Workers Press no. 902

workers press

RECALL THE TRADES UNION CONGRESS

END ALL PAY

TALKS WITH

THE TORIES

INCORPORATING THE NEWSLETTER • TUESDAY OCTOBER 24, 1972 • No. 902 • 4p DAILY ORGAN OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE

BY STEPHEN JOHNS

OPPOSITION to talks between the Tories and the TUC over state control of wages—which reach their climax on Thursday — has spread to Britain's biggest union. Leaders of the Transport and General Workers' power and engineering section, which organizes men in the power stations, have demanded the union press ahead with industrial action regardless of the talks.

They are also demanding an adjournment in all negotiations on their £5.50 claim until Council is freed from the Electricity the governments instruction to hold down wages in the public sector. which arrived at the T&GWU head are trend he puts Jack Jones on the hot leaders in talks with the Tories over the proposed This powerful section of the Dan to control wares union is virtually asking him to ignore the Tory pleas of inflation and sanction industrial action regardless of any pay deal.

Tom Crispin, the transport workers' chief nego Dower mens commented yesterday: rather national committee were incensed by the attitude of the electricity council negotiations. decided to Ireeze ask for action until the just claim was settled.

The power and engineering executive now joins the growing chorus copositiot to es deal with control Tories over state wages. the power industrv MCCL In DarLicular WOrKerS stamped on be- wno already nave nad taeir claim cause of the talks. Union leaders appear now to be taking up two positions. THERE are those, like Ray Buckton of the loco- men. who say the talks must end.

OTHERS,

notablv the two lefts. Hugh Scanion of the engineers and Jones, who still seek a deal but want discussion within the TUC.

Jones, however, has still not cle. He is and asked for a special congress of the TUC still talking in terms of a meet- ing of all union executives to Another one day strike will be at the top of the trade unions discuss any lory deal. launched by engineers the demanding special Congress Other chiefs, led by Thursday to The full Congress met less power stations the Victor Feather, are still desper- to thrash than a month ago coincide with LalAs deal with the Downing Street. economic poncy for me nex Feather's subservience to On Friday powerworkers' months. A long and pious resolu 1 orIes. will tion was passed which mentioned The 10ea state control leaders meet to decide and joint control of the the everything but im- whether to take industrial action with the capitalist economy of the over their claim. topic day portant -COn shocked tinued collaboration with the covernment even This growing revolt is making right-wing MPs in the Labour Tories over wages. chances of the and Party. Tories reaching a deal increas- The left, and particularly the But hostile reaction from rank- Possibilities Communist

TCHOLC

dr C DOrE Unt and-file workers, especially those sion or the sibly for this eva- nOT Ene with claims blocked by the Tory the government has no intention issue of cabinet, Is growing every day.

giving major concession of their members one

TUC

Over 1.000 workers at Rols the Industrial the got on Tents. up and spoke Royce, Coventry, are threatening Act or dividends, as demanded favour of calling the talks off. who went by the And, of course, no resolution or unions. to Join their foremen the rank The pressure trom one-day SuNKe vester

TURN TO BACK PAGE

day against the pay plan.

and file accounts for the chorus • No. 902 4p

E SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE

A joint Reuters and Press Association building yeste

MALSO?

CLERICAL CHAPSL

FOUAL

TREATIENT

WITH JOURNAL

Asso- STRIKERS at the Press ciation news agency yesterday declared their determination to stay out until John Lawrence, the Father of the NATSOPA clerical chapel, was reinstated.

The majority of the members of the chapel withdrew their labour unofficially last Tuesday demanding that the management met a house pay claim in full.

They rejected an instruction from NATSOPA officials to re- turn to work immediately. Mr dismissed Lawrence was on Thursday. Yesterday's meeting voted by 110 to 37 with five abstentions to stay out until Mr Lawrence was reinstated, despite an appeal

SOCIALIST

LABOUR LEAGUE

PUBLIC MEETING

BEHIND THE

ASSASSINATION

OF TROTSKY

a reply to Joseph

TUESDAY OCTOBER 24

Conway Hall Red Lion Square, WC2 (nearest tube Holborn) 8.00 p.m. Speaker: G. Healy (SLL National Secretary) admission 10p ssociation picket outside the agencies' ding yesterday.

PRESS

from the NATSOPA branch sec- retary John Lewis to return to work. Mr Lawrence yesterday thanked the strikers, who still were d. • picketing the Press Association building in Fleet Street, for their solidarity. Some Reuters workers joined the picket line yesterday and some National Graphical Associa- tion members-along with dust- men, postmen and other delivery workers-are refusing to cross the picket line. Members of the National Union of Journalists have been told by their chapel not to do work normally performed by the NATSOPA strikers.

workers press

RECALL THE TRADES UNION CONGRESS

END ALL PAY

TALKS WITH

THE TORIES

INCORPORATING THE NEWSLETTER • TUESDAY OCTOBER 24, 1972• No. 902 • 4p DAILY ORGAN OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE

BY STEPHEN JOHNS

OPPOSITION to talks between the Tories and the TUC over state control of wages—which reach their climax on Thursday - has spread to Britain's biggest union. Leaders of the Transport and General Workers' power and engineering section, which organizes men in the power stations, have demanded the union press ahead with industrial action regardless of the talks.

They are also demanding an adjournment in all negotiations on their £5.50 claim until the Electricity Council is freed from the government's instruction to hold down wages in the public sector. The resolution, which arrived at the T&GWU neaaquarters yesterday, puts jack jones on tne not spot. On other Tories over proposed leaders in talks with the the Dian lo control wazes 1 us poweriu secuon or tit the Tory union is virtually asking nım to ignore pleas of and sanction industrial action regardless of any pay deal.

Crispin, the transport workers' chief nego- Tom tiator Conniencu rather vestercav. committee were incensed by the attitude of the electricity council and freeze negotiations. They decided to on ask tor action until the just claim was settled. ine power and engineering executive now Joins control flect in particular workers OUWeI wno already nave naa tnel claim stamped on be cause of the talks. Union leaders appear now to be taking up two positions. THERE are those, like Ray Buckton of the loco- men, who say the talks must end.

