BY TIM RIGBY
MANCHESTER, England - "In the worsening social and economic conditions we face today, working people here and across the world need to understand who we are, who our friends are, and who our enemies are. Our enemies are not Spanish fishermen, the unemployed, immigrant workers, single mothers, or anyone else the capitalists want to blame for their crisis," said Chris Morris the Communist League candidate standing in the Central Ward for the May 4 Manchester city council elections. "Our enemy is the ruling rich and their government."

Morris, a worker at Philips Semiconductors in Stockport and a member of the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union (AEEU), was speaking at a meeting to launch his campaign at the local Pathfinder book shop here. He detailed the conditions working people face in Manchester. In a city of 405,000 people, 78,000 are unemployed, he informed the meeting. Eighty percent of jobs open to 16-year-olds in Manchester pay less than 2.00 (1=US$1.60) an hour, and one- third of those jobs are below 1.50 an hour. One-quarter of Manchester's homeless, most of whom live in Central Ward, are army veterans, he said.

"These facts," Morris said, "show something of what working people are going through. The positions the Communist League is advancing in this election are about beginning to combat this crisis, to forging unity between working people in Manchester, the United Kingdom, and across the world so that we can begin to face up to our enemies."

The average workweek in Britain today, stated Morris, is 43.9 hours, and 25 percent of male manual workers in any given week work more than 48 hours. "This, of course," Morris noted, "is while millions are unemployed." The demand for a 30-hour workweek with no loss in pay is about bridging the gap between those employed and those without work, he stated.

Morris focused on the demand for massive government-funded public works, and talked of the absurdity of unmended roads, substandard housing, and collapsing school buildings, while all the necessary materials and labor force are available.

The Communist League candidate also highlighted the demand for all British troops out of Ireland now. He stated that this was a central demand of his campaign to free Ireland from British occupation and overcome divisions created by the ruling rich between workers of Irish and of British origin.

This demand generated considerable discussions around a campaign table set up in Levenshulme Ward the day before the election meeting by supporters of the Communist League candidates. Members of the Young Socialists in Manchester helped staff the table. Many workers from Ireland or of Irish origin live in Levenshulme, where Communist League candidate Debbie Delange is running.

Delange is a train cleaner at nearby Longsight passenger train depot and member of the National Union of Rail, Maritime, and Transport Workers. Passersby voiced their support for the demand, and others stopped to talk. One man driving by saw the campaign placard and parked his car just to get a hold of a campaign statement. Others bought the Militant.

Campaigners discussed the demand for cancellation of the Third World debt. Two young men began a discussion with Tony Hunt, the campaign director, asking why "we" in Britain try to solve a problem the people in the Third World had got themselves into? Hunt explained the unequal terms of trade through which major capitalist powers plunder underdeveloped countries, the role of the banks, and the need for working- class unity across the world; and the young men stopped to listen and discuss this.

On the Levenshulme campaign table, Frances Rogan, a member of the Young Socialists and a campaign chairperson, argued alongside others for the need to defend Cuba and Cuba's socialist revolution and cited the fighting spirit of workers in Cuba as an example to working people around the world. The Communist League will soon launch a campaign in Fallowfield Ward for Ann Fiander, an assembly worker and member of the AEEU.  
 
 
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