Workers Press no. 837

workers press

MARATHON DEAL SIGNED

A BLOW AGAINST

TRADE UNIONISM

ON THE CLYDE

DAILY OI

BY STEPHEN JOHNS

THE MARATHON deal at the Clydebank shipyard marks a black day for the whole of the British trade union movement.

In it the unions have capitu- lated before a naked threat of mass unemployment and traded their trade union birthright for a handful of jobs. This shameful end to the long and bitter struggle of the shipyard workers came on Monday night when boiler- makers' leader Dan McGarvey sur- and gave Marathon the rendered go-ahead on their terms. A defeated McGarvey was forced to admit: "There is no going back. We have taken this agreement to pieces-and they are signing it. The boilermakers have done something here that they would do for no other employer. *Everyone knows what this means, and we will stand by this agreement until the termination of the four years. There will be no strikes during the term of the agreement. We have agreed on this.'

So at last the truth is exposed about the struggle on the Clyde and all the warnings of the Workers Press vindicated.

The Stalinist-led shop stewards and the unions have accepted massive redundan- They have given up the right to cies. have strike and they signed away a worker's right to fight independently to improve his wages. This is not a victory for the right to work, but a victory for the Tory govern- ment. Every deadly clause in the Marathon deal proves this. The 'new era at Clydebank will mean: • Workers cannot go on strike. They will be subject to a system of procedure ending in a binding arbitration of disputes.

• If they dare to break out from this strait-jacket and withdraw their labour, Marathon can threaten to confiscate their entire six months' bonus.

• Pay differentials have been abolished.

This is not just a question of one group of workers being greedy than more another. Everyone knows that the boiler- makers force the pace in the shipyards.

Their militancy keeps wages high.

And their struggles are the green light for other workers. Under Marathon this important weapon has been destroyed. At Clydebank an extremely serious precedent has been established and it will affect the whole trade union movement.

• WEDNES

INCORPORATING THE NEWSLETTER

AILY ORGAN OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTE

What, he at other shipvards when the example will McGarvey's position employers begin their inevitable clamour for similar contracts? The Marathon deal opens a gaping breach in the flank of his union and every one of his members is now in grave danger of attack.

Press warned about such Workers concessions in the early days of the work- in. In September 1971 we said: *If a plan like this is agreed then any employer in the country can come along and say that unless he has agreement to shed his workforce by several thousand under conditions where the remainder work harder, then he will have to go out of business.' This process has now started at Clyde- bank. There were 3,200 workers in this yard in June last year. There are now 2,000 and next month there are likely to 500. This rump be only will work under vicious contract yet agreed the most 1n the shipbuilding industry.

'no- Govan Shipbuilders similar strike pledges have been given on vessels, and there too the boilermakers have abandoned their independent bargaining position. This is the 'victory' proclaimed by lead- ing Stalinist James Reid and trumpeted throughout the land by the Communist Party. What victory? Is there a worker who will deny that Tory strategy is to drive working conditions, push down up No 837

• WEDNESDAY AUGUST 9, 1972 •

4p

MMITTEE OF THE SOCIALIST LABOUR LEA

TORYS OUT

productivity, destroy basic rights all with the threat of mass redundancies?

And is there anyone to deny that this is exactly what has happened at UCS with the one difference that 2,000 men have already left the yards!

It is instructive to recall the words of James Reid rejecting the original plan for buying the Govan-Linthouse yards in September: I would rather be on the dole than among the 2,500 left to grovel and snivel and accept wage reductions and all sorts of things.' Ten months later, what has Reid to say about a deal that means a four-year, no- strike pledge that means immediate employment for 150 men and promises for the rest: *The deal is in the finest traditions of the trade union and labour movement.

the Stalinist Ironically it was Reid pressing McGarvey the union bureaucrat to accept this slaves' charter.

Reid on October 16 before a again mass meeting: "There can be discussion but there will one, two or three be no agreement for yards in the absence of guarantees for all four yards and every worker in UCS.

What a chilling ring these promises must hold for the thousand Clydebank men who are likely to lose their jobs in September and the 500 who will work on robbed of trade union rights. The whole UCS saga is an indictment of

JR LEAGUE

UCATT to reject latest pay offer Hundreds of builders from all over Britain lobbied talks on their pay claim in London yesterday and forced the Union of Con- struction, Allied Trades and Technicians' executive to reject the latest miserly offer.

(SEE FULL STORY PAGE 12)

Stalinism, its corruption and dishonesty.

Marathon is the crowning betrayal, not just to the UCS workers but all those who backed them. It was a UCS steward, Gerry Ross, who made this point back in October 1971 when he said: It's the four yards or nothing.

Under no circumstances would the UCS workers accept a split up of their unity. Therefore three-quarters a victory to accept selling out the working class would be in the whole of the country who have supported us on the basis of no redundan- But the sell-out has come to pass.

The most important lesson from UCS is that the fight against unemployment waged without a struggle cannot to force the Tory Government to resign.

It was this perspective that the Workers Press and the Socialist Labour League campaigned for persistently.

For this we drew the hatred of the Stalinists. They deliberately avoided this fight and fell in with Tory plans. Now the Clydeside workers have paid the price.

They have suffered massive redundancies and lost their trade union rights.

CONTAINERS: The first of our new ten- part series on this most vital subject to all dock and transport workers starts today.

SEE CENTRE PAGES

Be sure of your own copy. Tel: 01-622 7029

workers press

MARATHON DEAL SIGNED

A BLOW AGAINST

TRADE UNIONISM

ON THE CLYDE

DAILY OI

BY STEPHEN JOHNS

THE MARATHON deal at the Clydebank shipyard marks a black day for the whole of the British trade union movement.

In it the unions have capitu- lated before a naked threat of mass unemployment and traded their trade union birthright for a handful of jobs. This shameful end to the long and bitter struggle of the shipyard workers came on Monday night when boiler- makers' leader Dan McGarvey sur- rendered and gave Marathon the go-ahead on their terms. A defeated McGarvey was forced to admit: 'There is no going back. We have taken this agreement to pieces-and thev are signing it. The boilermakers have done something here that they would do for no other employer. 'Everyone knows what this means, and we will stand by this agreement until the termination of the four years. There will be no strikes during the term of the agreement. We have agreed on this.'

So at last the truth is exposed about the struggle on the Clyde and all the warnings of the Workers Press vindicated.

The Stalinist-led shop stewards and the unions have accepted massive redundan- They have given up the right to CIes. strike and they have signed away a worker's right to fight independently to improve his wages. This is not a victory for the right to but a victory for the Tory govern- work, ment. Every deadly clause in the Marathon deal proves this. The 'new era at Clydebank will mean: • Workers cannot go on strike. They will be subject to a system of procedure ending in a binding arbitration of disputes.

• If they dare to break out from this strait-jacket and withdraw their labour, Marathon can threaten to confiscate their entire six months' bonus.

• Pay differentials have been abolished.

This is not just a question of one group of workers being greedy than more another. Everyone knows that the boiler- makers force the pace in the shipyards.

Their militancy keeps wages high.

And their struggles are the green light for other workers. Under Marathon this important weapon has been destroyed. At Clydebank an extremely serious precedent has been established and it will affect the whole trade union movement.

INCORPORATING THE NEWSLETTER • WEDNES

AILY ORGAN OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTE

What, for example will McGarvey's shipyards when the position be at other employers begin their inevitable clamour for similar contracts? The Marathon deal opens a gaping breach in the flank of his union and every one of his members is now in grave danger of attack.

Press warned about such Workers concessions in the early days of the work- in. In September 1971 we said: 'If a plan like this is agreed then any employer in the country can come along and say that unless he has agreement to shed his workforce by several thousand under conditions where the remainder work harder, then he will have to go out of business.' This process has now started at Clyde- bank. There were 3,200 workers in this yard in June last year. There are now 2,000 and next month there are likely to be only 500. This rump will work under the most vicious contract yet agreed in the shipbuilding industry.

'no- At Govan Shipbuilders similar strike' pledges have been given on vessels, there too the boilermakers have and abandoned their independent bargaining position. This is the 'victory' proclaimed by lead- ing Stalinist James Reid and trumpeted throughout the land by the Communist Party. What victory? Is there a worker who will deny that Tory strategy is to drive down working conditions, push up INCORPORATING THE NEWSLETTER • WEDNESDAY AUGUST 9, 1972 • No 837 • 4p DAILY ORGAN OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE

YORKSHIRE REGION

NO SELL OUT

ORYS ONLL OUT

Willett MILE END productivity, destroy basic rights all with threat of mass redundancies? this And 1s there anyone to deny that chat 2,000 men

UCS-

exacıl want nas nappened with the one différence have already left the yards! recall the words of Instrucuve lo James Reid rejecting the original plan for the Govan-Linthouse yards in September rather be on the dole than 1 woul among the 2,500 left to grovel and snivel and accept wage reductions and all sorts Ten months later, what has Reid to say about a deal that means a four-year, no- pledge that means immediate for 150 men and promises chpo yilicul tor The desl deal is in the finest traditions of trade and labour movement." the union Ironically the Stalinist Keld was pressing McGarvey the bureaucrat union Reid a this slaves charter October 16 before a asalk mass meeuns. "There can be discussion but there will be no agreement for one, two or three yards in the absence of guarantees for all four yards and every worker in UCs What a chilling ring these promises must hold for the thousand Clydebank men who are likely their jobs in September and the 500 who will work on robbed of Trave unnor The whole UCS saga is an indictment of

UR LEAGUE

UCATT to reject latest pay offer Hundreds of builders from all over Britain lobbied talks on their pay claim in London yesterday and forced the Union of Con- struction, Allied Trades and Technicians' executive to reject the latest miserly offer.

(SEE FULL STORY PAGE 12)

Stalinism, its . corruption and dishonesty. Marathon is the crowning betrayal, not just to the UCS workers but all those who backed them. made this point back October 1971 when he said: 'It's the four yards or nothing. Under no circumstances would the UCS workers accept a split up of their unity. Therefore victory of to accept three-quarters would be selling out the working class in the whole of the country who have supported us on the basis of no redundan- cies.' But the sell-out has come to pass.

The most important lesson from UCS is that the fight against unemployment cannot be waged without a struggle to force the Torv Government to resign.

It was this perspective that the Workers Socialist Labour League Press and the campaigned for persistently.