OTHERS,

two lefts, Hugh Scanlon notablv the of the engineers and Jones, who still seek a dea but want discussion within the 'TUC has still not Jones, however, come clean and of the TUC. special He is askcu 0l d

CURRICOS

still talking in terms ol a meel- of all union executives to at the top of the trade unions discuss any Tory deal. Another one dav strike will be launched by engineers the demanding a special conoress. Other union chiefs, led by stations Thursday The full Congress power on Victor still desper- Feather, are thrash out with the talks than a month to coincide al ately seeking Feather's suesservieh to deal with the Downing Friday Street. economic policy for the next 12 Tories. On powerworkers months. A long and pious resolt will tion was passed which mentione goed state Control leaders meet decide wages and joint control of the whether to take industrial action ever yuan. 11l1- capitalist with the economy over their claim. portant topic -CO- shocked even tinued collaboration with the covernmenl Has This growing revolt is making right-wing in Labour

MUNS

Tine Tories over wages. chances and the the Party. Tories reaching deal increas The left, and particularly the But hostile reaction from rank.

Possibilities al C Communisi Dore The and-file workers, especially those major responsibility for this

HOT

with claims blocked by the Tory eva. the government has no intention sion issue. cabinet. of giving ady. major concession Not of their members one Over 1,000 workers at Rolls- the Industria the

TUC

got up and spoke Royce, Coventry, are threatening Act or dividends, demanded favour of calling the talks off. as to join their who by the foremen went unions. And, of course, no resolution or The the rank strike vester- pressure fron

LONC

TURN TO BACK PAGE

day against the pay plan.

and file accounts for the chorus 1 24, 1972 • No. 902 4p

E SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE

A joint Reuters and Press Association building yeste

VALSOPA

CERICAL CHAPEL

EQUAL

TRE/ THENT

JITH TOURIS

STRIKERS at the Press Asso- ciation news agency yesterday declared their determination to stay out until John Lawrence, the Father of the NATSOPA clerical chapel, was reinstated.

The majority of the members of the chapel withdrew their labour unofficially last Tuesday demanding that the management met a house pay claim in full.

They rejected an instruction from NATSOPA officials to re- turn to work 'immediately. Mr Lawrence dismissed was on Thursday. Yesterday's meeting voted by 110 to 37 with five abstentions to stay out until Mr Lawrence was reinstated, despite an appeal

SOCIALIST

LABOUR LEAGUE

PUBLIC MEETING

BEHIND THE

ASSASSINATION

OF TROTSKY

a reply to Joseph

TUESDAY OCTOBER 24

Conway Hall Red Lion Square, WC2 (nearest tube Holborn) 8.00 p.m. Speaker: G. Healy (SLL National Secretary) admission 10p Issociation picket outside the agencies' ding yesterday.

PRESS

from the NATSOPA branch sec- retary John Lewis to return to work. Mr Lawrence yesterday thanked PA the still strikers, who were d. picketing the Press Association building in Fleet Street, for their solidarity. Some Reuters workers joined the picket line yesterday and some National Graphical Associa- tion members-along with dust- men, postmen and other delivery workers-are refusing to cross the picket line. Members of the National Union.

of Journalists have been told by their chapel not to do work normally performed by the NATSOPA strikers.

Military link-up for counter-revolution PAGE 2 Workers Press, Tuasday October 24, 1972 Three of the main partic/pants weekend's strange alliance: (top to bottom) Clesnaicen nony doriaone dro din Pelikan. Heath's 'regional development'- reservoir of labour THE TORY government is claiming a considerable victory at the Paris Common Market summit for its so-called regional development policy. This is Regional Development Fund "permit ... the correction of the main regional imbalances in the enlarged Community and particularly those resulting from the preponderance of agriculture and from industrial change and structural unemployment.

sections s prése ted is some This is the press Tory manoeuvre to they will some of the monev the Com- have to lay out on mon Agricultural Policy which mainly benefits France. But in reality this is not the main reason for Tory jubilation The heart of the British employers right

SCICILC

stoa Market. of entry into the Com- mon They want to use the areas of the Common Market where there low and high are wages uiendoyment ane wnelc Lacc unions are all. These organized, of the turope to play dle part or reservoirs or cneap Jabour under the regional scheme.

It is no accident that the April budget introduced by lory Chan- cellor Anthony opened barber the floodgates for the export of Britain the Cablldi IUlli Common and MaTrer countres other parts of the world. This measure is already being the hirms implemented British - Leyland Corporation, Lucas group and Thorn Electrical recently closed all ot which have down plants in Britain to move production to the continent.

here Involved only dic Italy inside areas uke soulient the Common Market, but also the fascist and military dictator- the tringes ot the Com-

SILOS

mon Market like Spain, Portugal and Greece. Pompidou has already expres- desire for Spanish' entry cer lis Market and into the Common ally' Portugal, close necolated relalioll- ship with the EEC. tion"" under the Pact Warsaw occupation. What A The third element in this highly dubi- of anti-Trotskyists is ous amalgam provided by the Communist Party of Great Britain. Monty Johnstone, the party's anti-Trotskyist specialist we was greeted at the conference in the friendliest s Taridi An and Pelikan and strange wallict Mandel's SuDDOlLCL. think Robin Blackburn. long-standing political lohnstone is a hack and Stalin-worshipper whose political credit is sustained entirely by anti-Marxists like Blackburn and ae gathering Ali. Twenty years ago he was an of the infam- enthusiastic supporter THE DEFENCE of victims of Stalinist ous Czechoslovak Slansky show-trial.

repression Pastern Eurobe The revisionists acclaim class question which involves a prin- this man 'radical scholar' of Eastern Europe cipled struggle against Stalinism with- and though the Soviet Union. he in the workers' movement.

has not attempted to explain his Only on this basis can the support tor Stalin's crimes. Savst class in the capitalist countries aid its even retrospectively. deformed Following the show trials of Dubcek human face' in the Prague Spring of WOlKEN prepare the political revo- August this states to 1968. He advocates working. within supporters in July and "push arties lution which will overthrow the the communist of Eastern year Pelikan wrote to the American Stalinist Angela Davis appealing for bureaucracy's rule. Europe their eaders 'overcome and avoid certain defor- her intervene with the Gustav This is not, however, the basis of an Husak leadership on their behalf.

organization called Radical Scholars mations'. told sle conteence. criticize Dubcek for Davis adamantly refused and was Some people of Soviet and East European Studies

VIP

with of which held its second not having a clear programme, rewardec conference in 2011 Eastern Europe and the Soviet how could such a programme exist?

