Tatchell slams TUC!

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Speaking to Socialist Or- demned the decisions by to drop demonstrations ganiser this Tuesday, Ber- the TUC General Council and street protests. mondsey Labour candi- and the TUC-Labour date Peter Tatchell con- Party Liaison Committee ael Foot attempted to MANY delegates had great expectations of NUS conference since the leadership of NUS has been very recently rescued from a coalition of Stalinists and Liberal students by the National Organisation of Labour Students, under the control of Clause IV supporters. This was and should be seen as a positive development for NUS, because for the first time NUS has links with the labour movement, NOLS being the official student wing of the Labour Party.

The run up to conference was clouded and dominated by the NUS staff strike during which the majority of the NUS Executive, including NOLS, crossed the picket-line and scabbed by using office equipment.

The strike was an obvious embarassment to NOLS - even the opening remarks of the President were interupted by heckling, and the issue was hostility and disgust at the Executive's strike provoking and scabbing.

Major cracks did appear in NOLS over the reportback of the meeting of the European NUS's. This was a controversial issue at the last Conference earlier this year, but in Margate it blew up. Marek Garztecki, Solidarnosc representative in Britain, spoke to a SSIN fringe meeting the evening before the debate. He described how the Stalinist governments had used the presence of NUS UK to suggest its seal of approval for the actions of the Eastern bloc and in Poland in particular. Marek explained how the gesture of a walkout at the end of the meeting had been a waste of time, because of the censorship of the reports given back.

Solidarnosc In the British report-back ional Union of S ence and on Soc in NOLS (SSIN] debate.

The fight against the Tory-inspired National Advisory Board cutbacks in higher education came up from Manchester Polytechnic which has had great success in its recent occupation. It became quite apparent that the NUS leadership was unprepared or incapable of working at grass roots level against the NAB. Manchester Polytechnic took the initiative by calling a caucus which had the full support of SSIN.

By the close of conference on Monday it was quite clear to socialist delegates that the NUS turn to NOLS was overall beneficial but that the present leadership must go and be replaced by a leadership that is prepared to fight against this Tory government and any other government which is against educational exDespite eviction from their rooms in the hostel (right), strikers at Arlington House in Camden are still strong. They are calling for a mass turnout on a solidarity demonstration this Saturday, 11th, from Sam outside the hostel in Arlingin Road, London VW1. Contact the strike committee Gc/o Camden Labour Centre, 8 Camden Road, London NW1.

(Tel: 485 1100) Tatchell, whom Michblock as Labour candidate because of his. call for 'extra-parliamentary action' , said:

IT IS disgraceful that the TUC is refusing to support the proposed Glasgow-London People's March for Jobs.

Their whole attitude towards the rights of the unemployed has been appalling.

We urgently need a much. stronger and more vigorous labour movement opposition to unemployment both inside and outside of Parlia:

ment, and ir particular we need • to be mobilising the unemployed to fight for their rights and to demand jobs.

ANDREW WIARD (REPORT) Far from driving people away from the Labour Party mass marches against unemployment will give the unemployed and their families a hope that the labour movement is prepared to do something to defend their rights.

If the TUC and the labour movement don't start organising extra-parliamentary action to demand the right to work, then millions of people on the dole are going to feel disillusioned -convinced that the labour movement does not care about their plight. That will surely do more to lose an election than a mass march demanding jobs ever could.

The TUC/Labour Party decisions have also been opposed by the North West regional TUC - which is organising for the Glasgow-London march - by NALGO, and by the TGWU.

But the message from top labour movement leaders to the unemployed and militant workers is: stay off the streets, or you'll give the labour movement a 'negative image' and frighten the voters. as a satisfactory balance of forces with the employers.

Central to these limiting techniques is the exploitation of the political backwardness of the spontaneous rank and file movement. The early craft union leaders reflected and reinforced the elitist sectionalism, the national chauvinism and the sexism of their membership.

The bureaucracy in the labour movement to this day continues to utilise these same weaknesses to divide and limit the working class - leaning almost exclusively on the most privileged sections; largely excluding women and black workers from the life of the unions and from their leading ranks; playing off one section of workers against another; restricting demands to the issues of wages and conditions; and upholding the principle of deference to the economic plight of the employer concerned.

Presiding over and teeding off the organised ranks for social change is a of the most powerful force union bureaucracy profoundly conservative force, preoccupied with its own power and privilege.

The development of today's trade union movement to the point where it is politically and organisationally equipped to do battle against the employers' offensive is first and foremost a struggle to break this bureaucratic stranglehoid.

Continued next week