Turkish Junta kills leftists kils leftists

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Bitter lessons of Taff Vale Tebbit and Trade Union Thousands demonstrate for cheap fares last Saturday. Unite to fight! - back page NO FIGHT - and no dis- O FIGHT - and no dis cussion of a fight.

That is the prospect on offer to the workers' movement from the TUC as Norman Tebbit drives his vicious anti-union Bill through Parliament.

A 'conference of union executives' has been called by the TUC for April 5 in Wembley. But the sole proposal to that conference - in which no rank and file member will have had any voice whatever - is the TUC's 8-point plan' which envisages only feeble protest before the Bill is passed, and is equivocal about the possibility of any action afterwards.

Obstacle No amendments or alternative resolutions will be allowed - even from unions such as the GMWU which have argued within the TUC for a more radical line of opposition.

Once adopted, these 8 points will be paraded as TUC policy - and become a major obstacle to a serious fight to stop the Tebbit Bill becoming law.

But as yet there is little sign of any such fight. Almost without exception the whole of the trade union and Labour bureaucracy, — 'left' and right alike - has renounced any intention of mobilising strike action to defend the unions.

"Progressive"

An indicator of this is the attitude of the SouthEast Region TUC, whose leadership prides itself on its 'progressive' image.

SERTUC has always had a leaflet, a lobby and a conference for every occasion and campaign - from childcare to the construction industry. Now it is convening a conference on the Tebbit Bill for April 3.

Speakers will be carefully chosen to ensure they have not been near a strike or occupation in the last few years - unless to sell it out. They will splutter the usual phrases about the campaign', insisting 'we must show them we mean business' ', and calling upon us to 'educate and mobilise our members'.

But mobilise them to do Rank and file delegates will have no say in deciding on that activity - and SERTUC's leadership is already on record as firmly opposed to strike action or even a withdrawal of cooperation with the Tory government.

The chair at last Saturday's meeting of SERTUC called limply for a heavy salvo' to be 'fired across the Tory bows' salvu And when Oxford County A-sociation of Trades Councils delegate Anne Marie Sweeney spoke out criticising the weakness of the TUC's 8-point plan, she came under heavy attack from SERTUC secretary Jack Dromey..

Her correct demand was for a break-off by the unions from all talks and joint committees with the Tories, and for the TUC to call a one-day General Strike and lobby of Parliament on the day of the Tebbit Bill's second reading, as preparation for all-out action to defeat the Bill.

Dromey branded such policies as 'infantile ultraleftism'. He poured scorn on the idea that there is *a mass revolutionary membership in the trade unions held down by just a bureaucratic handful' • He argued that unlike 1972 the working class today is 'demoralised and broken' unwilling to fight.

As proof', Dromey referred to the May 14 Day of Action of 1980, and denounced all talk of one-day strike action as idle words*.

Nothing could more clearly sum up the real position of the TUC leaders. Far from attempting to mobilise their members to fight the Tebbit Bill, they are in fact opposed to any call for serious action To argue that the working class is 'broken' is to admit in advance that the official TUC campaign against Tebbit is simply a facade behind which defeat has already been conceded.

Militancy

Nor do Dromey and his fellow full-time officials have an accurate assessment of the strength of the working class. The solid ASLEF struggle, the stubborn strike at Heathrow, and the occupations and strikes against closures in BL and in Scotland indicate an underlying - frustrated -militancy on the shopfloor, which has found no real reflection in the TUC bureaucracy. And despite all the betrayals they have suffered, workers have never yet refused to follow when called out officially on strike.

May 14 1980 was of course never an official strike call - the TUC opposed strikes. But nevertheless that day saw over 500,000 workers take strike action against Prior' s law.

Far from idle words' the demand for action now is the only. serious perspective to defeat Tebbit. The fight for a one-day General Strike now could put the whole workers' movement on a war footing, preparing the necessary awareness for an all-out General Strike to defend the unions and defeat the Tory attack.

Coupled with such a fight must go the fight to force trade union and Labour leaders to break off all links and collaboration with the Tories, and to struggle on every possible front to obstruct, harass, and defeat this vicious govern- PHOTO: JOHN HARRIS ment.

We urge every reader to put forward resolutions to this effect in their trade unions and Labour Parties.

For Dromey and his fellow bureaucrats, the talk of a 'broken working class' is simply, a cynical ploy. But if the movement is not to suffer the most demoralising and avoidable kind of defeat at the hands of Tebbit, the fight for action must be taken up at once. THREE left wingers were Isvan has been repeathanged last weekend by edly tortured during his Turkey's vicious military imprisonment without junta. charge. He is expected to The Generals also be accused of supporting announced that the for- the left wing trade union mer Mayor of Istanbul, confederation DISK Ahmet Isvan will stand 52 of whose leaders are trial - after 16 months currently on trial facing in jail. possible death sentences.

A further 132 leaders of Isvan's Republican People's Party - which won 43% of the votes in the last elections in Turkey - are also likely - page 11 to face charges, as the junta moves firmly to Democracy repress all forms of democratic opposition. - page 13 The RPP leader, former Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, has just been released from a 2month prison term for the 'crime' of speaking to the foreign press.

The repression in Turkey is directed of course primarily at the workers movement and democratic opponents of the Evren junta.

Jail sentences Leaders of the banned teachers' union Tob-Der have recently received hefty jail sentences averaging 8-9 years for their union activities.

All the more important therefore that socialists rally support and sponsorship for the speaking tour by exile Turkish trade union leaders and democrats being organised in the next two weeks by the Turkey Solidarity Campaign.

Details - pages 3 and 14 LEGAL GIC

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Socialist Organiser, Thursday 18 March, 1982

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