London at the weekend. Davis is still being built up Mandel and his supporters naturally Union. This body is animated largely by aca- by the British Communist Party as a explicit this attack accepted U1. demic supporters of the CeVOST Trotskyism because they share Peli- heroine the struggle against O1 International Marxist Group (IMG), Yet the party is hostility the building of oppression. silent Kalo S New Left and International Socialists.

independent revolutionary parties about her betrayal of the Stalinist Its organizers describe it as 'a non- Czechoslovakia. Pelikan victims in botn in the capitalist countries and of sectarian arena on the nature in the degenerated workers' states.

tactfully refrained from mentioning socialism' and hope Critique or t Mandel considers the political this the revolu- episode WOLrUCLIVC called this Stalinism be the 'scholars' conference tion against Will purpose. 'spontaneous' working The IMG men naturalv did not men.

Among the speakers at the weekend tion it either-it might class: 'From the moment the masse: nave upsci were Ernest Mandel, their friend Johnstone. These become autonomously and spontane- people COnIC CuLC leading Belgian revisionist, and Jiri Stalinism and their cannot fight ous v active the power of the bureau Pelikan, of Czech- former director to disappear like light- 'defence' of the victims of Stalinist cracy oslovak television, now living in exile Eastern Europe is ning,' he said. repression In in Rome. The of the 'spontaneous liberal-humanitarian political fraud. outcome Pabloite led Mandel's Pelikan is supporter of the Alex- action of the masses in Czechos o Dv last the Dubcek old friend Michel Pablo long vakia, however, was ago ander Dubcek wing of the Czechos distinguished itself as lovak Stalinist regime, which even Pelikan admits bureaucracy "normaliza- dog of Stalinism. 'accepted the logic of wanted to introduce 'socialism with a Fascists blow up workers' demo train from the

PREPARATIONS

for ther draw strength Kego1o iTse T.une police caiel policies of refused to make any statement counter-revolutionary Confer- European Security on who was behind the terrorist CP. to be ence are expecter at Stalinists Reggio the scheme for providing allacks the centre of the discussion calling demonstration neTan nonlce anearmned 10I EEC's revenue to out of the forces olare riddled with young tinder-developed t° areas helke between the Kremlin bureau- of and supporters cracy and Italian Prime Mini- This southern Italy. the same way, Kome W al aDalCH Giulio Andreotti, who ster Stalinist dunekv when

SIASCST VOUTI

une ltallal

SUD DOLI

arrives in Moscow today on ond paratroee ried o march the programme for regiona. ..ee the in the Paris official visit. headquarters a five-day

EEC

Italian : talks. Communist Party activity the paratroopers, The being Andreotti's government rests Sune mane rascisi ovel ground is rapidiy whom were uniform len oe tl weekend shows from

TOTS

oe. prepared for a mass exodus on the support gets rally the battle of velopment' will be based on the mark production industry from the fascist Italian Social Move- destruction of the working Britain, leading to speedy nanel. ment which was in action over will the Party draw Communist Sute

IASCISTS

Inciucle growth of unemployment in key the weekend against the Italian strength from the Italian itself, the Stalinists continue sections of industry. working class premier's visit Moscow their policies of collaboration. to as the The Tories hope _lo use Calabria, fas S8 In Reggio Regional Development scheme attacked demonstration play workers one CouL ouu arace linonsiss orolcolul against another and lay the basis against the poverty unem- and for smashing the unions through- ployment in southern Italy.

out Europe. The fascists Mass unemolovment in Britain the raliway iles all

ULIC

in e hul opssati n ot the inde of serving. members full of the Indust- operation had earlier attended main na ceruons Act lo compiclcly exploded on subordinate the trade unions to near Latina. Ivaoie: rouLe the state. damaged of a Taree carnace. charter train with 1,000 workers No worker should be taken on board. Five workers were in.

deliberately the

UTCU

sentiments … or ure sunnit coll- Ten thousand police and cari.

muniqué. They conceal unpre- Andreotii: Now In Moscow cedented attacks on basic rights binieri in full riot kit patrolled Both have French the Basque European' stance his countries

GENERAL

François amounts of trated wal conclusion that the reached the including Mirage provinces. enlort modernct Maurin, head of the the Spanish army. aeroplanes we

HUS

ulve of staff the The receive open world and enter into general cars: these initial purchases full backing extensive armed forces, from French were made rrench anc wit a vew national relationships.' set ineapp iont prod lator bureaucrats arrived in Madrid yes- 1Sh police surubeall Will Basque nationalists. are strengthening weaponry five-day reply, Veress terday on retel Pompidou's their ties with vice-Minister of the Hun- stake. visit to review the pro- fascist regime. statement thai Spain must garian Foreign Trade Office nera nave aco neen ex. This Madrid in military co- gress enter The Cal week historical tensive manoeuvres awel Lilt mese preparations torn onanis nusinessmes operation between the French and between *amnitier Walci Junked preparations the able the visit an exhibi- Hungary and Spain. France and Spain. aind Technical week Economic •oas •

LOLCCS

counter-revolu

TIOR

curopeal the north of Spain and the The Stalinists are clearly the Since the two countries

TION.

realty Dermo lasi Dul Ul. south of France. week's European summit in by the Hungarian Ministry nn avour radoder agreement eyea rume ar, have of Foreign Trade. munity Europe where These manoeuvres June At the working agreemenl on Maurin was invited by opening cere- is con- of anti- the taken 1970, there have been General the of subversion and anti-guer- Pernandez-Cuesta trolled Diaz-Alegria. mony Spanish under-Secretary of two main developments. rilla exercises and a lot of praised the Spanish Messrs Maurin and Diaz. Stalinists 'liberal Alegria. Spain has bought large activity been concen- has

