Socialist Chullenge 7 June pago 12 THE "petrol shortage' is a fraud. The oil companies are simply bolding back supplies fo drive up prices and boost profits even more This practice has become commonplace in the United States. The American Trotskyists of the SWP recently measures to deal with the crisis.
PRESIDENT Carter says the cnergy crisis is 'the moral equivalent of war?. That's the way the oil trust sees it American working people. now grippune the country is the latest offensive in that war.
The rip-off at the petrol pump has outraged workers. That anger has even forced some sections of the governmear to lift a bit of the curtain on what's going on.
Profits • Senator Thomas Eagleton said on 15 May that sixteen major oil companies had made profits on domestically produced crude ranging from 144 per cent to 389 per cent of the cost of production.
• The Federal Trade Commissiop admits it has evidence that oil companies have not made full use of available supplies of crude oil and that 'the current shortage may be contrived' Bur Carterinsists that working people are to bame for the crisis and that the only thing to be done is to give the oil giants the profits they are demanding. Workers should 'use less and pay Despite the refusal of the government to act, the measures needed to meet this crisis are simple, The first thing we need to do is to find out the truth about what is happensne How much of and gas are really in the operation" incustry 1s making! outlined the following Secrecy -as a war against the The petrol crisis On these vita Rockefellers, DEl ownership. industry LUBLING ground? How much oil and gas are in the p pelines or storage tanks right now? What is the real capacity of oil refineries already in What are the real profits the Under the code of capitalist secrecy working people - and even the government crisis are expected to take the word of the companies tacts. Every statistic the Department of Energy has is provided by the oil industry — often on the cundition that it not share the data with other government scencies The labour movement should demand that movement. the books of the energy corpurations be opened to pubic scrutiny. Let's place cvery aspect of tbeir operation under a magnifvine glass!
Lahour should call on the government to take the industry our of the hands of the Gettys, DuPonts, and other private owners and place it under public The petrol shortage is brought to us by che same system of private profit and public misery that brought the skyrocketing meat prices in the pring of 1973; the gas lines in the winter o 1973-74; the natural gas shorlage in Januar and February 1977; and most recently, the nuclear nightmare at Three Mile Island.
25 WEN demanding that the government candidates nationalise che energy industry, lahour can place no confidence in Carter or any government bureaucrat to administer it in accord with our needs. The fight for public ownership should include putting the energy managerent an independent board directly clected by and responsible to the American people.
Workers in the energy industry itself would police the functioning of such a board, making sure that it operated in the open and made all the faces about the industry known. It is these workers, after all, who are in the best position to know when refining capacits isn't being used, when storage tanks are overflowing, und when pumping rates are being kept down Labour's programme 1o meet the cnergy cannot be implemented without strugale, The oil trust represents the single most powcrfulsectorol the American ruline class. It i backed to the hilt by the capitalist government. Against that power. it is necessary to mobilie the power of the organised labour The labour movernent can campaien first of all toget out the truth about what is going on to American people. can organise discussions in union locals. It can publish literature, set up speaking lours, organise picket lines, and help build demonstrations.
Independent Such a campaign will be opposed by the Democratic and Republican parties, which are owned from top to bottom by the oil barons The unions will lind it necessary to confront these capitalist politicians in the political arena by running independent labour If the union movernent stands up to the oil trust and tights the coerey blackmail, it will inspire millions both inside and outside of the labour movement. If it utilises the full power of labour — by forming a party of the working class based un the unions — it can take another giant step 1o the fight-for a society based on human needs, not profits.
In 1895 Jewish trade unionists organised a mecting attacking the