tory character of the U.S. recovery. For in New York, the across-the-board attack on city workers and the slashing of social services at all levels is being deepened and extended rulers of this country hope that this is The February 2 New York Times York's future as envisioned by the Municipal Assistance Corporation, the banking outfit "They see, according to the Times, La city fewer students in a public and secondary school system that is sharply cut back; a lean hospital complex combining voluntary nonprofit, and doctor-owned proprietary facilities;.. a constantly shrinking labor force; a return to concern for pocket neighborCUT THE A WOMAN'S TO WORK New issue just out. 15p plus 8p p&; from: Socialist Woman, 97 Caledonian Rd, London N
Hundreds of armed Loyalist vigilantes took to the roads and lanes of the North of Ireland last Sunday night, marking the start of the new Loyalist offensive announced in dramatic terms last week by the United Unionist Action Council.
These vigilantes are members of the shadowy Ulster Service Corps (USC), formed largely out of the now disbanded B-Specials and serving members of the Ulster Defence Regiment and Royal Ulster Constabulary. They have received the support of two major Loyalist paramulary orranisations - The Sister Defence Association and the Down Orange Welfare, The Loyalist politicians most closely associated with the USC are lan Paisley and Ernest Baird, both of whom are deputy leaders of the UUUCI The announcement of this new offensive, which has been called the "Save Ulster Campaign', coincided with the release of the May unemployment statmonth saw over 50,000 men and women seume on me core, and altne siens point to an even gloomier picture in the LULUTE The North of Ireland, always a region of high unemployment, has witnessed the loss of some 14,000 jobs this year alone. According to Minister of State Roland Moyle, no fewer than 734 factories have closed down in the five years leading up to last June. Since then the situation has worsened, BASES Among impending closures are three British defence bases, the Rolls-Royce factory at Dundonald, and the Standard Telephones and Cables plants at Monkstown and Inniskillen. These closures will add thousands more to the dole queues. Indeed, very few of the major manufacturing companies in the Six counces are not now facing serious possibilities of closure or large-scale reductions in the workforce As in Britain itself, rapidly rising unemployment has gone hand in hand with wholesale cutbacks in social spending. leading to a dramatic decline in living Since the visit of the Spanish Foreign JOHN MAGEE reports from Belfast standards. The cost of living in the North has risen by some 25 per cent in the last year. While the Catholic working class has as usual borne the brunt of these attacks, the breadth of the present economic crisis has ensured that the Loyalist section of workers have also been severely affected.
When redundancies are made at the Harland & Wolff shipyards, Rolls-Royce and the defence bases-all Loyalist bas tions - it is of course Protestant workers who are thrown out of their jobs. Nor is the Protestant working class immune to the severe decline within the educa. tion and health services.
UNEMPLOYMENT In the back-streets of East Belfast and the Shankill, the scourge of unemployment is now as feverishly debated as is the war against the Provos. The number of workless is widely expected to reach the unprecedented level of 80,000 by next Christmas; while Catholies have been intimidated out of jobs, many Loyalist workers now recognise that Taig-baiting alone will not provide jobs for the Loyalist brethren. But in looking for additional solutions, the Loyalist working class has been dogged ov ure moecision and by indecision and confusion.
From one corner they have heard that the economic crisis results from a deal struck between the British Government and the Provos - Britain is pulling out, and the economic rundown is mere ly a prelude to military withdrawal and surrender to the Republicans. From another corner they are told that the British Government is following a policy of ec onomic blackmail in an attempt to force the Loyalist politicians into line behind Vanguard leader Bill Craig's plans for a coalition government. From the trade unions they hear nothing but vague calls for opposition to sectarianism and abstract appeals for working class unity.
The call to action issued by Paisley and Baird is designed to take advantage of this confusion to pose as a clear answer to the dilemma of the Protestant workers, in the restoration of the ascendancy. Paisley & Co argue that the economic ills cannot be treated until the security issue is decided, the IRA celested vice Corps is designed not to produce a major confrohtation with the British majority Convention report and to provide a pole for Loyalist regroupment It represents a shot across the bows of the British Government, and comes at a time when anger is mounting within the current Provisional IRA campaign against the police. to these developments has been muted.
Red Weekly 3 June 1976 The mobilisation of the Ulster SerDapse or the convention.
to noting the Loyalist population at the success of Reaction in the Catholic community I for some years There is a tendency to dismiss the Ulster Service Corps' plans as an empty gesture, a tendency encouraged by the lack of an Armageddon following the coll But in the Six Counties, Loyalist warnings rarely lead The vigilantes who appeared last week end demonstrate that the Loyalist Action Council is not the empty shell that many observers labelled it when it was first established in February of this year. The British Government and the anti-Unionist population may well face the nasty shock of the hottest summer Ireland/Italy/Spain 7 Since 1968 three sizeable organisations nave been built to the lett of the Com munist Party in Italy. They are Lotta Continua (Permanent Struggle), PdUP (the Party of Proletarian Unity), and Avanguardia Operaia (Workers" Vanguard).
Together with the rest of the revolu tionary left these parties have a consid erable influence on a growing section of workers wild are looking for an alterna tive to the left of the Communist Party It was out of this situation that the demand arose for a united revolutionary list for the elections on 20-21 June.
Each organisation has about the same influence - each has a daily paper. So those workers who have broken from the reformist parties but owe no particular allegiance to any of these three far left organisations would have been faced with an impossible choice if there had been separate lists. Many could have been forced back into the ranks of the reformist parties.
Slate Furthermore, a division into separ ate slates could well have meant that no organisation to the left of the Communist Party would have polled a sufficient percentage to gain any seats in Parliament.
PdUP and Avanguardia Operaia came to an agreement to run a common list under the name of Democrazia Proletaria" (Proletarian Democracy); but Lotta Continua was to be left out. There was a strong reaction from the base of these organisations, however, against having two separate lists.
Militants in the factories, women's groups, and tenants committees sent resolutions to the leaderships of PUP, AO, LC and other far left organisations calling for a united list. Finally the dUP leadership was forced to reverse its earlier decision and agree to a comMOn ISI This does not mean that there is a possibility of organisational unity on the revolutionary left - or that this would be desirable. What is important is that there will now be a clearly coun terposed alternative in the elections to the government of national unity prop
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Army, but rather to apply pressure on the Labour Government to accept the