Biggest-ever ATUA conference held in Birmingham Cold store sackings must THE SACKING of 27 men by Midland Cold Storage is an attack that must be resisted by every depot worker, transport driver and docker. Unity in the face of the employer is a vital principle in every arena of class struggle; the reasons why it must be insisted upon at Midland can be stated very simply and graphically. Midland Cold Storage, Hack- ney, east London, is owned by _ Vestey family. powertul It was the Vesteys who started the legal action which led to the jailing of five London dock- ers in July. The family holds a powerful position in the New Zealand Meat Producers' Board, which is threatening to shift its trade out of London and destroy the livelihoods of hundreds of dockers. And at Nelson's Wharf, South- wark, 87 Vestey cold store work- ers—all of them registered dock- ers-have been forced to take a big wage-cut for fighting a closure threat. Lord Samuel Vestey and his brood, therefore, are no more friends of the docker than any other employer. The Vesteys shifted large chunks of their capital away from the docks in order to give themselves hire-and-fire powers over their workers which they could not obtain under the National Dock Labour Scheme.

had five dockers jailed They for their picketing of Midland in a bid to win back some of last jobs. And when

READ MUSKETE

THE ONEY

DALY PAPLE

BY DAVID MAUDE OUR INDUSTR

Nelson's Whart, Southwark, where docke threat. dockers refused to be intimidated, used their sack they powers ruthlessly against the cold-store workers rather than give a single concession to the pickets.

Some serious thinking, there- fore, is required of those shop stewas s ho there talking so e weeks ago about the possibility of a negotiated compromise with the Vesteys through the agency of the Transport and General Workers' Union and its secretary Jack Jones. But equally serious thought is needed from those transport drivers' leaders who were talking breaking recently about the dockers' picket line at Midland.

There is no more compromise or special relationship with the Vesteys and the port transport employers generally than there is

REVOXUTIONANY

I INDUSTRIAL CORRESPONDENT

ere dockers have been fighting a closure with the Tory government of Heath. Like the TUC, which has accepted the principle of the Tories' state pay plan and is pro- ceeding to implement it. ones and the T&GWU leadership have in the Jones-Aldingtor report accented and proceeded to implement the principle of unem- ployment on the docks. Nationally, the Jones-Alding- ton report has opened the way for a further big cut in the num- ber of registered dockers and a wide-ranging attack on the Dock Labour Scheme. Wages and conditions in the entire port transport industry are to a considerable extent under- That is pinned by the Scheme. why last week the Road Haulage Association, whose express carriers' group meets today to

BOOKS • PERIO

Workers Press, Tue 'plan its strategy for entry into the Common Market, came out openly as the Scheme's most viru- lent opponent. Together with the technolo- gical developments which are already hitting jobs in the indus- Market entry will mean try, . a huge onslaught on transport drivers' jobs. And the union leaders who • failed their have members so spectacularly on the docks will not lift a finger.

What is needed is a policy for united struggle. • No redundancies among either dockers, depot workers or trans- port drivers. All workers must be maintained on full pay until the port, warehousing and trans- port industry can be nationalized, under workers' placed control and planned on socialist lines.

A shorter working week. Work-sharing with no loss of earnings where there is insuffi- cient work. • Maintain and extend the statutory job guarantee in the Dock Labour Scheme to cover all ports and depots. With its docks and transport sections once again under attack, the T&GWU must be recalled to scrap the Jones-Aldington report, demand the breaking off of the TUC-Tory talks and mobilize its members to force the Tory government to resign. In this way the political condi- for the tions can be created return of a Labour government which would nationalize the port, warehousing and transport compensation industry without and under workers' control.

•• PERIODICALS • NEWSPAPERS

Workers Press, Tuesday October 24, 1972 PAGE 3 WELL OVER 2,000 workers trom every major industry in Britain poured into Birmingham on Sunday There were two specia trains from London and coaches tram other parts to make the fifth conference of the All Trades Unions Alliance the largest and most representative ever held. Our picture shows the conference in its afternoon session at the town hall where a full discussion took place on the resolution charging the ATUA and the Socialist Labour League with the task of building a revolu- tionary party in Britain.

There was a unanimous vote to take up this fight immediately throughout the entire labour movement.

A collection at the conference totalled £537.47.

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Hospital manual workers on a basic wage of £13.95 a week recently backed their national claim with strike action. In this two part article BERNARD FRANKS examines the plight of the hospital worker used as cheap labour in the ill-equipped conditions of Britain's hospitals.

FORGOTTEN SECTOR

Above: hospital manual workers In a London hospital. VItal work that keeps hospitals running is considered second class by the authorities PAGE 4 Workers Press, Tuesday October Hospital manual workers on a t BERNARD FRANKS examine The vital behind-the- scenes operations to keep National the Health Service going has been considered second-class work from second-class citizens by both Tory and Labour governments. In 1952 the then Tory told hospital government authorities to 'review staff and reductions make wherever possible'. . From 1963 to 1966 the manual workers' pay was tied up in a three-year agree- ment. When, at the end of this, workers put in for an increase of £1.10 week, the then Labour government promptly held up any payment and referred the claim to the Prices and Incomes Board

(PIB).

The Board's Report-No. 29 —found that hospital workers were indeed some of the low- est paid in the country. It said: 'In only six industries in the Ministry of Labour list are the average earnings of men lower the National Health than in Service.' Total earnings of full- time men in 1966 were found to average £16 9s 6d for a 44- hour week in the National Health Service compared with an average £20 6s 2d for 46 hours in all industry. • Board's Report also The stated: 'Moreover, workers in the National Health Service have been losing ground during the past five years.' In spite of this the Board barred any real increase in pay, proposing instead a rise of lls 8d a week tied to acceptance of all man- ner of job-evaluation, work- study and Measured-Day Work introduced schemes to be through productivity deals.