For this we drew the hatred of the Stalinists. They deliberately avoided this fight and fell in with Tory plans. Now the Clydeside workers have paid the price.

They have suffered massive redundancies and lost their trade union rights.

CONTAINERS: The first of our new ten- part series on this most vital subject to all dock and transport workers starts today.

SEE CENTRE PAGES

Be sure of your own copy. Tel: 01-622 7029

shoot peasants PAGE 2 Workers Press, Wednesday August 9, 1972 RECENT STREET-FIGHTING in a slum settlement just outside Santiago, Chile, has created a severe crisis for the Popular Unity coalition headed by President Salvador Allende. Allende has suspended the two police officers who ordered their men into the settlement—named after the Moncada barracks which Fidel Castro stormed in 1954. The police claimed to have been The day before the Santiago shooting the CP political committee issued a provocative statement searching for arms in the area, which ultra-left condemning Tine crimes Commilleu is a stronghold of the left-wing MIR who are impeding the work of the gov added that activities critics of Allende's coalition.

ernment. from 'diverting were amed al The police claim to have killed one civilian by Mr Allende'. the major programmes undertaken and wounded five in the course of the pre- Senator Volodya Teitelbaum, a Stalinist who was people say five 'Morning Star rally earlier raid. But the local guest of honour at the dawn this year, has even accused the left of opening the peasants were killed and accuse the police door to military dictatorship.

of opening fire without provocation.

Attacking the 'popular assemblies' set up by th To allow oneself to be led

MIR,

It comes as no surprise to find that one of the leite baum said; "popular assemblies" officers, sub-director Carlos have seen in two suspended police WC The Chilean run the risk of the fate which Toro. is a Communist Party member.

the Bolivian regime. Stalinists form the right wing Arenat overcallie CP conciliating the right-wing and have for months been demanding The coalition poncy Christian Democrat opposition by armed action to crush the left-wing opposition.

nationalization has opposition, par- aroused ticularly among the tors of the population who were

AROUND THE WORLD

: sup- among Allende's staunchest porters wnen de calle lo power Stalinists Not only have the turned from political betrayal te armed action against the but they have peasants conciliate either pletely failed to the unristan bemocrals big American corporations which stand behind them. President Nixon has adopted a "blow for blow' policy of ' in rela- tion (TO Aennaes regime US is now demanding 'fair com- pensation' for the copper mines THE TRIAL of Professor Jaroslav Sabata continued interests ane Auctical nationalized since Allende

TOO.

yesterday in Brno, Czechoslovakia, under conditions office November 1970. Other- negotia- WisC sayo of great secrecy amid a vicious press campaign.

the country's crippling debt former Sabata, the city's burden. Communist Party secretary, is that. the were costs Chile $300m a year charged with subversion from the courts and that details the simply to service foreign unspecified trials have never been with the Lore er published, of other defendants, the hack and number radio is campaigning vigorously believed to number five or six.

to "justify' them. Though originally it was. reception mel SLOn Radio said yesterday: Prague which is believed and insisting nis aaugnter washington, been political "There have zechoslovakia daughter-in-law were on trial that the copper companies Trials alic demand compensation- with him, now thought it 1s there will be kia has as they will be tried separately at $750m-must be met in Czechoslovakia been put full first. which Sabata trial for his views and atti- The 'crimes' for At the same time, the Christian and his fellow-defendants are Ludes. being tried are to those It claimed the CP had shown who control houses 31 oppositionists parlia- the 'great magnanimity towards the defeated "counter-revolutionaries' constant nave a ready been Talita ment are obstruction of the government's series of trials, mostly held in all concerned and ziven Prague. day-to-day work. The latest onnortunity to recury toer mus enforced dismissal example is the "subversives' are accused orientate themselves cor- The Canto, leaflets of distributed Hernar having Interior Minister, after a parlia- trials were 'the pointing It claimed the out voterS Consum- mentary vote of no confidence.

tional rights in the November usual any course acto elections. civilized state' presidential Chile has been hit by the fall worl Without giving conducted under any concrete one cons badly world radio claimed that the the gun-barrels TanKs. instance. nrice OI Copper, its main export were a Stalinist farce, with hand- working people "the Allende has been stomping the picked candidates taken from the slovakia take positive country demanding aimed greate heavily to measures ranKs unle altitud • workers and socialist legality bureaucracy. peasants, who have already The accused men and women and observing laws adopted by suffered great erosion of their said have people's representative organs, also given dic living standards as a result of aimed those measures against Commu lallal nist Party journalists in Prague. and against waro commit onence In the trials demon- the law and upset the social The Chile Friese escudo was system'. strate the extreme weakness devalued last for the self-justifi- These attempts at Czechoslo- fourth time since the Popular the DuDDer regime in vakia and its lack of a popular doubt be Canon wi casey Unity took office. taken up by Stalinists base. western Angela Davis who has Before they could stage the The outbreak of armed clashes refused to aid the defendants ir Stalinist leaders trias between bre government тогсес the hey fail to explain to ensure that the workers were and the poor demon- Trials. peasants complețely stripped all poli- the treacher- why the strate conclusively trials should be held in secret, rights, including the right ous reality behind Allende's talk ¿cal allegedly workers who why the 'peaceful road strike The These last vestiges of the gains socialism'. support them snould nave to De made 1968 were abolished deprived advance their political rights and why it should The Popular Unity regime is a packed formally at Cursican people counter-revolutionary be subversion to remind ot the trade unions earler uns the Inelr basic consuluLond Core corose. rights. Moncada settlement testify SPEAKING to a rally of Scottish shop stewards on November 2 last year James Reid, Stalinist the Upper Clyde leader Shipbuilders' 'work-in', gave boastful pledge to the this British labour movement: have anyone thinks 'If we involved ourselves in this his- fight in order to do torical some horse-trading at the end then they have of the aay, the fighting miscalculated capacity of the UCS workers.'

A month previously he made the same pledge to 8,500 UCS 'Any workers in Glasgow: suggestion of a sell-out on insult to the principle is an campaign of the UCS workers.'

This, it must be remembered, was not the personal view- Reid point and fellow- Stalinist James Airlie, but the expressed policy of the Com- munist Party leaders and the Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions. This, at least, was what they said.

What they meant however was finally revealed last Monday when Dan McGarvey, with the active encouragement of the Stalinist leaders in Clyde- side, reluctantly signed the most reactionary, unprincipled and insulting labour agreement in the post-war history of British trade unions. It is truly without precedent. It distinct is, in every sense, a in step the direction of corporatism. Even McGarvey, a hardened reformist, bureaucrat and found some difficulty in com- mending an agreement which volubly the Stalinists wel- comed. He told the Press: 'The boilermakers have done some- thing here that they would not do for any other employer.'

Every employer in Britain will seek to exploit the precedent established by Marathon Manu- facturing and utilize the ser- vices of those reformists who willingly sell workers' the birthright for a mess of Texan pottage. Black Monday on Clydeside is a damning indictment of all those reformist and revisionist forces who separated the UCS struggle from the struggle to force the Tories to resign and to elect a Labour government pledged to socialist policies.

In practice this meant the tail- ending of the spontaneous struggle of the UCS workers, accommodation of their an illusions prejudices and and the counterposing of the pre- vailing reformist trade union consciousness to those who, the Socialist like Labour fought to develop a League, socialist and Marxist conscious- ness within UCS in order to build a revolutionary alter- Stalinism and native to reformism. is no accident that the very same people in the Glasgow Trades Council who opposed the anti-Tory slogans of the SLL on the first UCS demon- stration and on May Day 1971 should be responsible for the unconditional surrender to Marathon now. No accident at all! All those who oppose or evade the struggle against trade union consciousness, i.e. reformist consciousness, and for Marxist consciousness in the working class must inevit- ably capitulate to the capitalist class and betray the working class in the most cynical way.

is the iron This law working-class history which applies not only to the Stalin- ists, but to the revisionists as well. The revisionists from the start of the UCS 'work-in' became the main political hod-carriers for Stalinism. The International Socialist 'state capitalist' group of Tony Cliff and the Inter- national Marxist Group of Tariq Ali helped to sustain the credibility of the Stalinists, despite episodic differences, because they all shared a common belief that mass pressure and protest, not revolutionary leadership and a General Strike to force the Tories out, would • solve the problem of jobs and wages in

UCS.

They tailed along behind Reid and Airlie who in turn, tailed along behind boilermakers' president Dan McGarvey, who followed Anthony Wedgwood Benn and Harold Wilson. That was the chain of command.

The 'state capitalists', while they criticized incidental aspects of Stalinist policy in UCS, did nothing to embarrass or the fundamental obstruct reformist strategy of 'Keeping UCS open at any price'. • These reformists did criticize the Stalinists-for not being mili- tant enough! 'The determination of the UCS workers to fight for their jobs inspired entire labour the movement. But their struggle weakened by their was stewards' refusal to occupy the yards and confiscate the key bargaining weapon-the ships.

'Compromise and a "reasonable" approach to management and must be aban- government doned in favour of all-out action [sic] to militant , stop several thousand more Scots workers joining the ranks of those refused the right-to- work.' Worker, ('Socialist March 4, 1972.) Nowhere is there any mention of the Tory government or the Stalinists.

It is clear from this quote what the perverse policy of the Cliff group is. IS treachery, however, does not end in UCS. Opposition to Marxism has led the IS to embrace the most • backward anti-communist elements in the docks who are not even pre- pared to fight for the special dispensation for the 'Morning Star and Workers Press. The IMG, despite its pseudo- revolutionary phraseology, is equally guilty of having made its own unique contribution to this historic betrayal. Its demands no redun- were: dancies, extend the struggle, the yards. In other оссиру words, don't raise the political consciousness of the workers in a struggle against the Tory government and Stalinism, but engage in more forms struggles spontaneous to 'keep UCS open' Militancy, more militancy always and is, militancy was, the bankrupt theme of these revisionists. IMG support for Stalinism. has been deliberately defended on grounds that Stalinism consti- tutes a necessary and inevitable stage in working-class leader- ship and that the task of the IMG is to help build the Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions. This view clearly expressed was recently by an IMG spokes- man. In dealing with the differences with the SLL, he said: ery "They [the SLL] accuse us of pro- viding a left cover for the CP while we on the contrary argue that it is impossible to by- the layer of militants pass following the CP's line.'

