LONDON—150,000 people demonstrated November 29 against the policies of Britain's Tory government, in particular the massive rise in unemployment. They gathered in one of the areas of the country worst hit by the present economic recession.
The massive demonstration follows hard on the heals of the recent fight for the leadership of the Labour Party; the Tory government's viciously anti-working-class "mini-budget"; and the victory of the Gardners engineering workers in Manchester who occupied their plant against redundancies [lay-offs]. Two days later, the Fire Brigades Union smashed through the government's two-week-old 6 percent pay limit for public sector employees.
This was one of the biggest labor demonstrations since the early seventies. It was called jointly by the Labour Party and the Trades Union Congress (TUC), and working people travelled from all over Britain to attend.
Although the demonstration had the support of the trade unions, it was the Labour Party that played the main part in organizing the event. This was the reason for the massive turnout from the traditional Labour strongholds in Scotland and the north of the country.
Liverpool Workers Show Their Militancy
For years Liverpool has suffered from mass unemployment. Factory after factory has closed, and whole areas have been turned into industrial deserts. But mass unemployment has not erased the mil itancy of the workers. It was the ordinary people of Liverpool, turning out in their thousands, who made the march such a huge success.
They came from everywhere. From the shops and bars they spotted the nearest Liverpool banner and joined the march. The Liverpool dockers and the Ford Halewood auto plant had thousands behind their banners, as did all the local Labour Party branches.
Rally Reflects Fight in Labour Party
The main speaker was Michael Foot, recently elected leader of the Labour Party in Parliament. Foot is looked on as a "left" leader, and when he appeared on the platform he was cheered by the crowd.
The recent fight inside the Labour Party over the reform of the party's constitution has boosted the confidence of the rankand-file activists. For years they have struggled to elect Labour governments, only to see the right-wing parliamentary delegation ignore the policies of the party conference and implement their own version of Toryism.
Now they see the chance to change this through the election of the parliamentary leader by the rank and file, through selecting parliamentary candidates before each election and ensuring that they are accountable to their local party, and by ensuring that Labour Party conference decisions are carried out by future Labour governments.
Foot, who had supported the demonstration, was elected to the post of parliamentary leader on November 10. He was seen by the trade union leaders as the best figure in the leadership to maintain the unity of the party and to prevent any further drift to the left among the rank and file.
Foot is considered left wing for his outspoken views against the further proliferation of nuclear missiles, and the trade union leaders know that he is the only possible leader who can maintain the party's status quo. He is a compromise between Tony Benn, the candidate of the party's left wing, and Denis Healey, the leader of the party's right-wing members of parliament (MPs).
Irrespective of Foot's bad record on fighting for reforms within the party, or his particular role in the center of the party's hierarchy, his left-wing origins have meant that he is now seen by the mass of the Labour voters as being to the left of the traditional leaders of the parliamentary party.
Boos for Healey, Cheers for Benn
The response of the rally to Healey was totally different. He was widely booed as he made his speech. Some people still remember the failure of the last Labour government to save jobs. Healey, along with the other right-wing leaders, is closely identified in the eyes of the rank and file with these failures.
Tony Benn was given a massive cheer as he called on the next Labour government to carry out socialist policies. Benn did not stand in the election of the parliamentary leader, and has now adopted the role of Foot's main supporter.
All sides in both the trade union and party leaderships now want to call a truce before the rank and file can consolidate their new confidence and force lasting changes in the inner life of the party.
Several trade-union leaders also addressed the rally. When Alan Fisher, leader of the militant National Union of Public Employees, which organizes manual workers in local government and welfare services, called for a general election, the crowd called for a general strike.
The demonstration was the clearest indication yet of the growing anti-Tory movement that is developing under the impact of the economic crisis.
Tories Panic as Recession Continues
The massive attack on working-class living standards contained in the emergency "mini-budget" introduced by Tory Chancellor Geoffrey Howe on November 24 added to the anger of the demonstrators.
In his speech to Parliament, Howe announced that "the recession is far greater than we thought." He then outlined measures centered on further cuts in welfare services, increased taxation for the majority of workers, and a 6 percent wage limit for public sector workers. Almost everyone suffered from the budget measures, but cuts in old people's pensions and state unemployment payments were especially sharp.