Those who believed the tale at the time, that these were simply sign-posts on the road to better pay, now know bet- ter. No one objects to efficiency in terms of supplying a decent step hospital service. towards this can be achieved building new hospitals, by closing down the private sec- tor, placing no limits on cash and working equipment conditions, building associated community services, paying proper wages, cutting out the need for long hours by employ- ing sufficient staff and giving adequate training, and by run- ning the service under the con- of committees of NHS trol workers and of patients. However, all the PIB meant by efficiency was doubling up to get everything the work done by existing staffs or even a reduced number of workers.

of NHS The number employees was to be cut by 'natural turnover' meaning that workers who left would not be replaced, their work being spread among those remaining. Work-study, and especially one form of it called Organiza- tion and Methods (O&M), was introduced to cut out 'poor methods' and 'slack working'.

work-study. For example, officers carried out 200 surveys in hospital laundries to find ways of speeding-up the work and reducing the number of employees. Incentive schemes tied to a speed-up were intro- duced as a substitute for real pay increases. ay October 24, 1972 's on a basic wage of £13.95 a week I examines the plight of the hospital w Above: hospital manual workers in a Lo Nor is it only machine operations that come under the 'efficiency' axe. Systems for cutting back the number of beds, on the basis that modern drugs are a sub- hospital stitute for mental care, have been introduced.

A recent report by the Office of Health Economics advises dropping of inefficient the services and excuses the mas- sive use of tranquillizers and 'more anti-depressants as: logical than physical treat- ment'. ('Medicine and Society' OHE October 11, 1972.) Small local hospitals and casualty departments have been closed on the claim that now carry ade- ambulances quate resuscitation equipment and so can take longer to get to a central hospital. One writer on health affairs commented: "The hospital which can dis- charge the most patients is often spoken of as the most efficient—without reference to the number of patients fit to be discharged or the condi- week recently backed their nationa spital worker used as cheap labour i rs in a London hospital. Vital work that keeps h tions to which they return.'

Naturally, any action by hos- pital workers incur will vicious campaign of vilifica- tion whipped up by Fleet Street and by radio and television. Previously, the mass media have treated the ancillary workers, and in fact all low- paid workers, not just as a 'forgotten' but as a non- existent sector. Now, people who have kept quiet about the conditions in many hospitals and about the Tory plans to decimate the Health Service suddenly dig up all sorts of examples of alleged suffering by patients to be laid at the door of the strikers. The truth is, however, if a substantial increase is not paid soon, more and more workers will find it physically impos- sible to stay in these jobs.

Trying to live at current rates of pay will make all Health Service workers themselves suitable cases for treatment.

The fight for higher pay is national claim with strike action. I abour in the ill-equipped conditions it keeps hospltals running Is considered second a fight to keep the services going. This is why patients, and medical staffs nursing must solidly back the claim.

All workers must unite against the outpouring of vitri- olic abuse which is today guaranteed with every strike.

Many trade unionists are members in the print asking and allied trades to allow the publication of Workers workers' Press and other papers and journals during times when the capitalist press is closed down by strike action. In the hospital workers' struggle, closer links are the 770,000 needed with local council workers who have similar pay and problems and who are also demanding a rise at the present time.

The Tory's state control over wages, including use of the TUC's fraudulent threshold agreements—which guarantee employers a set period free from wage claims even though the cost of living has risen— ction. In this two part article nditions of Britain's hospitals.

ad second class by the authorities.

must be defeated before it begins. so-called price freeze The is a complete fraud. Decisions to increase the cost of food and other goods in line with Common Market entry were made long ago and have not been changed. The efforts to divide and weaken the labour movement, using the Industrial Relations Act and racialism must be opposed and defeated. The Tcry government must be forced to resign NOW and replaced by a Labour govern- ment pledged to socialist policies, including the con- tinuous building and expansion of a free Health Service.

But for any action to be effective today a new, Marxist revolutionary leadership must be built in the trade unions; one which will be prepared to take up the political struggle against the state supression of workers rights and conditions; one which will fight con- tinuously to expose and over- throw capitalist oppression.

COURTS THE BOSSES

At the end of the recent Paris Motor Show, the French employers an- nounced record produc- tion figures for the first eight months of 1972 of 2,051,000 units, an in- crease of 235,000 on the 1971 figures. Last Wednesday, Aimé Hal- beher, Communist Party secre- tary of the cars section of the CGT held a Press conference to explain how the employers increase produc- managed to tion without increasing pay.

Halbeher is well placed to answer such a problem since he has been at the centre of negotiations which have con- stantly blunted the struggle of French workers against Citröen, Renault and Peugeot, the main car manufacturers in France. Company unions, constant propaganda, control of bonuses weapons in the em- all are ployers' arsenal, he revealed But with their struggle, the workers had reached a wage of between 1,400 and 1,600 including all bonuses trancs, for a 43t-hour week. Far from 'going slow' on the wages front, the CGT has brought series of out a demands: a minimum wage of 1,500 francs, a 40-hour week, retirement at 60 and a single wage-scale for all categories of workers. Halbeher said they were worried about conditions in the factories. The employers talked about "job-enrichment' and in the Renault plant in Le Mans where the workers have to carry out a series of operations instead of just one, life for a carworker was indeed better.

'The position of the CGT is straightforward; whenever such a modification improves the lot of the workers involved it will be considered as a gain.'

Not content with this, the CGT will call for 5 per cent to 10 per cent of industrial in- vestment to be devoted to the improvement of factory con- ditions, for the workload to be diminished and the installa- tion of rest rooms. The climax of the Press conference was Halbeher's revelation that he had just signed an agreement with Citröen on behalf of CGT members. This was the continuation of the agreement signed in 1968 which was the first of its kind.

That initial agreement was part of the CGT's efforts to break the May-June general strike. The management guarantee a wage increase of 'at least 6 per cent' for the present year, an increase in holiday pay and a little juggling with the wage grades. Halbeher came very close to admitting what a betrayal the deal represents when he con- cluded that the CGT signed the agreement because if they hadn't, the company would given increases anyway have and they would have been used by the company union 'to develop the This 6-per-cent wage in- which represents a crease, wage-cut for Citröen workers' shows that the French CP is well lined-up with the French bourgeoisie in the battle for the international car market.

