Thinking of fighting the Government's curs and unempiovment porcies ov occupying your factory, sitting-in at your college, or squatting empty property? Well, the authorities have already thought of that. And if they can ram through their proposals for a new Crim ina! Trespass Law then these forms of struggle are going to become very much more difficult.
So far such actions have merely conStituted a civil ottence -- meanine tnau the owner has to go to court (a lengthy and sometimes unsuccesstul process or that the conspiracy laws have to be invoked (and they are becoming rather discredited after the cases of the Iberian 19, the BWNIC 14, and the Iranian 21). in a situation were bia strugoles tnreaten such measures become a very inadequate defence for the ruling class.
So it is now proposed to make every form of occupation a criminal offence. Squatting will become illegal and squat ters liable to six months imprisonment ractor occupations where the workers refuse to leave when 'ordered' or where a security guard claims that he/she was intimidated by the occupiers will be broken up by the police. The spectacle ot police on campuses (as at Essex and Warwick last year) will become a frequent occurrence. bemonstrations and DIcK ars Decause manv or inese take olace on 'private property) will be threatened.
Quite clearly the propusals represent a grave attack on the working class But the ruling class is undoubtedly hoping that they will slip through without too much fuss because any publicity Inat is aiven to mem will concentrate on their use against squatters, relying on the campaign of lies and distortions about squatting recently organised by the gutter Press.
So far there has been only limited our movement. The only serious fight Against the Criminal Trespass Laws. As a result or their campaion a number oT trade unions have passed resolutions of total opposition to the proposals.
opposition into action on a large scale is 28 February. We urge all our readers to suppont this march. which assembles at loo Station). opposition to the proposals from the labZo cereat.
back has been organised by the Campaign The first attempt to co-ordinate this a demonstration in London this saturday.
1.30pm at Belvedere Road, S.E.1. (Water- needed. Another useful agitprop play, with confused politics but vivid dramatic form, will be on tour in Yorkshire and Scotland in March. At present showing at London's Oval House until 29 February. Foco Novo's Nine Days and Saltley Gates sets out to be a dramatic comparison of the General Strike and the 1972 miners' strike. Untortunately the theme or the play - Inat te mass action tnat closed tne saltie coke depot in 1972 was 'revenge' for the defeat of 1926 - is in itself too tenuous and banal, so that the play is weighed down from the start by political confusion. This is only partly remedied by a cast which actually conveys working class convic tion, and a production which slickly and skilfully zips through its narrative.
Throuch almost total lack of analvsis of the 1972 victory, the shorter Saltle scenes appear only as gratuitous and reassuring antidotes to the pessimism of the •ine ouik or the biav is taken up witn ine events or ivay szo. as seen through the prism of 'Filworth Trades Council". The ideological struggles which the wider strike involved are mirrored in the debates between the revolution aries, the leftward moving vanguard, the bureaucracy, and the openly right-wing member. But the debates are shallow, the words mere slogans Although this is a play with many weaknesses, it does touch squarely on most of the problems of a mass strike situation. As such it could be a vital stimulus to debates in the labour movement about similar situations to come. But that didn't happen at the Oval House - there was no discussion between actors and audience which negates half the function of such productions. When you see it in the com ing weeks, insist on a discussion, and keep on insisting - such a debate is vitally
LANDE Red Weekly 26 workforce. As the bite, demand for evitably falls, and on the labour for Even those areas remained stable a under pressure, st Office.' The CIS repor! with examples fro ate and public sec its analysis - text machine tools, ca nationalised indus looked at in deta dead the great in that Wilson and F desperately peddi