Stalinism, on the contrary, is the expression of the defeats of the working class in the pre-war period and the resurgence of working class far from the signifying growth and strengthening of Stalinism has contributed enormously to its crisis. The task of Marxists is to destroy this 'syphillis of the labour movement' (as Trotsky described it) and not defend and justify its counter-revolu- tionary role in any way. The betrayal of the UCS workers is a sombre warning to all workers regardless of trade and industry. It provides the most cogent proof of the necessity to fight for Marxist theory, to build the All Trades Unions Alliance in every industry and to transform the SLL into the revolutionary party which will liberate the working class from its fetters of reformist and Stalinist misleadership and lead the struggle for working-class power in Britain. This will be the central task of the ATUA conference to be held in Birmingham on October 22.

• Steward Vincent Cunningham (centre) A SHOP STEWARD sacked claims he has been deliberate Cunningham and seven other holiday pay plus a further fortr

THE ACTION

committee fighting against the closure of Stanton Iron- the near Ilkeston, works, Derbyshire, should con- tain Tories, says one of its spokesmen. Labour councillor William "The action Cann said: group is non-political. We just want to achieve our aim and that is to save as many jobs as possible. "To do this we must have the support of not only Lab- our MPs, but Conservatives the well. They are people in power and I feel that if we do not get their support we are sunk.' Cann's words are dangerous rubbish. The Tory govern- deliberately has ment amassed unemployment of almost 1 million since it came to power just over two years ago. Men, women and teenagers on the dole a testimony to the are policies of the government.

Contrary to what Cann says, the fight for the right to work is a political fight.

If the 1,500 jobs at Stanton are to be saved, the action committee must take up the political fight to get the Tories, job-snatchers, the forced out of office. • the rank and file Certainly recognize the politics of the fight ahead. At a weekend rally, the spontaneous chant the 2,000 taken up by marchers" was 'Heath out'.

Steward at Ford contract plant claims Dismissed because I organized factory Steward Vincent Cunningham (centre) with pickets outside the Ford component plant he has organized.

BY IAN YEATS

A SHOP STEWARD sacked from a West London electrical component factory claims he has been deliberately victimized for defending workers' rights. Vincent Cunningham and seven other workers were dismissed on July 21 with two weeks?

holiday pay plus a further fortnight's cash in lieu of notice.

Management at Surrey Steel Components Ltd., one of five factories at Hammersmith and Richmond run as by David O'Hayan, sacked the a private company workers after Ford, Germany, cancelled a contract.

Mr Cunningham said yester- It is day: only a temporary notices are withdrawn', until the cancellation and the works' "I have no said Mr Cunningham. proposed a cut in doubt that after the 1 mass working a four-day overtime, strike will made our week or if the sackings were official.' inevitable, adherence Most of the Fulham Palace the Road works' components of last-in, first-out. principle to plants, which But the management wouldn't rord al c on holidav unti the end of this listen.' week. He claims the real reason for Said Mr Cunningham: 'Once I think his dismissal at a Tong record of back at work they start 18-month long record is his we will win. Other group workers unionizing the 60-strong factory supply non-Ford customers and a and fighting to improve pay and joint strike would severely disrupt production. conditions Basic pay at the factory starts Mr Cunningham said: 'Before at fis for men and t14.20 I arrived, times were often women, with the prospect of an that it so ••• aver or men i a god week.

weekly to reach bonus and certain amenities almost were non- When Cunningham began Mr the

WORK

organization was non-existent, but now all but five Society the United workers.

JEAL

Mr Cunningham claims he has come close to dismissal on three previous occasions because of his militancy. Pickets were on duty for the day second running vestercas after their holiday and a mass meeting of the 300 at workers five factories was being held last night. 'We are prepared to stay out ABOUT 300 engineers marched from 28 Charlotte St Greenoch to Port Glasgow …torrenta Tain vesteroat support of their claim for higher better London W1 wages and conditions. Nineteen were appearing in court charged with breach of the peace allegedly blocking gas der supplies to the Newark ship- yard. Workers Press, Wednesday August 9, 1972 PAGE 3 YOUNG WORKERS at Campari Limited, Crickle- wood, London, returned to work yesterday having won the right to organize in the Transport and General Workers' Union. Their strike had been sparked off by the sacking of two workers, Jim Hennessy and Frank Angear, who had tried to unionize the warehouse and office staff. With the help of friendly stewards at the nearby Express Dairy, the strike committee had obtained enough union membership forms to sign up everyone on strike. When a T&GWU organizer arrived at the picket line on Monday afternoon, he handed a batch of completed forms and immediately went in to see the management.

two-and-a-half-hour discussion he emerged to tell the firm youths that the agreed to

T&GWU

recognize the and to allow all the workers to join it. There would be no victimiza- tion of any of the strikers. The two sacked men were to be immediately reinstated on paid holiday basis until next Monday, full board pending meeting to be attended by union officials. The organizer assured the that youths, bowen they was would be almost certain fully reinstated then. But if not,

T&GWU

call them the would all out on an official strike.

WORKERS PRESS sends its con-

ENGINEERS'

leaders dolences the wife and three union to of children of William Hughes who hush up the sale want to collapsed last Sunday, and despite their Edinburgh district office treatment in the hospital inten- the Orange Order on the to sive-care unit, died 2 at a.m. cheap. Monday morning. A letter from the Amalgamated William, Only 38 years old, Workers' Union of Engineering who was born in South Wales, executive was read to a recent had worked on the railways for of the union's Pilton meeting the last ten years and was an branch, which had complained examiner at the Durnsford Road, about the sale. Wimbledon, depot in South Lon- warned the branch not to He was a dedicated don. traile make statements about press and a member of the unionist business. national or local union National Union of Railwaymen. The letter confirmed, however, In April 1971 he became a that the Blenheim Rooms, Edin- Workers Press reader and regular

AEU

burgh, owned by the was afterwards joined the All Trades social committee. It claimed the Unions Alliance and had attended in executive had no standing Young Socialists the summer the matter. He was about to join the camp. Pilton AUEW had protested Socialist Labour League. against the sale in April on two William led the fight in his counts. First, the Orange Order

NUR

right- branch against the was considered by many mem- wing bureaucracy and against the Stalinists and revisionists. Highly bers an anti-union organization, and second, that the £4,500 sale respected by the men his in figure fell far short of the depot for his principled stand, building's last valuation at he recently elected was as an £8,000. observer to the

NUR

dis- on The AUEW's new Edinburgh trict council. offices will not until At the centre of his life ready was later this year, which means that a deep class hatred for the Tory since April the union has been government and the ruling class paying rent to the Orange Order.

and everything they stood for.

NOW OPEN

9 a.m.-6 p.m. Fri 9 a.m.-7.30 p.m. Sat 9 a.m.-5 p.m.

S • PERIODICALS • NEWSPAPERS

PAGE 41

An international discussic The International Committee The struggle of the IC began against the impositions Pablo and his group of the 'new character of the Stalinist sui bureaucracy' and entrism generis etc., all positions which were attacks on the very essence of the FI. It was the majority of the French sec- tion which began the struggle against revisionism, for which they were expelled bureaucra- tically by the Pabloite majority of the International. However, the opposition to the positions of Pablo in 1953 was not a sufficient condition to guarantee the struggle for building of independent the revolutionary parties. The IC could only be constituted in struggle against Pabloite capi- tulation and the extension this to the methodological understanding of Pabloism and of the significance of its break with Marxist method. The SWP: which had ad- hered to the IC, returned to Pabloism as the crisis of im- perialism and the bureaucracy got worse. Cannon and the SWP leaders reacted empiri- cally to the capitulation of Pabloism and its bureaucratic manipulations, but were in- capable of understanding the theoretical roots of revision- ism. By leaving on one side the warnings of Trotsky on the need to fight pragmatism, the SWP prepared its cadres for the future capitulation. By abandoning Marxism and capitulating to American prag- matism, the SWP could adapt easily to Pabloism, by itself assuming a narrow nationalist position and denying its inter- national responsibilities. Faced with the crisis of the bureau- cracy in 1956 the SWP aband- the programme of the oned political revolution and the struggle for the building of revolutionary parties in East- ern Europe, and, faced with the petty-bourgeois leader- ships, it capitulated totally by supporting the leaders of Algeria, Fidel Castro in Cuba and the black movement in the USA. The assassination of Presi- dent Kennedy provoked a re- action which revealed its total capitulation: they sent their 'condolences' to the widow and published a statement con- demning 'terrorist methods'.

The capitulation of the SWP concluded with its participa- tion and its unprincipled re- unification' with Pabloism in the 1963 Reunification Con- gress. The SWP leaders carried their unprincipled through • БУ unification with Pabloism using the argument that the IC 'new facts' of the ignored the world situation, 'facts' which went as far as the natural of non-Marxist evolution non-proletarian forces and forces like Castro in Cuba and Ben Bella in Algeria towards Trotskyism. Thus, the inde- pendent revolutionary party was not the central task any more since there existed an 'objective process' towards Marxism and socialism-and Marxism was distorted to be- come, in the words of Hansen himself, 'consistent empiricism'. bo 0, 1072 liscussion article in six parts The struggle against revi- sionism in the Trotskyist and particularly movement, the struggle in the swP, re- vealed a fundamental differ- ence in method. The leaders of the SWP had rejected Marxism and had replaced it with empiricism, had rejected the method which starts from the point of view of the trans- their to 'interpreting it' or time 'contemplating it'. What characterized Pablo- ism has been its inability to material- develop dialectical ism against idealist methods of thought, in particular empiri- cism and pragmatism. It was by breaking with dialectical materialism that the Pabloites prostrated themselves before imperialism and the bureau- cracy. The 19 years of struggle of the IC show that in the struggle against Pabloism there cannot be a simple empirical rejection of its positions or 'theories'. An equally empiri- cal rejection can in no way constitute the basis for the theoretical development of Marxists, since such a rejec- tion cannot be permanent and will be subordinated . to the 'objective - changing ever reality'. That is the lesson of the return of the SWP to Pablo and Mandel despite having 'broken' with them in 1953. Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolu- tionary practice, and revolu- practice cannot be tionary separated from the construc- tion of revolutionary leader- ship. The revolutionary capa- Ernest Mandel city of theory is realized in the conscious intervention in the class struggle to build in- revolutionary par- dependent ties. Nothing is more alien to Marxism than the establish- ment of a dichotomy between theory and practice; every concession to empiricism in- evitably establishes a separa- tion between the two. What characterizes empiri- is the considering cism of reality in the form of an 'ob- ject of contemplation' and not as 'sensuous human activity, as practice; something not as subjective. In this way, the only reality are the 'facts' and the development of theory acquires a speculative dynamic which is typical of idealism.