The pressure for these emergency mea sures has come from the immediate effects of the economic crisis. Unemployment now stands at 2.16 million according to official government figures. But opposition to government policies from the working class has increased the tensions on the bosses. In addition, sections of manufacturing industry are suffering under the crude monetarism of the Tories. The cutback of state aid to private industry, declining exports due to the high value of the pound, and high interest rates have cut into the profits of core industries.
At the recent conference of the bosses' organization, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), Chairperson Sir Terence Beckett called for a "bare-knuckle" fight with the government to "save industry." This caused some pro-Thatcher employers to walk out of the CBI.
Beckett is an important figure in British industry, and he was previously chairperson of Ford before taking over at the CBI last year. He has continued his criticisms of the government, and on December 3 he announced at a meeting in the industrial West Midlands that industry was carrying too much of the recession burden and that he was disappointed at the low level of Howe's spending cuts.
In an aggressive speech he said that large parts of the industrial base were "disappearing down the plughole faster than we can stop them."
Manufacturing industry output, CBI says, will fall by a total of 14 percent this year and next, compared to an 11 percent reduction during the height of the 1929-31 depression.
Ruling Class Dissatisfied
Increasingly, sections of the ruling class are questioning the policies of the Tories. They are wondering if the Tories will be able to carry out their pledge to break the power of the unions and control the working class. They see the public sector unions remain strong, and while spending on services has fallen for the last six years, they demand further spending cuts to bring the public sector into line with the private sector wage and unemployment levels.
The profits of the capitalists are being eroded through high interest rates and a strong currency. While this continues they refuse to invest, which further fuels the recession. They are disappointed by the paralysis of the cabinet in the crisis, and by the crude monetarist policies of the government.
They are worried that the effects of the recession will seriously hamper the ability of British capital to compete in any future trade upsurge, no matter how limited.
These growing divisions within the traditional base of the Tories are also reflected within the cabinet itself. James Prior, the employment secretary, has been roundly criticized by Thatcher as well as by more right-wing Tory MP's for his soft approach to the trade unions.
Thatcher has demanded tougher laws to curb the power of the unions, while Prior has learned from the failures of past antiunion laws and wants to attack the unions at a much slower pace. This conhas, up until now, been confined within the overall framework of the government's economic policies.
The obvious failures of Thatcher's brand of "monetarism" has brought the debate out into the open, and Prior, along with deposed Tory leader Edward Heath, have started to openly criticize the government's present course.
This open conflict within the ruling class circles has increased the basic mistrust among the working class for the Tories. It is obvious that the government cannot solve the problems of rising unemployment and inflation, and the workers are now looking more and more to their traditional party, the Labour Party, to get them out of the present crisis.
This has reached a new level after the success of the November 29 demonstration and the victory of Foot in the election for leader of the parliamentary Labour Party. Fightback Registers Setbacks and Victories
The response of the workers to the latest Tory attacks has been uneven across the various sectors of the economy. Workers at the engineering factory of Gardners in Manchester occupied the factory and were successful in defending jobs, but unemployment continues to rise across industry.
The Liverpool demonstration was called to protest against unemployment, and it showed that slowly, but surely, there is the beginning of a movement among industrial workers against job loss.
The Fire Brigades Union has smashed through the new 6 percent pay poliey, and there is now an organized rank-and-file opposition to government cuts in the public sector. Over 700 delegates attended a conference sponsored by labor organizations in the London Borough of Lambeth and decided to campaign and organize for militant action against cuts.
But it is the issue of wages that dominates the workplace at this time of the year. All the major unions have submitted wage claims, and are presently awaiting the response of the employers and the government.
Thatcher is pleased with her progress so far in the present round of wage negotiations, and ministers are announcing that it will be "all quiet on the wages front this winter." But the dynamics of the class struggle can spoil the best laid plans of government officials.
In British Leyland, the nationalized car company, the managers have been able to enforce a 6.8 percent pay settlement. This was done with the active assistance of Terry Duffy, the president of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers. He has enforced a similar low settlement on other engineering workers, but the average rise in the industry due to local payments won through the strength of the shop stewards organizations is over 21 percent.
The Leyland settlement comes after years of massive attacks on shop-floor rights, including victimization and sacking of leading militants, speed-ups and changes in work practices, and the demoralizing effects of plant closures. Despite this, British Leyland workers voted by a massive 2 to 1 majority for strike action against the nationalized company, and by implication the government, which had set the limit for wages.
It took the open refusal by the union leaders to act on this vote, both at a plant and national level, for the company to be able to push through the pay settlement.
