[#ROOSTID ARE INA SON herence. on November 27th…]

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#ROOSTID ARE INA SON herence. on November 27th. will be looking al. Register No in cast London • Norkers• FIA WIL STAY NO Bma..... demonstration against deportation of Afia Begum (November 13), a 'Workers Against Racism' speaker dismissed the Labour Party as having done nothing to support the demonstration.

She seemed to have over. looked banners from the Tower Hamlets Labour Party, the YS, and Queen Mary College Labour club, with their contingents forming a third of the march.

Meanwhile, the Trades Council, whose active support ELWAR claimed to have, sent their banner, but nobody to carry it.

Apart from representatives from the Bangladesh Welfare Association, and Afia Begum herself, there were unfortunately few Bangladeshis on the march. The Labour Party support must be used to: help build support from the Trades Council and in the community, where Labour councillors are already working with Bangladeshi councillors and others to fight the effects of racism.

Local Labour Party activists have continually approached East London Workers Against Racism, proposing to work together. action necessary in support of: workers victimised, or of the ancillaries' action.

Messages of support to: R.Basford (NUPE), c/o NUPE offices, 413 Beverley Rd, Hull; and copy to M.Wheaton, County Hall, Beverley.

P.S. Although it was agreed that the cut in hours was to be with no loss in pay, when kitchen staff opened their pay packets this week they found some differences.

While lower-paid "grades received 4p or Sp more, higher grades had had a pay cut. They are no longer receiving the qualification allowance previously negotiated with the county council.

Whether this is by accident of design remains to be seen.. AS LABOUR women we are slowly winning the fight to democratise. the Labour woren's organisation, and turn it out towards the women active in their wards and women's sections. It is through the hard work of groups like Women's Fightback that this radical change is beginning to take place.

We have achieved success at women's section and council level r even at some regional conferences, and national women's conference. But now our paths are being blocked.

Over two dozen motions and amendments focusing on four main demands for more power and status for women in the Labour Party were defeated at national conference. Jo Richardson, an ardent campaigner for women in the Labour Party; has been thrown off the NEC and thus lost the chair of the NEC women's committee. • The successful women's sub-committee is also at risk. The NEC now have eight representatives on the National Labour Women's Committee - instead of six. And even the national Labour Women's Conference is under attack: its conference arrangements committee actually has feminists on it, and it may propose changés that will be met by the closure of the whole women's. conference by the right-wingers on the National Labour Women's Committee.

In reply to all this, Women's Fightback is organising our second national conference for Labour women.

'Thete will be workshops on women in the Labour Party Young Socialists; Women, Labour and Racism; the setting up of council . Women's Committees and how they can be used to help women influence local council budgets; the motions we should prioritise for next year's national women's conference; and how we can organise in women's sections and councils.

A workshop is also being organised on how to take our fight into the unions. The majority of us belong to " unions which don't even pay lip-service to women's demands. We must continue our arguments in the unions. The fight. cannot continue in the Labour Party alone: we also need to educate union members.

The afternoon theme for the conference will be how to fight for an autonomous Labour women's organisation - with its own identity and the power to run its own campaigns.

Our fight needs to be taken up and supported by every woran in the Labour Party who supports change and democracy. Our work should be supported by every Socialist Organiser supporter who works in the Labour Party or a trade union: it's time more women got involved in our struggle, if ever we are going to reach and contact ordinary women in our local communities.

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Angela Brittain reports

Women's Fightback's tions and launched the demands for major ref-