active side was (Hence the developed in an abstract way, in opposition to materialism, by idealism, which naturally does not know real sensuous activity as such.") reproduces Pabloism the method of thought of the n'. bourgeoisie which consists in On President Kennedy's assassination, an abundant collecting of em- then pırical data which are integrated into a 'model' or a scheme to explain rationalist them. For example, Mandel in the Introduction to his 'Treat- ise on Economy ...' says that: 'Marxist method cannot be connived except as the in- dialectical tegration rationalism with the empirical collecting of facts.' Such a conception of the dialectic places Mandel in the ranks of the Kantian rational- ists in the measure that it was Kant himself who integrated the French rationalism of Des- cartes and the empiricism of Bacon and Hume. Thus, what is implicit behind Mandel's definition is a dualist concep- tion of the world which con- siders that human thought can only know scientifically the appearance of things (the phenomena) but not their essence, with the essence con- sequently being relegated to metaphysical speculation. Dia- lectical materialism has always had to fight against all these conceptions. The method advocated by the empiricists, including the Pabloites, which consists in the 'collection of facts' erects an unsurmountable obstacle to the correct understanding of the objective world, since through this method one can only reach what Marx called the 'imaginary concrete' which only leads to the atomization of complete representation in On President Kennedy's assassination, the SWP sent Its 'condolences' to his widow Jacqueline (above) abstract thought. The scientifi- cally exact method is precisely that in which 'the concrete appears in thought as the pro- cess of synthesis, as a result, not as starting point although it be the real may starting and quently, the starting point of percepaon and representanon as well'. Because of their rejection of the dialectical method, the Pabioites and Mandel were prostrate when faced with the apparent stabilization of capi- the Stalinist talism and during bureaucracy the post- The war boom. theories of Pablo on the 'imminent third world war' and the 'new role of the bureaucracy' the or theories of Mandel on capitalism and the third in- dustrial revolution, the scienti- fic technological revolution and the new working class, as with the theories now de- OCI* on the by velopea the 'imminent revolution' or the 'objective process which leads the of universal republic workers' councils' have a com- mon denominator- -the capitu lation to the 'facts', to 'objec- tivity', as theories are attempts to justify or adapt to the spon- taneous course of events.

these presuppose a rejection of Marxist method and a capitula tion to empiricism. Only by breaking with Marxism Pabloites coula ine realize their series or betravals of the workers' international nces' to his widow Jacqueline (above) movement and Mandel in par- ticular became one of the greatest present-day apologists for capitalism. He capitulated to Stalinism in the Hungarian revolution of 1956 and to the petty-bour- geois nationalists in Algeria and Cuba: he played an equally important role in the defeat of the Belgian strike in 1961; he supported Dubcek in the Czech uprising in 1968, gave a cover to the French Pablo- ites who capitulated criminally to 'student power' in 1968— not to mention the liquidation of the Latin American sections of the Unified Secretariat into OLAS and the Castroite move- ment. Only through an under- standing of the opportunist tendencies' profound rejection of the Marxist method is it the possible to guarantee struggle for revolutionary leadership in the continuity of the FI. The experience of the meaning SWP has no other and constitutes a basic stage in the struggle of the IC of the FI. 3 SWP. The Socialist Workers' Party of the United States. American section connected with the FI until its reunification with the Pabloites in 1963. It was in the SWP in the early stages of the FI that Trotsky waged the most important struggle for dialectical materialism against the pragmatism of Burnham and Shachtman in 1939. • OCI Organisation Communiste Internationaliste of France.

MEN BEHIND URUGUAY

MURDER SQUADRON

The Senate Committee in Montevideo which is investigating the activities of the Murder Squadron in Uruguay possesses several pieces of evidence which seriously compro- mise various foreign countries. The principal testimonies come from two members of the Murder Squadron them- selves. One of them is a con- fession extracted by the Tupa- maros from policeman Nelson Bardesio and the other con- sists of a 30-page confession by another policeman, Nelson Benitez Saldivar, who testi- fied before six Senators belong- ing to six different political parties. and military The police hierarchy involved in the Murder Squadron are not only guilty of crimes against the law, but against the nation, described in the military and 'intelli- civil penal code as gence activities with foreign elements for purposes of war' United States, Brazil, The Argentina and Paraguay are implicated in the organization and activities of para-police groups created to apply dirty- war tactics against the Tupa- and left-wing move- maros ments in general. The Uruguayan police Bardesio that announced denies his original confession, but when he was freed by the he begged the Tupamaros, Defence Minister not to deliver him into the hands of his policemen. fellow General Magnani promised him he would remain under army custody, was later but he switched to police head- quarters.

SPECIAL

TRAINING

According to the original taped and transcribed version of Bardesio's confession, vari- ous members of the Murder Squadron have received special training and weapons in Brazil.

Moreover, a top official of the Argentine secret service, SIDE, Captain Nieto Moreno, delivered gelignite to the Uru- guayan forces to carry out an attack against a Peronist lead- er living in Montevideo, and several members of the Mur- der Squadron have also taken special courses given by the Argentine SIDE. The policemen involved in the Squadron belong to the Intelligence and Bureau of Information, organized by the Technical Assistance Officer of the US Government's Agency for International Develop- ment (AID). According to policeman Bar- William desio, a CIA agent, Cantrell, is an adviser in that office and directly granted the information equipment and necessary to organize the Bureau. one point Cantrell At worked under the orders of Dan Anthony Mitrione who was executed by the Tupa- maros. Bardesio also stated that the US Embassy receives daily two information pro- copies of cessed by the Uruguayan police and that it sometimes requests record of bugged the taped telephones. Juan Noriega, an officer of the US Embassy, disappeared immediately after a telephone switchboard was discovered in the Montevideo neighbour- hood of Pocitos which had intercept been set up to Soviet Embassy telephone calls.

Due to Cantrell's influence, the police later released the Span- ish couple who occupied the house where the switchboard had been located (and dis- covered by chance three years ago). Bardesio also confessed that he used a special photographic camera set up by the American Embassy in the Carrasco air- port to photograph passports.

diplomat, An American Cesar Bernal, was singled out as the man in by Bardesio charge of giving shooting les- sons to a group of marines being trained to attack leftist activists and the officers of the Broad Front (the political coalition of left wing and pro- gressive groups). Nelson Benitez Saldivar's confession complements and elaborates on the statements made by Bardesio. According to Benitez, the Paraguayan Embassy has served as a meet- ing and hiding place for the members of the Squadron. Benitez was one of the Squadron members who received special training in Buenos Aires. After the collapse of General Leving- ston's government, the training was suspended.

PERSONAL

PHONE CALL

"They told us not to worry, that the new president, Gen- eral Lanusse, had authorized training in a personal the phone conversation with Presi- dent Pacheco Areco.' A Congressional Represen- tative of the Broad Front, Juan Pablo Terra, has made other serious accusations against Paraguay's Ambassa- Top: General Lanusse of Argentina. Above : General Levingston whose government was also involved in the training of the murder squad doC Atress man Tenda has proof Atilio Fernandez. that the Ambassador has been visiting the military barracks in Paysandu, Artigas, Paso de los Toros and Durazno instigating fricoup d'etat. e And a personal of Paraguavan friend Ambassador's and

CIA

the Uruguay, Paraguavan doctor Angel Crosas Cuevas was the organizer fascist group JUP (Uruguayan Youth on Alert). The Senate has decided to open an investigatory commit- armed forces the lee suce Workers Press, Wedn ntina. Above : General Levingston whose n the training of the murder squad.

seem totally involved in fight- ing the Tupamaros and tortur- ing suspicious elements, and have not even touched the Murder Squadron. The subject is particularly since it reveals the touchy foreign influence on Uruguayan intelligence branches. It should not be forgotten, moreover, that last year Uruguay occu- pied first place in the list of Latin American nations receiv- police aid from the ing United States. Prensa Latina ess, Wednesday August 9, 1972 PAGE 5 President Nixon is not a man to take chances. He just took delivery of an armour-plated limousine worth cool a $500,000. It was delivered to his door in a closed van with a Secret Service escort. The limousine, a black Lin- coln Continental, was hand- made in a secret Ford work- shop. The local paper, the •Detroit Free Press' quoted a workman as saying: 'It's as strong as a tank. It is so strong that a bomb would only roll it over? Ford and the secret service declined to comment about the car, but the paper gave these details: Armour plate The 365-horsepower engine has a cylinder rating of 480 cubic inches. The car weighs 10,000 pounds, compared to 5,200 pounds for the usual Continental. Much of the extra weight comes from the quarter-inch of armour plate on the bottom, roof and doors. The windows and metal-re- inforced tyres are bulletproof, and so is the plexiglass bubble which be hydraulically can raised when the President wants to stand up and wave.

Three years The limousine was three years in the making and never was near an assembly line. It was hand-crafted by ten metal- model makers, two welders and a stockman who worked from special plans prepared by Ford and the Secret Service.

In 1968 Ford signed an eight year contract to keep presidential limousines two available at all times and to build a new one every four years. for The car has handbars Secret Service agents. Running boards fold out from the fenders. It has power everything, said a worker. As well as air conditioning, radio, two-way equipment telephone, stereo front and rear and for the black leather upholstery, there is also a lock on the petrol cap.

