Review: Kill the Bill


Derek McMillan

Do not be misled by the title, it is not advocating extreme measures against the police, nor is it about a Quentin Tarantino film. This pamphlet provides a context for the struggle for workers’ rights against the attempts of the rich to curtail them.

Illegal action

In my lifetime, the two most important struggles which I remember were not strictly within the law. When the government imprisoned five dockers for taking industrial action in 1972, it triggered a wave of wildcat strikes which forced the government into a humiliating climb down.

And who can forget the battle against the Poll Tax which not only defeated the tax but precipitated the political demise of Margaret Thatcher.

Jim Horton provides the historical background to the way in which the state has been used by the rich to criminalise working class struggle.

John McInally, PCS (civil servants union) vice-president, writes about Thatcher’s war against the miners and the examples of working class solidarity from the past which must inform our actions in the future.

Bill Mullins provides an excellent vivid account of the struggles of the 1960s and 1970s.

Workers can win

Rob Williams, chair of the National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN), talks about the way ahead and the prospects for working class struggle. It is a mistake to think that the working class will roll over and play dead if the Tories get their way and impose this draconian legislation.

“We don’t share the fatalistic attitude to these threatened laws of some of cynics and pessimists in the trade union movement, especially at the top. If they were to get onto the statute book, it wouldn’t mean the end of workers’ struggle. In fact it could open the door to far more militant action if workers ignore the laws. Actually this is the reason why some Tories and establishment figures are uneasy about Cameron’s proposals.”

And who better than the NSSN to prod the TUC into action?


Kill the Bill: defeat the Tories’ anti-union plans

a new Socialist Party pamphlet – £2.00

Available from Left Books

PO Box 24697, London E11 1YD

020 8988 8789

www.leftbooks.co.uk

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