the urgent need to establish rational, democratic, human control over the economy, to make the decisive sectors of industry hospitals, not a penny for 'defence'! Nationalise the banks labour movement lies in the rank and file. Our perspective social property, under workers' control. The strength of thr and financial institutions, without compensation. End the must be working class action to raze the capitalist system interest burden on council housing and other public services. down to its foundations, and in put a working class socialist alternalive in its place - rather than having our represent* Scrap all immigration controls. Race is not a problem: atives run the system and waiting for crumbs from the tables Fact is. The labour movement must mobilise to drive the fascists off the streets. Purge racists from positions in the conditions. for the unemployed. management.

* Freeze rents and rates. defence. Build workers' defence squads.

MI5, etc.), public accountability, etc.

nursery and childcare provision. paid the average for the trade. of the bankers and the bosses: selfitem concerning the Solidarnose exhibit in the British Library (on page 13 of issue 62) may be interested to learn the following.

The article was taken from the latest newsletter of the CPSA branch, which though it is distributed to members only is nevertheless read avidly by management whenver they can get their hands on it. It can thus be no coincidence that shortly after the newsletter was circulated, (PSA heard of a sudden "U-turn' by the library management: they were now going to publicise the exhibition after all!

Doubtless the threat by OPSA to advertise it in spite of Sir Harry Hookway's ruling put the wind up a management eager to avoid embarrassment. • As to the display itself, though it consists of only two cases of material, it is still well worth more than a casual glance... even from those of us who can't speak Polish.

Among 3, 1981) Tygodnik of Solidarnosc 'Solidarity Weekly' ' the chief newspaper of the movement -as well as examples of regional newspapers and workplace bulletins.

Perhaps the most interesting of the latter is the bulletin of the Institute of Nuclear Research at Swierk: it's printed on the back of computer print-outs! (Many of these unofficial publications suffer from a chronic shortage of paper, and often THE TRANSITIONAL PROGRAM FOR REVOLUTION LEON TROTSKY 30p from Socialist Organis 28 Middle Lane, London I Any socialists passing through Bloomsbury in the near future should certainly make their way to the King's Library of the British Museum. Ignore the illuminated manuscripts, Magna Carta, and other keepsakes of the Ruling Class: come and have a gander at a genuine piece of modern Working Class history.

MIKE GRAYSON, CPSA, British Library. 5:00

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, Socialist Organiser no.64 December 3, 1981 Pag JOE Gormley, the right wing President of the National Union of Mineworkers, is retiring on April 4, 1982. On December 2, 3 and 4 the NUM membership are voting in a pithead ballot to decide his successor.

The next ten years are going to be vital ones for the miners - with new technology, pit closures, the new super pits, demanning, and nuclear energy. The grovelling and conciliation of Gormley will have to go.

What the miners achieved in 1972, 1974 and in early 1981, was, more often than not, achieved against Gormley as well as the Tories and the NCB.

Exclude This election campaign is probably one of the longest in trade union history. Mr Gormless has been saying on and off for the past few years that he will be retiring soon. At one point he deliberately extended his stay in office to exclude Mick McGahey, the Soots miners' leader and a mem ber of the Communist Party, from becoming his successor. (NUM rules stipulate that no-one over the age of 55 can stand for National Official).

He has also hung on for so long in order to try to find a right wing candidate to oppose Arthur Scargill, who announced his intention to stand for the president's job some time ago. It has been in vain - instead of one unified candidate of the Right, there are three.

Scargill has so far made all the running, and continues to do so. The camWill Scargill (left) replace Gormley?

Bell is the head of the white collar section of the NUM, the Colliery Office Staffs Association (COSA), and the appointed head of the NUM's industrial relations department at headquarters in Euston Rd, London. He is a consistent right-winger on the NEC.

Rare

Bell, like Scargill, hails from Barnsley. He worked underground as a fitter before getting out via the academic circuit. A few diplomas and certificates later, he ended up in his present position at Euston Rd in 1967. As a 'backroom boy', Bell has had a large Healey.

The Sheffield Morning Telegraph described him as 'an amiable man' According to Fleet Street publicity handouts (Sun, Daily Star, Daily Express, etc.), Ray Chadburn, the second candidate, went down the pit at the age of 17. He then studied economics and industrial relations at Nottingham university.

He worked underground as an electrician at Welbeck Colliery and became fulltime agent in 1977. Chadburn wants (bet you've never heard this before!) 'meaningful negotiations rather than confrontation'. He is not anxious to extend nationalisation, and he supported the introductby the Cumberland Area, which consists of one pit of 914 members.

The third candidate of the Right, and here we progress trom pantomime to farce, is Bernard Donaghy. Once again cries of 'Who..?' were heard in the coalfields, for Donaghy is hardly known outside his area.

He is the Area Agent for Lancashire, a position he took up in 1972. He is being portrayed as the middle of the road candidate by the media. Most miners know little about him or his record. He too is an 'amiable man' It seems highly unlikely that any of the three right wing candidates will beat Scargill. Their only hope is that under the single transferable vote system employed by the NUM, the election will go to a second round and the Right wili Scargil enough votes to pip Scargill has prepared his campaign very well, and has secured nominations not just from the militant areas but also from areas usually regarded as moderate, such as Durham, Leicestershire, and of course Chadburn's Nottinghamshire.

In all, Scargill has the nominations of 12 areas, representing 200,000 miners out of a total of about 240,000. (Of course, an area nomination does not commit the individual members).

Scargill has been on an extensive tour of the coalfields, speaking to large and enthusiastic audiences in most places. His pamphlet 'Miners in the Eighties' has had a very wide circulation in nearly all pits.

Of the four candidates, Scargill is the only one that any serious miner can vote for.

Failure Scargill doesn't walk on water, and his record has some question marks on it - the rescuemen's strike, the luke-warm response to the February closure struggle (in which Yorkshire lagged behind Wales, Kent and Scotland), and the present failure to support blacking of Laurence Scotts.

The programme on which he is standing, basically contained in the pamphlet 'Miners in the Eighties', argues the reactionary denand for import controls, says little about internal reform in the union (except reform of the NEC, nothing about recall of officials, and nothing about workers' control (which Scargill has in the past totally dismissed). It is vague, to say the least, about what a future Labour government should do.

(For a more detailed John Cunningham (Dinn NUM) reports on the candidates in the miners' presidential election the £100 minimum, the day week, retirement 55, earnings prot ion, etc.

As President of the N Scargill will not hav vote on the NEC, onl casting vote in case of a He will become a pris er of the right wing ma ity on the NEC.

Sway

One of the first t must be to reform the I so that the number of c gates on the NEC is portional to the mem ship in each area. At moment, small areas outvote the big ones, the Right holds sway w 15 to 10 majority:

Equally urgent is need for reform at pit If The branches need ic changed. The present: em of union represe tion is outdated - s system akin to the ! steward set up four manufacturing indi is needed, for at the r ent it is virtually impos to be represented in : spute at the point of F uction (i.e. undergrour Determination This is a tricky sut but needs to be tacklec discussed in the indust A defeat for Scargill be a big defeat for the and file miners, and ( see all the gains of the ten years rolled back.

A vote for Sca however, must be col