Faced with the most crucial West German election since the war, Social - Democratic the Party led by Chancellor Willy Brandt is doing its best to prove to the lead- ers of big business that it can run capitalism better than its Christian Demo- crat rivals The party, which is heir to social-demo- the pre-Hitler crats of the Weimar Republic, long ago dropped any reter- ence to socialism from its ban- ners. Since it came to office by a narrow majority in 1969 it has concentrated on build- up the monopolies and ing cultivating good relations on their behalf with Stalinist bureaucracies of Eastern Europe. This policy of 'opening to the east' ferociously was attacked in the Christian Democratic Press at the time, but the CDU, led by Rainer singularly silent Barzel, is now about : it. Barzel has made it clear that his party will not dismantle the treaties Brandt's • regime has signed. The policy is already paying the big dividends for West German combines, some of are opening factories which and raising loans for the Soviet Union, and other Poland Stalinist countries. It has pro- vided an urgently needed out- let for German industry which is in recession as a result of the trade war and monetary crisis. Many of these companies are still in the hands of the men who backed the Nazi war- machine and provided the machinery of death for the eagerness to placate these men, Brandt has launched a viru- witch-hunt lently chauvinist against foreign workers. Following the Munich air- port shoot-out the Palestinian and students have workers robbed of the right to been . organize in unions and more than 200 have been deported without trial. Others are held in prison. At the same time, Brandt has declared in favour of restrictions on all foreign workers — who already lack many of the rights enjoyed by native-born workers. Brandt is wooing the most reactionary elements in Ger- many, who_ naturally support the Zionist Israeli state against the Arabs. But the CDU is not in the least impressed. Barzel stomping the country denouncing social- the for being democrats over- indulgent towards left-wing radical forces. These forces, he charges, are openly working to trans- form the free-enterprise system which he claims is the founda- tion of German industrial strength and prosperity into one of state-directed socialism.

The charge could hardly be directed at Brandt himself: his poured mil- government has lions of marks into privately- owned industry. A typical example is the Ruhrkohle concern employing than half West Ger- more miners. many's This was formed in 1969 by merging coal interests belonging to some 20 combines and has been losing money steadily ever since. The Brandt govern- ToP: SPD Chancellor, Christian Brandt. Right: Barzel of the Democrats. ment has three times inter- vened to keep the company solvent and prevent the pri- vate owners going bankrupt.

The CDU also charges Brandt with having terrorism' been too in combating and preserving law and order.

Yet it was Brandt who ordered the massive nationwide man- hunt against Baader-Meinhof group of 'urban guerrillas' dur- which police became so carried away they shot a com- pletely innocent Scotsman in an excess of zeal. Brandt's efforts to reassure big business have succeeded only in making its representa- tives more arrogant and demanding. They want a show- down with the powerful West German working class, which has recently taken part in a number of tenacious strikes for wages. Brandt is truly a worthy social- of the successor democrats who murdered Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Lieb- knecht and later opened the door for Hitler. His witch- hunting policy and chauvinist attacks on foreign workers prepare the way for extreme right-wing dictatorship, which is the only means German big business can settle accounts with the working class.

PAGE 6 Workers Press, Tuesday October 24, 1972

BY STEPHEN JOHNS

member who refuses to imple- the increase and IS The tenants' movement punished for this. You had in Manchester has split some support in Liverpool. But as yet in Manchester there has the Labour Party and the been no real appeal to the Labour movement down factories. Whether this will come I don't know. the middle. The bulk of 'What we are doing at the the Labour group on the fix present time is trying to city corporation voted to Labour up meetings with implement the increase who We groups are resisting. will determined that they are despite a mandate de- not be the Aunt Sallys of the manding resistance from Tory But we governmell. would also like to know what the city Labour Party. happens when people get SO Will this mean Similar schisms have occur- far in arrears. eviction? We are being as con- red in the surrounding towns.

When the old guard in Stock- ciliatory as we can because we need maximum help from the port Labour Party voted with Labour groups should a situ- the Tories and let in the rents ation like this ever come to increases they were denounced and rats' as 'traitors by pass. councillors 'The Manchester council who stuck to the policy of non-imple- would go along with our view original that is not to carry out any mentation. be said, however, evictions against the working- It must population of this city. that even this group on the left class Salford we know will not con- still the illusion that peddle sider eviction [this was before the Tories can be forced to Salford decided to surrender retreat the Housing over and implement the Act]. Finance position sup- A ct-a 'The engineers district com- ported from within the tenants' of course, has gone on many spokesmen mittee, from the Communist Party and groups strike recomization curs. i think it record the anti-communist revisionists of the International Socialists.

there were any evictions—or if people landed up in court for Support from the well- there would organized trade unions in the defying this Act similar to the city has been poor. The district be a situation confrontation that developed committee of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers the jailing of the five over has gone on record threatening dockers. It is perhaps not a strikes if people are victimized.

situation that is pleasant but it may be inevitable.' But there have been no I asked Mr Davies what he stoppages in factories so far— of the performance of thought unlike Liverpool where the Party—nationally the Labour dockers and the building and in Manchester. workers came out in strength I think the Tories must be the day the rent increase came that the very pleased many in. councillors who were once One of the main reasons for fire have collapsed breathing this apathy is that there is a SO miserably. am really political conspiracy within the amazed has not been tenants' movement to see the there greater resistance. rents struggle as a protest cam- 'We the Manchester one issue only. This met paign over Labour of councillors. divorces the fight from group We wanted the tenants there the battles within the unions ase ell ered thee tail sefused.

over pay, jobs and the right to offered them full support strike. Again perspective flows from the reformist views of the trade union movement if thev stood up to the govern- of the Stalinists Com- in the We said we would back ment. munist Party and the IS. them but they didn't seem to Here are three views on the believe us. rents struggle, one from a lead- 'They said by co-operating Manchester trade ing union with the legislation the blow official, from Labour one a could be softened. Well the councillor and from one Manchester increase turns out tenant who has organized her instead of £1- to be 92p estate to refuse to pay the rent hardly a victory. increase. "The thing that disappointed

THE

trades council about this my was that the collapse seemed

TRADE UNION

to indicate an abandonment of the principle that housing is a social service for the people.

VIEW

'Here was a Labour council getting enmeshed in Tory plans Colin Davies of is secretary to make a profit out of council Manchester Trades Council. housing. The councillors say it expedient- In- the of the but how early stages was can council the be expedient about campaign trades you such made contact with the tenants' principles? All you can do is associations. But support from them. fight for the trade union side was not 'Even now the Labour Party 29 another great. On October They say policy is ambiguous. meeting is planned to consider they will establish a non-profit further help. But, with the 92p rent. even I think it is a perfectly valid rents are still too low to cover of housing the expenditure the criticism trade union Seven eighths of this movement to say that we have leave the tenants for interest tended to is in loans of alone in this fight. So course and this is the nub.

