Mike Rodney (NALGO)
Last month, Keith Joseph dropped another bombshell. According to the 'guru' of Tory industrial strategy, Black immigrants are the cause of the mounting jobless total. Employers in the cities. it seems. have no incentive to move to depressed areas because of the ready supply of Black 'cheap labour'.
Joseph's novel idea shoul ...... as no surprise. li is mereil the latest installment in a general campaign haunched by the Tories against Black people. Just before the election, Thatcher was warning of the country being swamped by an 'alien culture' and Whitelaw was busy promising new curbs to the 1971 Immigration Act to limit entry still further.
The aim of the campaign - given its latest unsavoury twist in Joseph's speech - is clearly to whip up racist feeling in the labour movement. As the jobless total soars, the Tories hope to pin the anger and resentment on Black immigrants as a convenient "scapegoat'.
CHALLENGE What makes Joseph's outburst dangerous is the fact that, over the years, Labour leaders have done nothing to counter such racist trends. Indeed, far from challenging them, they have tumbled indecently over each other in attempts to introduce ever harsher carbs agpins: Back Wilson's 1965 White Paper and Callaghan's 1968 Commonwealth Immigration Act were introduced with the boast tha: they would do mure to keep Blacks out than anything by Enoch Powell. In the last government, Callaghan was so eager to bring in tighter curbs to the 1971 Act that Alex Lyon - Labour under-secretary - resigned in protest.
Moreover, this cowardly retreat before racist pressure has even seeped into the TUC. Instead of seeking to defend Blacks victimised under the immigration laws, the 1978 Congress actually proposed police and immigration services •..should be afforded substantially more resources to urace overslavers and to tackle all aspects of illegal immigration".
DANGERS The fact that Labour leaders have capitulated to racist moods has the racist immigration laws.
The demonstration clearly showed the potential for building a mass, ongoing campaign that can begin to chalienge the whole logic of Acts which legalise racism in Britain and create the climate off which ultra-right groups (like the NF) feed.
CONFERENCE The conference held in London on March 22nd was designed to do Joseph's speech will incite attacks like these on Black people. created the danger that, in the could fall victim to demagogues like Joseph and see Blacks not as allies but as a threat to wages and jobs.
years. The struggle at the Red Star Textile Mill in Preston in 1965 is a classic case of the threat to the to ram through a deal increasing department by 50%. While the majority of workers in that section white workers backed by local the action, claiming it was racially inspired'.
SET - BACK The result was not only that the that, only a short time after, the up proposals - to accept similar conditions.
ACTION Key among these was support for the April 27th demonstration in Southall - called to commemorate Blair Peach - and support for the Bradford Asian Youth Movement's 'March for Freedom' on June 28th.
Building actions such as these, it was felt, would help to gain publicity for the aims of CARL and draw wider layers around it.
LOCAL GROUPS strike"
UNIQUE? working conditions.
difficult years ahead, white workers the picnet ares a number of examples over the past UNITY IN ACTION "Our struggle has taught us also that Black workers must never for a moment entertain the thought of separate Black unions. They must join the existing unions and fight through them. Where unions fail in their duties to Black workers, they must be challenged to stand up for their rights. The union is an organisation of all workers, regardless of race, colour or sex. We believe in the unity of the working class. This unity must be solidly established in deed and not only in words. It is the main task of the trade union movement to create this unity".
(Statement issued by the Asian Workers' Strike Ctte after the Imperial Typewriters' Dispute)
In other words, by playing on racial prejudice in white workers (and the union officials), the employers were able to divide the labour force and carry through a deal which undermined the working conditions of all workers in the mill.
As, indeed, a T&GWU shop steward later recognised, ". by accepting dual standards and giving up trade union principles, the white members of the union allowed the dispute to be turned into a coloured The dispute at the Red Star mill is not unique in this respect. Other examples could be given such as that at Imperial Typewriters nearly a decade later when Asian workers struck against low wages and poor The employers were able to defeat the strike because, once again, local union officials refused to back it and because white workers were active!! encouraged to cross develop on a mass scale. By playing on racial prejudice to divide and rights, legalises racism in Britain.
Far from implementing such acts when in office, the Labour leaders must be forced to abide by Labour conference decisions and repeal them immediately.
CARL Moves in this direction are alread! underway. Last November, CARI (the Campaign Against Racist Laws mobilised over 20,000 in a mass protest against the 1971 Act and Whitelaw's latest proposals. Suppor ing it were not only Black organisations but the Labour Party NEC and over 30 Labour MPs (including Tony Benn who spoke at the rall! i That was a major step forward but still only a step. The aims of CARL have now got to be taken into all trade union and Labour Party branches and the passive 'acceptance' of racism by the lab:.. leaders challenged head-on.
It is only by the labour movemer: noreering the rights of Black pet a against racist threats tire kristes by Kett laser te