Belfast Workers

years of hard work by individual trade unionists.

The, Trade Union Subcommittee of the Belfast H Block/Armagh Committee took the initiative. Formed at the start of the campaign, its membership never expanded beyond left-wing trade unionists who had been involved with the defunct Trade Union Campaign against Repression.

Although the subcommitte always got a response to its leaflets around the big industrial ‘Days of Action’, the responses tended to fade away in between these events and got poorer as the H Block death toll rose.

The strongest support came from the Royal Victoria Hospital,and the De Lorean car plan, where workplace committess had been set up by the workers themselves. But even there the aetivists had begun to feel demor:

alised and isolated because of the lack of ongoing action in the other Efforts to develop support in a greater number of workplaces, and to promote the formation of H Block/Armagh committees in these workplaces, tended to be frustrated because they generally came from outside. In early August, the De Lorean committee agreed to launch a campaign for more workplace committees.

Workers from De Lorean leafletted workplaces and held factory gate meetings, which were generally well attended. It was also agreed that this campaign would include even those work“Independents” at best only offer token opposition because they egsentially agree with the Coalition strategy. This situation provides a favourable context for the anti-imperialist TD’s to cut through the phoney war of words between the established It the H-Block TD’s were expelled from from the Dail it can be imagined what would happen to the credibility of “Republican” Fianna Fail and and the “objective” Independents.

The Coalition depends for its survival on the “Independents” Some of them Bae Ifast, the result of places, such as the Royal Victoria, the deep sea docks and Bass Ireland brewery, where support had been good in the past, , The next phase was to bring together delegates to set up a Belfast workplace | co-ordinating committee. Welding together the support in the different factories maximised the strength of the campaign.

On August 28, delegates came from De Lorean, Royal Victoria, Blackstaff Textiles, Ross’s Mill, Ford Autolite, Belfast Leisure Centres, Department of Health and Social Services, City Council workers and others. The discussion at the meeting showed that workers faced the same problems in all the different workplaces and cleared up the doubts of sympathetic workers.

The committee has taken responsibility for building action in the workplaces and unions around the decisions of the recent H Block Armagh Conference, and to spreading support for the hunger strikers into those places which are as yet unorganised.

There are lessons for workers throughout Ireland in the way that Belfast workers are organising in the workplaces. It is through organisation at this level that support can be won and, importantly, maintained in the fight for the five demands. like Ceann Comhairle John O’Connell visited the H-Blocks with Neil Blaney and Sile De Valera and Sean Loftus claims he is sympathetic to the hungerstrikers. A vociferous and principled H-Block TD could make it impossible for these hypocrites to abstain or vote with the Coalition [not only on the H-Block issue but also on a whole range of social and economic issues) are vulnerable on H-Block; for example pseudo Republican Joe Sherlock and pseudo Socialist Noel Browne. It would then be impossible for the hypocrite “Independents” and “Republicans” to hold their seats in the next General Election.

A defeat for the government in Leinster House at the hands of the anti’ imperialist movement would be a historic breakthrough. It would put the national question firmly at the centre of Southern politics. This in itself would create favourable conditions for the election of a sizeable band of anti-imperialists in a future election. Such a development would in turn put Fianna Fail on the defensive and ensure that no Haugheyite cabinet would survive long while collaborating with Britain.

A CANDIDATE One person identified with the H-Block campaign stands out as the ideal candidate: Bernadette MacAliskey. She has fought on the barricades of Derry and the floor of the Westminster parliament. parliament. She has the courage , tactical ability and iron will-power to take on Leinster House and beat it. PD is confident that she could unite the people of Cavan-Monaghan behind the hunger-strikers and provide a real

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H Block activists in Belfast have taken a major step forward to win the support of trade unionists for the campaign. H Block committees have mushroomed throughout workplaces in _