'Unions like NALGO have long as the building societies, said will the finance houses, they support any remain in private hands-and the City of London exists we will have this "housing problem" 'Truly I don't think these councillors realize how out of step they have become with the wider labour movement.

They just don't realize the bitterness their back-tracking on this issue has caused. It is an historic collapse. They don't show much faith in the people who have consistently sup- ported them.' I asked Mr Davies about the of the tenants' policy move- ment. There were those who argued that militant action would have to be forced out and that the tenants' struggle was part of this. I think the second analysis is perfectly correct,' he said.

'We have, after all, the example Industrial of the Relations Act. Heath is cling- ing to this legislation like a drowning man. He is not going to give up this Act and will not retreat over housing either. These are fundamental positions of the Tory govern- ment. If they give them up they will no longer be a government. 'The answer is to force them out of office. I can only see one way to make these funda- mental things inoperable force a General Election.'

A

COUNCILLOR'S

VIEW

Manchester is slowly replacing the vast slums that once dis- figured every area of the city.

The council controls direct works depart- biggest ment in the country to tackle they this enormous task. But already costs are pro- hibitive. Over 65 per cent of all revenue goes straight into up the pockets of the big money lenders (around £20m a year at 9-per-cent interest rate). Act begins to bite, the building programme will be run down.

Tenants will pay more while other workers are left to suffer bad housing. , Joe Dean, as the Labour chairman of the housing com- presided historic surrender the August made on they agreed to implement the Act. ole talks here of the ants policy and struggle. ::*/ 'As far closely. I went to meetings of as we can estimate about 3 35 cent of Labour authorities all over the to per There of tenants are refusing to pay the country. was plenty Ithe interview militant talk but the implica- increase one week after the rent there given that tran

WAC

increase]. I think it is the fact they would draw back. that resistance will bring them I think it's no use fooling into conflict with the law that people with militant policy for accounts most tenants you are not going to carry it paying. through. I have deep sympathy with If we had all stuck together the tenants. I can see why they mavbe there could have been a want to resist this Act. but I resistance Rut shanna • 0 + 0 | always said that this I was not confident have about this. • bloody- Consider this, the TUC did not government is So minded that they would force think itself strong enough ati oven the north their legislation take on the e government on the have been question the Industrial west speaking on this issue. I Relations Act. Does antone always said it would come believe that individual Labour down the councils could displayed the tenante have The resistance would have greater strength? to start at the bottom and not I asked Mr Dean about the at the top. backing promised-by the trades followed this issue very unions in the city. 'Quite frankly I don't think it was there. When we met the trades certain council councillor asked them about this support. Would it cover full financial indemnity he said.

Now I don't They said no. want anyone cheering me to the jail. I might lose this house. I don't want to. I want to know who would make up that loss.! If the rent strikes go on, at some stage there will be an I attempt to evict tenants.

asked what would be the council's attitude to this.

I would have thought that as far as possible the Labour council would not activate pro- ceedings. But it ought to be remembered that in certain cir- cumstances the officials can take action without council instruction. Workers Press, Tuesday 'At a certain stage the public auditor must report the financial situation of certain borough tenants to the treasurer and he can take steps to evict. "There is one small mercy.

Normal eviction orders are made in a magistrates court under the Small Tenancies Act.

Under this the tenant has no right of representation, he does not get a hearing. On Man- chester we decided not to have eviction under this Act. So any action would be in a county court where the tenant would gain a hearing.' What will the effect of the Housing Finance Act be on Manchester's building pro- gramme? 'On originally rents we applied for a 25p dispensation on post-war houses and a 70p dispensation on pre-war. In the end the increase was 85p which, spread over the 48 pay- ing weeks, gives a 92p increase.

hoping that We are minister now considers this the fair rent of the area so the rises that are supposed to take place to take rents up to so- called fair standards will not take place in Manchester.

'My main worry is over the cost of building council houses.

Land prices are rocketing and of course the debt burden gets crippling. The ever more government already has a 10 per cent margin above which costs must not rise if schemes are to attract the essential Sovere Mancest. the near Manchester. schemes are going to be 20 per cent above the margin. 'It's the same for most authorities and if this govern- is ment stopped not some council will find itself unable to build at all. It is a very serious situation. 'All this faises in one's mind of programme is what kind should introduce. Labour My great fear is that even if the Finance Housing Act 1S repealed, there will not be the financial arrangements to solve this crisis. 'It is simply the case that the massive interest payments are unsupportable if we are to provide working-class people with decent houses. We cannot go on borrowing money and paying out crippling sums of interest over 60 years. 'Have Labour an answer to this? Their policy is not clear.

They will have to take a stand We either nationalize these resources people so desperately need or we suffer. Only social- ist policies cansolve this crisis.'

THE

TENANTS

VIEW

Altrincham did not resist the Act. It went through when Liberals joined with the the Tories and voted for im- plementation. The voice of the tenants is Mrs Kath Warrington, born in the slums of Altrincham, now in a pleasant council house.

The rent, with rates, is f3.47, in- with Altrincham's £1.10 crease £4.57, but Mrs Warring- ton says she will not pay.

'We are getting a very good response from this estate. At least 75 per cent are not pay- We don't even have to ing. follow the rent man around.

Look down my street. There's only one woman paying the increase and I hope to win her over soon. I have even had old-aged pensioners come up to me say- ing they wished they could join in the campaign and a few on Social Security are refusing the increase. is against it, 'Everyone even people who have applied for rebates. Their experience exposed the rebate procedure for what it is—-a thing that humiliates and demoralizes people. I asked one woman to go on the rent strike and she said: "Not me, I'm going for the ‹ers Press, Tuesday October 24, 1972 PAGE 7 rebate." Well she went and found that the rebate story was out of Alice in Wonder- land. She got no rebate, nothing. 'They found she had sons working and so they said she would have to get the money off them-she came right over to us then. "The other aspect of this rebate is the means-test. At first you just get a simple form. But then they send you a seven or eight-page docu- ment. It goes into every aspect of your private life—income, dependants, depen- savings, dants' incomes, where you work. You have to agree to them going behind your back and seeing the manager at your work. 'You sign away all your rights with this document. To me it's not just the rent in- crease with this Act-they are taking you back to the means- test time of 30 or 40 years ago. You can imagine people filling in the wrong things and then getting penalized for it.