PAGE 6 Workers Press, Wednesday August 9, 1972

BY STEPHEN JOHNS

'What we must look forward handling from a labour to a capital-intensive industry.

what the to, therefore, 2S The battle for jobs on the ICHA (International Cargo docks has centred on the in- Handling Association has land clearance depots (ICDs) where the containers are given the James Bond-like packed and unpacked with title of the NO PORT. The dockers The cargo. say this question may be asked where, groupage work is their own by right and tradition. if not at the port, will the But this is only one small take place? port activities though aspect the most The answer is simply, "in the provocative of the whole- sale modernization of freight- areas or regions where most handling which the workers in of the cargo is consigned or transport have paid for with where most of the cargo redundancy and massive productivity increase. originates"'-'James Freight It is the classic example of Containers', 1971-1972. the working class reaping In 1949 an ex-RAF trans- only minimal benefits of tech- port officer called John nical progress and eventually being threatened with mass Gordon Woollam per- unemployment. suaded a shipping line on This is why there is no one device or 'single issue' solution the Irish run to carry a the docks crisis. The to black wooden box across interests of the dockers, the the sea to Dublin. the warehouse drivers and be workers only safe- The box-16ft by 7ft by 6ft guarded if the entire industry and costing f5 secondhand- is restructured along socialist made its first epic voyage filled lines-then technical progress with cargo. It waited a while will not mean a cut-back in in Dublin, eventually picked the labour force, but shorter up a consignment and made hours and better pay. the journey back. The present suggestion of Woollam could not have the Transport General and known it, but he had begun a Workers' Union and many technical revolution that port shop stewards that dock led eventually to the most workers should employed jobs serious crisis in the in the ICDs will not work.

history of dockland and one For of the example, that in Britain the caused biggest container firms in the fiercest outbreak of class Containerbase country, the struggle since the 1926 General Federation employed about Strike. 190 men in June this year. The innovation took years to bear fruit. Their six depots claim The momentous to handle 20 per cent of total sailing went largely unnoticed groupage traffic. in the world and shipping Calculating Woollam had a hard struggle this basis on there himself as are roughly a thousand establishing any- all ICDs jobs going eccentric ob- in not thing but an the sessed with a cranky idea.

even enough to absorb dockers in the 'temporary' un- containerization But was London, let accepted-years later. Now an attached pool in alone the 5,000 the employers estimated 25 per and even say are surplus at the ports!

British imports even What greater proportion of exports happens anyway to the the travel in containers. By 1975 warehousemen who Council Transport and General the National Ports say half the freight entering Workers' Union diligently re- cruited back in 1968? and leaving Britain will be Is Jack Jones, general secre- containerized. T&GWU serious But the tary of the container is only when he says there would be the most dramatic example of sackings at the depots if family of innovations that no the dockers moved in? Expan- have slashed manpower needs sion at the ICDs is planned in throughout the transport in- preparation for the containeri- dustry. Unit loading, the packaging zation of the Far East trade, but not enough to of pieces of general cargo into nearly one manageable bulk; palleti- compensate for the rundown in the storage of dock this will zation, mer- labour create chandise and safeguard the jobs of the wooden plat- forms; the roil-off existing depot workers. roll-on, giant lorries The impact of moderniza- system, where travel across the aboard tion cannot be grasped if con- sea liners; are all changes that tainers are viewed simply as are rapidly transforming cargo- steel boxes, packed with cargo, that are easy to handle. dubbed as What has been the 'second container revolu- tion' centres on the concept of 'through - transportation'.

The container then becomes a vehicle of transportation and the ship, lorry or plane merely a carrier. This is a profound change.

" The longer the cargo can inside be carried unbroken the container, the less expense per mile are the transport costs. This is the nub of the 'through - transportation' system. Containers are packed as near source as possible and unpacked as near destination as possible.

CATTLE

Before containerization the docks were the focal point of the world transport system.

All cargo in a multitude of loads came to the quayside, was expertly stowed into ships and unloaded piece by piece at the port of destination.

This industry was labour in- tensive since most of the cargo manhandled. The was em- ployers, because of the fre- quent fluctuation in the level of trade, developed the casual system, employing dockers on a day-to-day basis. Each morn- bania # ing the men would line up in the pen to be picked out like cattle. With conventional cargo, up to 50 per cent of the total transport costs from country to country occur at the ports.

Cunard, example found this to be the case with one of its liners packed with 75,000 pieces of cargo on the transatlantic run. This new method has changed the ports from a hive of activity to a mere staging post containers' the on journey. A modern container- berth serves one purposelift- ing the steel box from lorry (or quayside) to ship or vice versa and the most striking feature is the lack of dockers.

The examples of the breath- taking increase in productivity at container-berths are legion.

One will suffice here: At Sea- north of forth-a new dock of Liverpool-ten the port men can load 2,000 tons of cargo in four hours onto a With conventional coaster. methods it took 100 men three days to deal with the same load. The success of containeriza- depends, however, tion on more than modern berths. The cargo-handling equip- costly ment at the port must be fully utilized to pay its way. This demands a high and constant flow of full containers. Hence the emphasis has shifted in- land. are either containers packed at with source one cargo, that is at the exporting factory, or the is cargo gathered together at strategic inland depots and made into full container loads. Reginald Carpenter in his 'Containerships' book noted one important result of this development: 'In effect, he wrote, 'the stevedore [and the docker] has transfered his place of work [inland]. His tasks are less onerous, but he remains a key operator whether directly involved in loading containers advisory or acting in an capacity to shippers who want to do their own loading with their own stati on their own premises.' This was put more bluntly by one ex-dock officer I met a container base in the at Midlands. Pointing to a row of bays where containers were being 'stuffed' he said: 'We're really loading ships 200 miles inland.' But in practice the re- deployment of port workers to the rear of the process has not occurred. This is because containeriza- tion not only offers the em- ployers massive technical im- provements, but also the pos- sibility of a 'final solution' to the dock labour problem. - The men they recruit to staff the container bases (with full agreement with the Trans- and General Workers port Union) registered are not dockers. Many firms argue they offered jobs to dockers first, but on one crucial con- dition-they had to come off the register. This meant the dockers would have to forfeit their hard-won right under the National Dock Labour Scheme to security from the dole. (Under the scheme dockers cannot be 'sacked', only re- turned to the 'temporary' un- attached pool where they get a fall-back pay of £23 a week —substantially less than their normal earnings.) John Reid, chief of the Con- tainerbase Federation, candidly admits that the depot owners do not want to be considered port employers and pay into the scheme. Others want the right to hire and fire, as in- deed the Federation did last ceat whenundaeclared 40 its redundancies Birmingham depot. S. G. Burgess, , secretary of the National Association of summed wenchop in freishtage di thin Warehousemen, on are on the ingration with of the shipping transport firms and warehouse owners: "The professional warehouse 4é keeper with his expertise has been forced into close col- laboration with the container/ shipowner and constrained to study container depot work, both at home and overseas.

'Let particularize the us trends. The failure to adapt facilities port to new con- ditions coupled with unstable relations between port em- ployer and labour has un- troubtedly Prompted the rs.

wharfingers, treat notably. from the Port of London. With programmes aggravated by the recent dock strike, storage accommodation is now being acquired away from troubled dockland as far as possible. Wharfingers are seeking to diversify their interests and in this respect public. ware- housing offers a distinct attraction. In consequence the trend is away from the dock area and towards the estab- lishment of large inland ware- houses with up-to-date hand- ling aids or the establishment of national warehousing and distribution facilities linked with computer systems' (My emphasis.) There are many examples of stevedoring firms-more often than not owned by the ship- ping lines-moving their cargo operations off the dock and setting ICDs employing non-registered labour. At Hull, Ellerman Wilson Lines Ltd operates a container Scandinavia and service to Europe. They are also the main of dock employers labour. They _bought a firm called Key Warehousing and Transportation Co Ltd, a firm which runs a groupage ware- house a stone's throw from the docks. In other shipping cases agents have been forced into the groupage business.

AGENTS

In the days of conventional cargo they offered a service to exporters and importers. The shipping agent dealt with all the arrangements for moving cargo from one country to The advent of the another. ' 'through- container and the transport' concept side-tracked this service. The big operators offer the containers, their own lorries, depots and ships-they promise door-to-door delivery -so who needs the shipping agent? So many agents bought their own transport firms, depots and existed on the fringe of the industry - and often on the fringes of the port areas, grouping cargo, em- ploying labour as cheaply as Workers Press, Wednead possible, often with, it must be said, union agreement. These are the notorious cow- boy operations that the dockers hate. The road haulage business itself has been forced into One of merger atter merger. the biggest, the Transport De- velopment Group is a combi- nation of 112 haulage, ware- housing and associated manu- facturing firms with a wage bill of £20.3m and 12,152 em- ployees in 1971. The transport, warehousing and shipping industries are bewildering web of now interlocking interests with only one victim, the workers.

This is the turmoil containeri- zation has caused. It should be re-emphasized, however, that groupage, though the most provocative aspect of containerization, is not the most important. Trade via unit loads in 1970 equalled 16 million tons. The estimates on how much of this was grouped in inland depots varies. Some say 25 per cent, others put the figure as high as 50 per cent. But whatever the propor- tion, far more containers are full at the point of packed manufacture than are stuffed at the ICDs. The root of jobs crisis caused by containeriza- is the system itself. It tion technical represents vast dnesday August 2, 1972 PAGE 7 Ports have changed from a hive of activity to a mere staging point on the container's journey. Above: terminal Southampton contrasts method of unloading ship's old hold at London docks changes which should be of great benefit not only to the docker but to working people everywhere. Should be ... but for one critical factor. It is a system developed by capitalists. Under capitalism containeriza- tion becomes a thing for dockers to fear, it is a trap set by the employers and sprung by the unions with their successive modernization deals. Not until the docks and the transport industry is national- ized 'under workers' control will the dockers be able to welcome the container. Then it will mean shorter hours, higher pay and a wel- come respite from dirty back- breaking work. Then the container will mean cheaper food for workers and peasants all over the world who live on the bread line. Under socialism con- tainerization will benefit the many instead of the few. Tomorrow The octopus that is strangling the dockers the shipping barons and their em- pire.