Two other particularly important incidents were the decision by Ford workers to reject a 9.5 percent offer and the decision of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) to accept 13.8 percent in the current wages round. Both show the uneven and contradictory effect of the recession on the working class.
Militancy at Ford
Ford was one of the first to settle in the current wages round, and it quickly became the pace setter for other private sector firms. Mass meetings around the country rejected the offer, but the union leaders did not recommend any strike action.
Ford workers are in a militant mood. They have seen the company increase its British profits and invest £207 million in its local plants over the last year. Following the example of Fiat in Italy, Ford has introduced robots and other new technology.
Ford workers see the company making profits, and irrespective of threats of plant closures are demanding their share. When the company tried to introduce a new work code, there was immediate strike action at the Halewood plant in Liverpool.
The resistance of the Ford workers rests on the continued strength of the shop stewards system. Terry Duffy, the same leader who acted at British Leyland, has been forced to call for strike action if the company does not agree to implement a thirty-five-hour week by 1984.
Given the uncertainty at Ford, and its impact on other sectors, the government has been highlighting the announcement on December 1 that the national Union of Mineworkers had voted to accept a 13.8 percent pay deal. The NUM has always been a militant union, and the Tories portray its decision as a "vote for moderation."
At first reading, it would appear that the Tories are right. But this is far from the whole truth. What the result showed was that the division between right and left Social Democrats that exists in the labor leadership has a practical effect on the militancy of the workers.
In all the traditionally militant areas, such as Scotland, South Wales, and Yorkshire, the percentage of miners who rejected the deal has increased on successive ballots. The leaders of these areas, notably Arthur Scargill, the Yorkshire miners president and a leading supporter of the Labour Party's left wing, have campaigned against the deal and against Tory propaganda that high wage rises cause unemployment and pit closures.
In the more moderate areas, the right wing used the argument that rejection and possible strike action would result in pit
The different political views of closures.
these latter leaders-they support the right in the Labour Party-was the determining factor, not the lack of any will for a fightback among miners in these areas.
Left-wing leaders of the miners had campaigned for massive pay rises, but the specter of pit closures is dominating the coalfields. The Tories have presented the miners' vote as a huge victory, but the voting is a lot closer when colliery officials and staff, other management grades, and those not directly involved in coal production are removed from the voting totals. Call for "Triple Alliance'
In South Wales there is a call for a new "Triple Alliance" of miners, steelworkers, and rail workers to fight the Tory plans for enforced redundancies and contraction of the nationalized industries.
The pay settlement has not stopped this move. Thousands of miners were on the November 29 demonstration, and their militant traditions will ensure that they play a part in the struggles against the Tories.
Finally, two outstanding victories have again shown that working-class action can defend jobs and living standards. The militant factory occupation of the Gardners engineering factory was a clear victory against the multinational Hawker
Siddley company, which owns Gardners. And the Fire Brigades Union secured their demands through threatening strike action and by mobilizing public support.
of the present working-class response to the recession. As the recession deepens, militant workers will look for solutions from their own mass party.
energetic role of the Labour Party left. The Liverpool demonstration is only the latest in a series of initiatives it has called over the last eighteen months.
demonstration against public sector cuts that attracted 30,000 people. On June 22, it mobilized over 20,000 in a demonstration against nuclear power that greatly accelerated the growing movement for nuclear disarmament. Now it has organized the biggest working-class demonstration for a decade. All this was done through the party's National Executive Committee.
special Labour Party conference, the third
All these struggles show the uneveness
What is new in the situation is the
On November 7, 1979, Labour called a
On January 24, 1981, there will be a in eighteen months, to decide the method for electing the leader of the party. Foot is expected to retain the leadership, and this will boost the mass movement, which views Foot as a left candidate.
Meanwhile, the Tories will have to force through pay settlements on other workers who only have to look to the firefighters to know that they can break Thatcher's 6 percent ceiling. The TUC/Labour Party liaison committee has called for a week of action against the Tories for February, and the government will be trying to attack the public services at the same time as these protests take place.
The November 29 demonstration showed that the labor movement is on the march, despite its confusion and contradictions, and despite the fact that it is hampered by its reformist misleaders.
As Labour National Executive member Jo Richardson told the giant rally, "the only person that I want to see unemployed is Thatcher." That adequately sums up the growing anger of Britain's working people against the Tories.