Between
Wednesday 23
and Friday 25
of September supporters of Socialist Appeal could be found running a
stall outside the University of Leeds – bringing the ideas of
Marxism onto the campus. The comrades sold 24 copies of the new
Socialist
Appeal
all-colour paper over the three days as well as other literature,
whilst collecting the details of more than 60 people interested in
helping to build a Marxist society on campus capable of campaigning
around issues which affect students – such as the fact that
thousands of this year’s students are getting their maintenance
loans late thanks to the incompetence of the privatised loans
company.
The week’s events culminated in a meeting on Friday
afternoon entitled “Workers and Students fight back against the
crisis!” As the Marxists have not yet established a presence at the
University, the meeting was held in the back room of a pub some
distance from the campus. Nevertheless 20 people attended including
students from Leeds University, the Metropolitan University and a
number of workers.
Socialist
Appeal supporter and
member of Leeds Trades Council, Luke Wilson, began by talking
about the plight of the city’s refuse workers. They are currently
fighting attempts by Leeds City Council to slash their pay by a
whopping £6000 (off of an average salary of £18,000). He explained
that the Liberal-Tory councillors are making despicable use of
equality legislation to attack these workers. The law, which has been
in place for the past 12 years, makes sexual discrimination leading
to wage differentials illegal. Many occupations are female dominated
(such as dinner ladies, cleaners etc.) whereas other occupations are
largely male dominated (including refuse workers). The council have
used these laws not to raise the wages of female workers up to the
standard of their male counterparts but to push the wages of male
workers down to those of the lowest paid female workers in the name
of “fairness”. Beyond these attacks however there are no plans by
Leeds City Council to use these savings to otherwise improve services
– they are simply making the “street scene” service more
attractive for private investors.
As
Luke explained, a law is just a bit of paper and it’s only as good
as the authority that’s applying it. Many bin men and their
families are threatened with losing their homes if the council
succeed in their attacks and so they have been forced to take
indefinite strike action. Luke drew lessons from the recent
victorious Lindsey Oil Refinery dispute where workers openly defied
the Thatcherite anti-union laws which govern balloting and picketing
and are designed to prevent effective action. In cases where unions
go beyond the limits of the law the government theoretically has the
power to go as far as sequestering a union’s funds. They know
however that this would only lead to the escalation of the strike –
which is the last thing they want. The students showed a deep
interest in the struggle of the bin men, which was reflected in the
depth of the questions from the floor.
Luke
was followed by Greg Oxley, a Communist Party of France activist and
editor of La
Riposte
(Socialist Appeal’s French sister newspaper) who drew the lessons
for workers in struggle from the events of May 1968 in France –
perhaps the biggest general strike in history. As Greg explained, the
60’s were a period of economic upswing which lead to relative
social peace in much of Northern Europe. In many Southern European
countries however there existed brutal military dictatorships. There
had also been a coup attempt in France in 1958 which had propelled
General de Gaulle to power. This regime had such an anti-working
class programme that it went as far as to organise murders and
rapists from the prisons into fascist militias (under the
respectable-sounding banner of the Service d’Action Civique, SAC) for
use against French workers and students. On 11
May students from the largely working class University of Nanterre
demonstrated against the violence of the SAC and were met with
repression by the official police force.
The
leaders of the CGT (Communist trade union) were reluctantly forced to
call a one day general strike against the repression. The power of
the general strike was such that the following day many sections of
the working class stayed out and called on their fellow workers to
join them. Over the following days the number of strikers continued
to rise, peaking at 11 million (out of a total working population of
19 million)! Greg dismissed the intellectuals who now, as then, have
written off the working class. If they could look up from their desks
they might ask themselves who built these buildings? Where did
electricity come from? Who built this chair, this cup or this table?
The working class are everything and nothing moves without their say
so. Following the one day general strike French workers had a taste
of this power. Sensing the game was up, the politicians were forced
to flee their ministries and de Gaulle left the country. De facto
power lay with the working class. Tragically the working class were
equipped with a “Communist” leadership who were unwilling to take
power. Instead they argued that the strike began on economic demands
and must end on economic demands – and the capitalists were only
too willing to make concession after concession when the very
foundation of their privilege was under threat.
Following
Friday’s successful meeting many students have agreed to meet up
again on Tuesday to plan the launch of a Marxist Society which can be
active in both Universities and in the wider city – fighting
against the effects of the crisis of capitalism on students and
workers and promoting the ideas of Marxism.