LUSH SELF-INDULGENCE

FROM TRUFFAUT

PAGE & Workers Prosa, Wednesday Augur

BY GUEST REVIEWER FRANCIS

' ANNE AND MURIEL'

(Curzon) is one of those typically French films in which the director uses the medium to explore his own personal obses- sions. In a sense it is self-indulg- shamelessly ent, but it is also rather admirably serious. Watching it is like being an egotistic buttonholed • by stranger who insists on telling one all about his private life, and it depends on one's mood whether one is interested or bored by the result. It is also typically French in that the clothes and the décor are in perfect taste and the scenery (whether in pre- 1914 Paris or on the wild Welsh coast) is breathtakingly beautiful. Handled by a less-sophisti- cated director than François Truffaut, the plot would be unbearably insipid. It is about the relationship between a self-centred young Frenchman and two English sisters, both of whom love him in their different ways. difficult, with- Muriel is - 5 9, 107%

RANCIS WYNDHAM PHOTOGRAPH B'

drawn and inhibited, with a passion for purity and a fear of sex, while Anne is warm and compara- and generous tively uncomplicated. In the part of Anne, Kika re Markham gives a marvellously relaxed and beguiling perform- ance, which manages to make script that often sense of a seems wilfully obscure. Stacey Tendeter is less happily cast as Muriel: the character is supposed to be fanatical and exalted, but the actress seems merely petulant and cold. Léaud Pierre Jean curiously passive as the hero— no doubt correctly, as the role is little more than an instru- ment through which Truffaut can analyse his own reactions to the two opposing types of : dominated . who have women his erotic imagination. Troffaut's earlier film, 'Jules et Jim', perhaps his most successful, was adapted from a novel by Henri-Pierre Roche.

This new movie is taken from a later book by the same 'Les Deux Anglaises et author, le Continent, which was more or less openly autobiographi- cal. Roche, it seems, had been involved with two English in

RAPH BY BEN JONES

girls, and in 'Jules et Jim' had transposed the experience into a story of two men in love girl. Sure with same enough, the hero of 'Anne and writes a novel called Muriel' Jérôme et Julien, and the film is set within the framework of his writing the second book, which is the source of the film itself. style is deliberately The literary: most scenes are accompanied by 'voice over' repeating or enlarging on their and the characters content, are constantly writing letters to each other which we both see and hear. The most charac- teristic shots are of these letters being written, posted, delivered, opened and read.

One gets an impression of a closely-knit group of people forever analysing their feel- to the fact that ings, blind these are not particularly re- markable in themselves. And yet the concentration of the does succeed in analysis odd dramatic generating an tension, which is quite inde- pendent of the fact that the sensibilities being analysed are really rather banal. Like many Frenchmen, both Truffaut and Roche seem to imagine that all English life closely resembles that led by the Brontes. The character of Muriel is clearly inspired by Emily-although it is Anne who is made to die of con- sumption, with a from of lips. It must be said that the Welsh sequences are wildly although they improbable, might seem more convincing if they had been set in France.

Again, one is forced to con- is here clude that Truffaut less concerned with life as it is lived, than with his own fantasies, memories and re- grets. It has been suggested that he to the may have grafted on original by Roche his own feelings for two other sisters, the actresses Françoise Dorléac and Catherine Deneuve, both of whom he has directed (in Peau Douce' and La 'La Sirène du Mississippi' respec- tively). Anne has something of Dorléac's spontaneous charm, while Muriel recalls the con- trol and reserve of Deneuve.

Françoise Dorléac was killed in a car crash-and in the film Anne is made to die, although she does not die in the book. If one imagines the part of Muriel played by Above: making her first appear- Kika In a feature film, ance Markham plays the sensuous sister, Anne, caught up in a love triangle Catherine Deneuve, one can guess at what is meant by the frequent references to her 'purity'. All this speculation raises the question of the value of a film that can only be fully appreciated and interpreted in inside of some terms the director's knowledge of own life. As it stands, 'Anne and Muriel' strikes me as fairly meaningless-enjoyable only for the beauty of the photography and the delicate of Kika Markham's charm acting. And yet, throughout, one senses the existence of some hidden meaning, hinted at by the mysterious intensity which one feels to be at the heart of its conception. Again, it is somehow typi- cally French that so literary a film, filled with insistent analysis and endless explana- tions, should have omitted to provide the one explanation (as to why it was made at all) that might have brought en- lightenment to a bewildered public.

REVIEWED BY ANNA TATE

A film critic once described Michael Win- ner as one of Great Britain's most successful and least talented direc- tors — a piercingly accu- rate and rather polite description. Due to a structure which makes talent entirely second- ary to profit, the film industry boasts a number of personali- ties with an overwhelming in- sight into and preoccupation with the correct ingredients for box-office bangers. In this, Michael Winner outstrips the field. With a single-mindedness which certainly • indicates stubborn intention to live up to his surname, he has, over the years, hatched a series of films which contrived, without exception, to fulfil the norms (as far as these can be pre- dicted in an unpredictable and slumping market) of com- mercial success. "The Nightcomers' is a prime example of this species of 'filmus commercialis' with all the component parts of sex, sadism, violence and sentimen- tality. But, worst of all, the film has pretensions toward a more priggish cultural acceptance than Winner has really aspired to in the past. It brings to mind the attempt of Hugh Hefner to artistically his 'Playboy' enhance maga- zine image by producing the film 'Macbeth' with Roman Polanski. Hefner used Shakespeare. Michael Winner uses Henry James, not that James had the talent of a Shakespeare. In any event, all the char- acters of the 'Nightcomers' are based on the James novel 'The Turn of the Screw' and with unimaginative help the of screen-writer Michael Hastings, Winner has succeeded in pro- ducing a tale of tormented emotional relationships which smack of pseudo-D. H. Law- rence, pseudo-L. P. Hartley, pseudo-Thomas Hardy and pseudo-Henry James to boot.

The whole thing is, in a word, pseudo. Those who saw "The Virgin and the Gypsy, Women in Love' or 'The Go-Between', will find this film, both in direction and content, only a paltry imitation of the worst artistic of more excesses talented directors. What John Schlesinger, Ken Russell, Peter Yates, Joseph Losey or Chris- topher Miles do with consum- mate ease and sometimes con- summate error, Michael Win- profound affec- ner apes with tion and constant error. One aspect above all others attract Winner to seems to produce and direct 'The Night- comer's-its sexual sadism.

The fact that he elevates this sadism into a mystical, natural drive with artistic knobs on, makes it all the more unset- ling. Had he tried harder he could certainly not have pulled off a film which could more justifiably enrage women lib- erationists, as every pat clanger is trotted out to reinforce the age-old image of the eternally dominant male brutalizing and crushing virginal female in order to her to sensual reality. Having uncovered a truth, Marlon Brando in "The Nightcomers'.

i.e. that there is in "love' a high degree of hate, competi- tion and struggle for domin- ance, and that nature itself is cruel and aggressive, Winner proceeds to one of the most full-blown clichés ever to hit the screen. One feels, as his pretentious swings camera towards facile parallels with the animal world, that he has read ten pages of Conrad Lorenz and misunderstood about nine of them. Dwarfing all else, the publicity for the film does a hard sell with the caption

•BRANDO, BRUTAL, BEAU-

TIFUL

.. Directors are Stephanto Beacham Misa Jessel. not, of course, always to be blamed for what the publicity boys do to their finished pro- duct, but in this case, Winner on to an ad-man who was could not have better under- stood the of his message film. Marlon Brando is the crown- ing commodity, his stardom the kernel of 'The Night- selling comers' The concept brutality is beautiful is the other peg on which a dubious morality is hung. All this is wrapped up and delivered in the name of reality and art, tied with the tinsel cloak of mystical senti- mentality, which too verges often on the ridiculous. There is even an attempt at philo- sophy, which falls like a thud from a great height when the lead-character It hurts when Quint, says meaningfully: you're born and it hurts when you die.' The extension of this maxim in the film seems to be that you might, therefore, just as well, in between, brutalize all and sundry. Given the burden of such a script and such direction one suffers most of all for Brando.

The idea of casting an all- American, Method star in the role of an all-Irish rogue, can only be described as aberrated.

If the character has any strength at all it is due to the talent of Marion Brando, who knows manages, one never quite how, to bring a touch of credibility where there is none Whatsoever. It is only too clear that he was much more at home in 'On the Waterfront' than in an English rural setting at the turn of the century, dressed like a navvy and intoning in a heavy Irish brogue. He looked for all purposes like an uneasy bull which has been led into a pre-arranged china-shop. He runs through the fields and forest (there is a lot of 'artistic' running through fields and forests in this film) like a man being tracked by the FBI rather than the easy, sensual man of nature he was meant to represent. I thought the lines had got crossed between Perry Mason and Lady Chatterley's Lover. But for those who like sadis- tic sex, violent deaths and sentimentality, this is sloppy the film to see. It certainly he has to be seen to be believed.

Workers Prose, Wadnesday Augual 9, 1972 PAGE 8 An Edinburgh Labour council- place of James Connolly, I am lor has been attacked in not simply wanting a tribute scurrilous and illegal leaflet to a great socialist of the past.

put out by an organization It is far more than that. called the LDA. want to re-emphasise our The councillor, Ron Brown, working-class history — our revolutionary heritage--which proposed erecting a plaque at the Edinburgh birthplace is so important at the present of the James socialist time. great "The LDA, on the other Connolly. hand, is attempting In leaflet distributed in to split a the city the LDA, presumably workers on sectarian grounds here in Scotland, as the leaf- some extreme right-wing Protestant let proves. condemn group, In my view, one of the Connolly as a 'murderer' and a 'traitor'. They reasons for this happening is the bankrupt of policies So many labour and TUC leaders.

number ask other ex- NOTE: In fact Connolly was tremists 'Write or phone to murdered by British imperial- him and let him know that it ism for his role in the heroic is not a lunatic that you want for a councillor. Nor but abortive 1916 Easter an IRA lover' Rising in Dublin. Connolly was sentenced to death and was The authors prefer to remain shot tied to a chair in Mount- anonymous-in fact the leaf- joy jail, Dublin. A wound he let bears no imprint and there- had received in the fighting fore breaks the law. made him unable to stand be- Mr Brown 'In pro- says: fore the firing squad. posing that a plaque or monu- ment be erected at the birth- Below: James Connolly

LEON TROTSKY:

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PAGE 10 Workers Press, Wednesday August 9, 1972 THE TORY government has eventually got around to pre- paring measures to deal with pyramid selling, which has ELEVEN of the 12 workers swindled of people out in section the printing at thousands of pounds. Toye, Kenning and Spencer Minister for Trade, Michael Limited, at Bedworth, in War- Noble, to announce in the 1S wickshire, are continuing next few days the stens to be their strike to demand union taken against this sharp business practice. recognition. In the House of Commons this Society The joined the men week Raphael Tuck, Labour MP of Graphical Allied Trades and for Watford, called for urgent the week Easter. Twice before ›owers to outlaw the technique since then the management of in view of Mr Justice Megarry's the regalia manufacturing comments in the High Court that pany has refused point blank to pyramid selling capable of grant recognition on the grounds being operated dishonestly and this would the rest that upset swindle a far who amount to of the factory, mostly O1 reaching nature'. Municipal General and Workers' Union members. Noble replied: I have taken note of the judgement. It relates According to the strikers on to the two companies for which picket duty, these grounds are have been winding-up orders unfounded. made. Eight days ago the men finally 'Any wider implications walked the when manage- have will further refused holiday may require ment Lucay examination. A study of pyramid money in full. selling is in hand and I hope Last Friday they came up with shortly to reach decisions on any an offer of the required holiday further measures that may be and an increased pay offer pay for five workers who were pre- paid than viously being less union rates. The fight is being undermined management's by the use the students print section working on strikers' machines.

