WHAT STRATEGY? Determined leadership can overcome

The emergence of the Trades Councils as the organisers of the "Tx Revolt!! indicated a widespread discontent with the leader ship provided by the ICTU (Irish Congress of Trades Unions). The growing gap between the rank and file and the top bureaucracy of the unions is further underlined by the fact that throughout the 70s nearly two-thirds of all strikes have been sanofficial, The response of the ICTU to this crisis of leader ship has been to wave the big stick. At ire July annual conference proposals were put forward by the executive to deprive the Trades Councils of voting rights and =a'pport legal action against unsanc-— tioned stoppages, To justify these measures the union leaders blame "outsiders!" and "militants!! for the growing discontent of the rank and file. The driving force of the escalating strike wave has a much more obvious explanation however. Take the following figures issued by the Economic and Social Research Institute:

COMPOUNDED ANNUAL AVERAGES 1971 -— 1977 Real Take Home Pay 1.7% Industrial Employment 0 Industrial Output 4,2 GNP per Person at Work 3.4 What these figures show is that productivity and wealth have increased considerably faster than wages and jobs, In short, workers have not been getting a fair deal. This is the real cause of rank and file discontent in the unions, TAX REVOLT-WAGE REVOLT The tax revolt therefore was in essence a revolt against the NWAs, The trade union leader snip understood this well enough and was careful to keep the question of wages and taxation distinctly separate, Taxation was not posed as part of the conflict between Labour and Capital, but was transformed into an urban versusrural conflict. Instead of being used at the cutting edge of wage demands it was shunted off to a toothless Commission on Taxation, By separating wage demands from tax reform the trade union leadership have managed, if only for a while, to contain the tax revolt, and to save the concept of NWAs, Now that the tax problem has been referred to the Commission on Tax there is no practical focus for campaigning exists, Moreover the union leaders are preparing the rank and file for a sell-out, At the ICTU conference the only precondition layed down for the acceptance of the Commission On Tax proposals was the introduction of an unspecified wealth tax. Suggestions for retaining the 45% Corporation Tax indexation of tax allowances, etc were thrown out. tion for the restoration of a H Block struggle). People's Democracy pays tribute to Miriam Daly, -a brave anti-imperialist, a leading supporter of' the H Block prisoners, and a tire less defender of the Irish working class. We offer our deepest sympathy to the bereaved husband, family and comrades of Miriam.

Given Miriam!s leading role in the National Smash H Block Committee and the recent murder of John Turnley, we have no hesitation in saying that her murder is part of a campaign of assassination aimed at activists prominent in the political struggle against British rule in Ireland which aims to terrorise the anti-Unionist population in preparaUnionist regime at Stormont. In particular, these murders aim to disrupt the continuing and successful struggle in support of political status (Miriam Daly was re-elected to the National Committee of the Campaign only a fortnight before her murder, and John Turnley was also a prominent supporter of the Peoples Democracy unreservedly condemns this brutal murder and accuses the British government of complicity in it, We believe that the conception of this campaign and the detailed planning and intelligence necessary are beyond the capacity of any of the Loyalist groups, Theirs may be the hand on the trigger, but the brain is that of cy British military intelligence, We warn the British that they are playing with fire, No previous level of murder and oppression has succeeded in defeating the resistance to British rule and this campaign will not succeed, The decision by the British Labour Party to investigate ‘the H Blocks shows that awareness of the struggle is continuing to spread, The only effect of the murders is to increase our determination to fight on, We will make the ruins of the H Blocks a fitting memorial to Miriam Daly, our comrade and friend in the anti-imperialist struggle, NATIONAL COMMITTEE PEOPLES DEMOCRACY

not interested in the dole queues of West Belfast, Strabane or Newry, THE LEADERS FAIL SOCIALIST REPUBLIC PAGE 3

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(which is soon to be reduced to 10%) a "steeply progressive Wealth Tax, "!