SOGAT officials have so far been unsuccessful in tackling the Union of Students National to stop this. determined The strikers are out until recognition is stay obtained.

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Name Address necessary to regulate the prac- tice.' Mr Tuck: 'Many people have been and are being swindled out life of their savings by slick operators in this field. The prac- tice has been made illegal in a number of states of the United States.' The judge-in a recent case a subsidiary of the involving Koscot Interplanetary Group- had •described the scheme as 'cunning and dis- reeking of honesty', recalled Tuck. Asked if he couldn't 'speed up things to see that more people not swindled out of their are savings', Noble said: 'I shall take whatever action is necessary as soon as I can.' This lackadaisical attitude has the Tory been evinced by in government relation to pyramid selling for months—not to say years. It is no use the Tories saying the whole squalid practice has only just been brought to their attention. It was completely ex- posed in an article in 'The Sun- day Times' by Richard Milner more than 14 months ago. In a major feature entitled "Time to jungle, franchise police the THE BELFAST linen company, William Ewart and Son, announced that 300 workers at two of its plants will be sacked because spinning and processing will be discon- at the plants continued. A by Ewarts. statement announced that spinning cease at its Crumlin Road will mill and cloth and yard proces- sing will end at the Glenbank Bleach and Dye works after completion of current orders. The decision has been taken be- cause of losses in those areas which prohibited the continued operation of the plants. AER LINGUS, the Irish air- line, has made a trading loss after 11 consecutive years of profitability. The loss to the year ending March 1972, amounted to £596,000. This compares with a trading profit of £17.6m in the previous year. increased Although revenue by 13 per cent from £37.5m to £42.3m, expenditure went up faster-by 19 from per cent £35.9m to £42.9m. The net loss after payment of tax and interest charges was a staggering £2.395m, compared with net profit the previous year of £815,000. Aer Lingus chairman Patrick Lynch this week blamed the loss on the troubles in Northern Ire- land among other things. In addition, however, he pin- pointed the root causes-infla- tion and the saturation of the Atlantic routes. In fact, North the airline's heaviest losses £2m—were on the North Atlan- tic route. said he could only see Lynch losses ahead for the company over the next two or three years.

Milner spotlighted the growing importance of the pyramid sell- ing scheme in general and the Swiss-registered Koscot Inter- planetary in particular. Returning to his theme last weekend Milner recalled: 'At the time the Board of Trade had little or no official interest in the franchise industry.

It even passed the buck to the Agriculture and Ministry of Fisheries, apparently on the ground that the only franchises Milner reveals that the De- partment of Trade and Industry has investigated about five firms other than Koscot. Koscot's main rivals include Holiday Magic and Opus, to- gether with Golden Chemical in detergents, Vashchek (England) and Computex in computer- buying, and linked discount Scott James of Westminster in clothing. Milner is cynical about the de- layed intervention of Noble's de- partment. 'By the time the DTI acts, the early birds will have got worms. And the worms will have been got.' These cutbacks can only mean to Belfast blow a very faced with workers already chronic unemployment since the two main areas of employment operating in the city have been textiles and the shipyards.

dockyard

GOVERNMENT

workers at Chatham are now in the second week of a work-to- rule and overtime ban in • sup- port of their pay claim. The refit programme for ships in the yard is now well behind.

Shift work has come to a halt pound the multi-million on nuclear-powered submarine 'War- spite'. And the ban on overtime has hit work schedules on con- ventional warships. The dockyard workers began and they their action after 190,000 other government in- dustrial workers were offered a miserly £1.50 by the Civil Ser- HUNDREDS of Dublin dockers have been made redundant in the last ten years because of the introduction of unitization and containerization. In the cross-channel sections of number of Kers has fallen 80 percent the dockers has nearly 1,000 in 1961 to from 200. The deep-sea labour force has almost been halved from 1,000 to 550. Over 70 fork-lift truck drivers had lost their jobs and these have been taken by the re- IF YOU think the cost of living is getting of out hand, then it's time to look at the cost of dying too.

for Priests are charging more burial services and funerals are becoming more expensive. Midlands, In the the average simple funeral is now 20 per cent costlier than a year ago.

It is well above the £100 mark, according to a local survey.

And this figure does not take into any of account 'extras'-like flowers and head- stones. The National Association of Funeral Directors has just standard charge released its for the next financial rates year. Their minimum charge will be £69.75 compared with £64 last year and £59 in 1970.

Association president G. N.

Carter blames increased costs: This is part of the runaway cost of inflation. If the timber bills that are coming in are any- thing to go by, it is inevitable go up still fur- the The land speculation is also a factor in the accelerating cost of dying. For example, a pri- vate grave for two has gone up from £20 to £27 in recent months. With these soaring charges, many directors funeral are now reporting considerable debts.

One who has been operating in the Midlands for the past 50 told the 'Birmingham years Post': 'I have to write off the cost of three or four funerals a year. I am owed thousands of pounds. There is one per- paying me off at f1.50 a son could not week because she afford the bill. You'll never director who is find a funeral a millionaire. Footnote: Ever-conscious of their 1 'A to build election promise Tory Better Tomorrow, the government paying : out grants of un to £30 to under- privileged people unable to afford the cost of burying their close relatives. TURKEY and the US have opened talks in Ankara on the projected sale of more than 60 American Phantom fighters to the Turkish air force. A ten- man delegation led by Richard Violette, a Foreign military sales the US Defence specialist from Department, arrived at the week- end and opened negotiations on Monday. The arms will further strengthen the reactionary mili- tary regime, which already boasts Europe's largest army. vice Department. Ten unions meeting early in July turned down the 8 per cent demanding round. Talks between the unions and government officials are expected to open again in London this Friday. Meanwhile, the Chatham dock- yard workers are seeking sup- port from other Medway-based government establishments.

Jim Lewis, of the chairman Whitley committee in the yard said: 'This pay rise is not just for the dockyard workers, but all industrial workers in govern- ment establishments.' maining dockers. are revealed in These figures a new report by the Dublin Port and Docks Board. It calls for expansion of port facilities and the creation of more job oppor- tunities. More than 60 export cargo through the port of passes Dublin.

ITV

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NEWS,

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4.55 London. 6.01 Report West.

worried about the lack of THE CITY of London, investment in manufacturing, is trying to stem the continual flow of funds into property and finance. Yes- terday the Bank of England moved to reimpose the main banks' lending controls.

A letter from Sir Leslie O'Brien, governor of the cen- tral bank, asks them to 'make credit less readily available and companies to property for financial transactions not associated with the mainten- ance and expansion of indus- try. He goes on: I am suré banks appreciate the need to meet this demand if the the growth economy is to proceed soundly A GROUP of right-wing teachers City financiers are clearly con- in the breakaway Professional cerned about the lack of interest Association of Teachers have be- in industrial investment and the ominous signs of ever-increasing come registered under the In- in and speculation property dustrial Relations Act. finance companies. The association is committed firmly to a 'no-strike' policy. The THE PRISONERS' union PROP, group, which claims more than Friday's organized last which formed 4,000 members, was national jail strike, said yester- during the teachers' strike cam- day it would organize a demon- paign in 1969 and 1970. stration outside Wandsworth jail.

has demanded an immediate small It red ludicrous 230,000-strom: com- public inquiry allega- with the into the pared a Union Teachers one the sus- tions of brutality and pension from duty of all prison it still represents a threat in the staff involved in the allegations.

of strike action called by event The demonstration is against the official union leadership.

brutality by prison staff and dis- The NUT and tch Nationas ciplinary proceedings against men Schoolmasters Association Wandsworth who took part at have both deregistered in in Friday's sit-down, the union with TUC policy. accordance said. PROP has threatened The PAT is now expected to an hack recommittee nich Bures immediate general prison strike which if are punished for committee ПхАС prisoners their part in the national action.

teachers' salaries. The late Audie Murphy as a raw recruit in the Northern Arn Badge of Courage' on BBC 2 ULSTER: 4.30 Rompe 6.15 Report Wales. 6.30 Dave 4.55 Cash. 8.00 Mike 4.50 News. 7.00 London. and Bernie's show. 9.00 London.

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PROBLE

VE'T

BRITIS

REVOLUTIOI

By Leon Inesky A salient work of Trotsky treating with his struggle against the rising Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet Union. Written in the aftermath of the civil war and in the period of the New Economic Policy when, despite all the conservative pressures generated within the Soviet Union, there still seemed every chance of curbing and overcoming this bureau- cracy. This book makes a bridge between Lenin's deathbed struggles against Stalinism and the later found- ing of the Joint Left Opposition.

108 pp price 65p (postage extra) Avallable from 186a, Clapham High Streel, London SW Workers Press, Wednesday August 9, 1972 PAGE 11 rthern Army during the American Civil War in 'The Red 0 Romper TYNE TEES: 11.25 Cricket. 1.45 room. 4.55 London. 6.00 Simon Locke. 2.15 Beilbird.

. 3.00 10 Viewfinder. $ 35 Good afternoon. 3.00 Cricket. World war I. 11.00 4.10 News. 4.15 Crossroads. 4.40 Make a wish. 4.55 London.

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UFO.

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11.45 Scales of justice. re. 11.00 London. This collection of articles was penned by Trotsky in reply to various critics of his then recently-published Where is Britain Going?' They appeared in the Soviet press of the time and con- stitute a necessary corollary and sequel to that work. Trotsky here dissects the arguments of all the brands of opponents of Marxism: re- formist, centrist, pacifist, rabian, trade-union bureaucrat and by impli- cation, its Russian counterpart, the nascent Soviet bureaucrat. Here also he unravels many of the knotty prob- Party developing a strategy for power in the revolutionary epoch.

64 pp price 35p (postage extra)

BY LEON TROTSKY

andon SWa JUG and the Paperbacks Contro (300 p. 3)

PAGE 12 Workers Press, Wednesday Aus MASKING their treachery in accepting a four-year no-strike pledge at Clydebank, the Stalinists yesterday called a meeting of shop stewards in Glasgow to put a 'militant' face. meeting of the Liaison A of Committee for the Defence Trade Unions at a bingo hall in one-day Fartick called for a soppage throughout the West of Scotland September 5 to on coincide with the TUC annual meeting at Brighton. read: We The resolution demand that the TUC General Council will cease co-operation and the the government with instead reaffirm CBI, but will determination of the move- the the Industrial ment to make Relations Act inoperative by non-co-operation with the total refusal to carry out instructions of any court or institution set up under the Act. 'We pledge ourselves to maximum day of operate a stoppages [sic] on September 5 and to send a token delegation to the lobby of the TUC on that day.' This is the face of Stalinism in the trade unions today. Pathetic, worthless one-day stoppages, and 'token' lobbies are suggested in the face of the biggest onslaught that the ruling class has launched against the trade union move- since the Combination ment Laws. James Airlie, who chaired the meeting, refused to take a counter-resolution submitted by Stuart McAusland, Central Glasgow ETU branch, which for full support for the called dockers and the building of Councils of Action to prepare for a General Strike to defeat the Tories. Criticizing the deal at Clyde- bank, McAusland said it was no different to the deal being done between the TUC and the CBI.

He attacked James Reid's statement at the weekend that the deal is in the finest tradi- tion of the trade union and labour movement'. Kevin Halpin condemned the resolution and Airlie said: 'We don't want to be undemocratic, but only one resolution is going that is the liaison forward and committee's' Hil £252.59—

-STILL

A LONG WAY

TO GO

THE STATE of emergency and attacks by the Tory government as determinedly continue as This ever. political situation leaves no time, therefore, for us to sit back over our Fund.

We know that you, our readers, have made a magnificent effort in the past. But the August fight has really just begun. After the UCS betrayal Workers Press is needed to expose the treachery of the Stalinist and reformist union leaders more than ever before. Our Fund must not be allowed to slip back. An extra fight must be made to pull the figure up.

Raise more wherever you can.

We still have £1,497.41 to collect by the end of this month. Post all donations immediately to : Workers Press August Appeal Fund 186a Clapham High Street London SW4 7UG. OVER NORTH Scotland there will be rain at first but brighter weather with showers at times is expected later. Elsewhere in the British Isles there will be showers and sunny periods. The showers will be most frequent in Scotland and Ireland but will die out dur- ing the day over south west England and South Wales. It will be rather cool in the north but temperatures will be near normal in the south. lesday August 9, 1972

BY PHILIP WADE

DESPERATELY afraid of the the Union of Construction, A decided to reject the building e When an angry, 7,000- strong demonstration building workers reached the employers headquarters in London yesterday they found that their union leaders had up for the failed to turn meeting. One of the militants told Workers Press: 'If they had been here and had accepted the offer, I don't know what we would have done to them.

There might have been a lynching!' The UCATT rejection of the offer follows a decision already taken by the Transport and General Workers' Union. At a rally earlier in Hyde Park, delegates from Aberdeen, Manchester, York- Edinburgh, other areas reported shire and all-out strike action for the full £30, 35-hour week claim. The mass meeting passed a resolution calling for an all-out of building national strike workers. The marchers demanded the resignation of George Smith, UCATT general secretary, for originally accepting the deal.

As London's biggest demon- stration of building workers wound its way down Oxford the raised, Street, cry was 'Heath Out'-'£30 for 35 hours now' The employers' latest offer falls far short of the original claim.

Craftsmen would only get an immediate rise in basic rate of £3 and labourers £2.60. No con- cessions have been • offered on the demand for a shorter work- ing week, but most seriously the proposed agreement is essentially an anti-strike deal. For the payment of the guaranteed bonus is conditional uninterrupted working on an This week. means employers would be able to provoke strikes to cut wages. Ian Hayes, UCATT member from Bolton, Lancs, told me: 'Every site is out in Manchester and they totally reject this offer.

'When I heard of the sell-out, I was at first disappointed then If they betray angry. us, the branches will demand their resig- the nation. This fight fight every worker must take up. It is the same for everyone with rising prices and the Common Market.

Workers have enormous strength in their hands if they wanted to use it. 'If you get a Labour govern- ment returned they must nation- alize the building : industry and end decasualization.' Barnsley strike committee member, Denis Burnett, said: 'We have not been out for six weeks for 60p. sent telegrams 'We have to London demanding the leaders' resignation because we have lost all faith in them' Sanderson, Brian

T&GWU

convenor from Southend, echoed the feeling for a joint struggle with dockers: 'We are all in the same union anyway and after all it is the same struggle. This is not just a wage claim-it's our future.

we lose this one, we are • in trouble.' Yesterday's massive show of militancy throughout the country is a complete indictment of the Communist Party support for limiting the struggle to a selec- tive strike policy. About 100 building workers from Leeds travelled down to Registered as a newspaper at the Post Office. Published by Workers Press, 186а Clapham High Street, London,

SW4 7UG.

Printed by Plough Press Ltd. (TU), Street, London, 180b Clapham High

SWA 7UG.

Moves for all-out action on pay Builders force UCATT back DESPERATELY afraid of the militancy of their own members, the executive of the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians (UCATT) yesterday decided to reject the building employers' paltry pay offer.

RECHONI NYS

HORES OF THE BURID WNETE

Yorkshire T&GWU bullders at the Hyde Park rally London for yesterday's lobby. Almost every building site Yorkshire out strike for the claim. Dave Burrows, one many young workers who made trip, Workers Press: 'It's not the local leaders we have worry about, it's the top brass down in London.

HIRST

Tnev bring

US OUT

strike and at the first opportunity they try The offer out. " to sell us and useles. tnev

WOR T

If they try away it. we WIth will kick them out." Preston building workers are in tull support of the campaigr to extend the strike into national action. Alhe Sites, said: Ne on one of tne siles. salu. won l get the full claim under tnis government.' His aso supporte l rae Was als( su•ported Harkin, a labourers' shop steward.

3.000 Glasgow yesterday, over workers demon- building through the strated cicns!

UCATT\

the leadership. The march Kand eno Sellist: took Smith Out' afterwards mas. meellng voted unanimously to stay out indefinitely until their demands and to picket any site dIt Inc | yet on nOT strike in une Glasgow area. Birmingham building workers occupied the Social yeolcruay Radford i Security ONuCe S IR Street and demanded that special strike centre be set up to Manue weh calis men declared that they would not quit the building until they had received assurances that would get benents to which Tnev they are entitled. Several hundred men took part in the occupation. wn members, the executive of chnicians (UCATT) yesterday

ATT

he Hyde Park rally and Earlier between 3,000 4,000 building workers marched through the city centre to a meeting in Digbeth Civic Hall in support of the claim. They were addressed by the of UCATT, regional secretary Ken Barlow, and local militant from the Bryant site in Woodgate Valley, Peter Both Carter. speakers said that the telegrams sent from all regions to the national executive in London and indicated the solidarity determination of the builders to win their full claim. The meeting voted unani- mously to reject the employers' offer of £23 for skilled men and £19.60 for labourers. Moreover it was decided that if the national executive meeting in London were to accept this 'insulting' the regions would go offer, ahead with the strike until the claim was won.

SOCIALIST LABOI

PUBLIC MI

CONWAY HALL, RED

LONDON, V

END THE TUC TALKS

VICTORY TO THE

NATIONALIZE DOCKS AND TR

MAKE THE TORIE

Larry Cavanagh, d G. Heaty, SLL natio MASSIVE police reinforce- ments were on duty yester- day to keep unregistered ports open. In several areas there were again clashes between dockers and the police as scab drivers passed in and out of the gates. In many areas police from outlying have been areas drafted into service to bolster smaller constabularies. The Home Office, which is masterminding the operation, is determined that there no strike had when the police often to back down due to the superior solidarity of the picketing.

The Tory Cabinet went into • yesterday to emergency session the timetable for intro- discuss ducing troops into the docks.

Pressure for an immediate attack on the dockers is being sought by the National Farmers' Union which described the situ- ation as 'critical'. About 450 police were on duty at a private wharf near Keadby, Lincolnshire, yesterday, from Goole arrived in dockers strength to close the port.

The wharf, LSD Transport, situated on the Trent, was the scene of angry clashes on Monday in which 17 dockers were arrested and several injured. Police there yesterday came from Lincolnshire, Nottingham- shire, Derbyshire and Leicester- shire. When two lorries forced their way through the lines yesterday fights broke out and three pickets were slung into police vans.

Trent-side employers yesterday issued a defiant statement saying: 'We will continue to discharge as long as our workers are not in danger. We feel that the time has come for every right-thinking person to resist by every lawful means the strangle hold which the dockers seek to put on British ports, whether registered or unregistered.' At the unregistered port at and Heysham yesterday, Preston joined in Liverpool dockers a picket several hundred strong to going stop railway wagons and out of the dock. All the work from Preston has been di- verted to Heysham. Ken Powrie, a Preston docker, told Workers Press the that strike had really shown up the union leaders. "They're sitting on the fence,' 'Blokes are worse off he said. under this government than ever these closures before. All are disastrous. It's the working class that always gets it.? He also cited other anti- working class policies of the government-the rent Act, the Industrial Relations Act, the Common Market. Ugly scenes developed in the when police charged afternoon the pickets to force a pathway for 'scab' lorries. They also tore placards out of dockers' hands.

At the nearby Taylor Wood- row power station, site a mass striking building meeting of workers unanimously passed a resolution supporting dockers. Convenor Stan Jackson re- ported to the meeting that the regional council had decided in Manchester to call for a national building strike. He told Workers Press that if UCATT accept the employers' offer 'they've sold us down the river'.

T LABOUR LEAGUE

C MEETING

LL, RED LION SQUARE

NDON, WC1.

UC TALKS WITH HEATH

TO THE DOCKERS

S AND TRANSPORT INDUSTRIES

HE TORIES RESIGN

Speakers: vanagh, dock worker SLL national secretary