You can imagine others who are too proud -it's the big ones again knocking around the working man. 'Now I would like to know what Mir Barber earns, what his wife earns, what they have in the bank, how much they have in shares, how much his children get, how much they spend on them, and how much they have in their savings banks. That would be very interesting. Act is simple to 'This explain. The Tories have got the workers subsidizing poorer workers-and all of them are exploited. You can see what is They urging happening. are people to buy houses at in- flated prices-in other words only the rich can afford them.

So the working man is left to struggle paying a higher and higher rent. 'The Labour Party have done nothing to stop this. The whole top of the Party are traitors and every Labour councillor who voted for this Act is a traitor. But now for the first time in history I believe the voice of the people is being heard. It's being heard in the unions over the jailing of the dockers and now it's being heard on the estates and it is housewives who the are shouting. 'You had housewives in the past who did not want to fight. They used to attack their husbands for going on strike they the and now are in struggle as well. It's the first time I have seen it.' I asked Mrs Warrington if she expected backing from the trade unions. had a promise 'We have from the engineers in Man- chester that they will strike if anyone comes under threat of eviction and in Liverpool the dockers have already come But what we out. must get home to the trade unionists is therethe isut tist thet his increase, wage packet. That's what it means to my husband think in the finish this fight will a General mean Election. We have to get this or the workers will have to bow down and scrape, accept the means-test, be pushed into the dirt-it's up to them.

'We will keep on going. I don't care if they take me to prison because there will be a big movement to get me out. We've seen it once before.'

If the Tories do get forced out by a General Election, what next? If Labour come back into power and do exactly what they did last time they will get the same treatment off me as I'm giving the Tories.

"The idea is, if Labour get back, to keep up this kind of pressure so they do what the ordinary people want like they always should have done. My fight is for my child. It's her future. I won't let them put her down like they did to us when we were young'

PAGE 8 Workers Press, Tuesday Octobe 'Parliamentary reform' and the worki In 1903 the British work- ing class had made an im- portant political advance by founding an indepen- dent working class party, based on the strength of the trade unions, yet with many socialists in its leadership. "ideological backward. The ness' of the working class had not been removed at a stroke.

But objective conditions were extremely favourable for devel- oping the political conscious- of large numbers of ness workers from a trade union level to a socialist (i.e. Marxist) level. The working class was locked in battle with the em- ployers, who had been driven, by falling profits and Britain's declining share in world trade, into attacking their basic rights. The legal position of been the trade unions had undermined by the Taff Vale judgement. The real wages of workers were actually declin- ing in the first decade of the century. There was no solution to the imperialist economic crisis gigantic which, after the strike wave of 1910-1914, plunged Britain into World War I. Capitalism, after cen- turies of expanding the produc- tive forces, had become 'his- torically obsolete' , a destruc- tive barrier to human progress.

In 1902 Lenin wrote the book 'What is to be Done?'

On the first page he explained that it was far more than a mere criticism of the policies of a Russian newspaper: •.. the strife of the various trends within the socialist movement has, from national, become international. In this first really international battle with socialist opportunism, in- ternational revolutionary social democracy will perhaps become sufficiently strengthened to put an end to the political reaction that has long reigned in Europe' The opportunists in the Second International were led by Bernstein. But his position - 'Social Democracy must change from a party of social revolution into a domestic party of social reforms'-was essentially the position of the Fabians and the Independent Labour Party in Britain. Lenin characterizes the British working class by their indifference towards all theory, which is one of the main reasons why the English work- ing-class movement crawls along so slowly in spite of the splendid organization of the individual unions' • The most urgent task for British, social- ists, and for Marxists in every country, was to combat such 'indifference' 'Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement' ay October 24, 1972 the working class, by Jane Brown Revolutionary socialist theory would not arise spon- for 'the history of taneously, all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by sciousness. Obviously as we have seen) the fight to build trade unions would involve workers in politics-but not Marxists. The theory of as socialism, elaborated theoretic- middle-class intellec- ally by 'would have to be tuals, brought to them from without.

Lenin issued a vital warning, in the clearest possible terms: ...all worship of the spon- taneity of the working-class all belittling • of movement, "the conscious element", of the role of Social Democracy quite in- [Marxism], means, dependently of whether he who belittles that role desires it or not, a strengthening of the influence of bourgeois ideology upon the workers . .. Hence our task, the task of Social Democracy, is to combat spon- taneity, to divert the working- movement from their class spontaneous, trade unionist striving to come under the wing of the bourgeoisie, and to bring it under the wing of revolutionary Social Demo- cracy? How did British socialists live up to this responsibility?

As we know from the experi- ence of two World Wars, from continuing existence of Britain today, capitalism in the abject prostration from of Wilson's Labour Party be- fore the fories, they did not take up the tasks posed by Lenin in 1902, and carried to initial fulfilment in the Russian Revolution of October 1917.

Instead, they succumbed to the existing level of conscious- ness in the working class. In- deed, so thoroughly were the British 'socialists' imbued with traditional British 'gradualism', before many years had passed, advanced sections of the work- ing class were beginning to by-pass the Labour Party, to recognize it as a bourgeois restraint upon their conflicts with the employers. From the blind-alley of pre-war syndi- calism, some of these workers under developed, guidance from the USSR, to found the Communist Party in the 1920s.

In the last article we examined briefly the diverse elements which made up the Labour Representation Com- mittee of 1900. The very strength of the 'parliamentary reform' and trade union tradi- tions in Britain were a barrier to the development of that or- into ganization fighting al socialist party, dedicated to taking state power from the bourgeoisie and to ending private property ownership.

It inevitable that was Britain's wealth in the 19th century should have produced a degree of political compla- cency, as well as confidence in the powers of trade union and 'protests' bargaining against specific laws to bring benefiting about changes workers. Social and economic conditions had been improved by these methods. Not since the day of *"* Top: Ramsay MacDonald secretary of the Labour Represen- tation Committee. Above: H. M.

Hyndman leader of the Social Democratic Federation. Chartism had political ques- tions been as a direct seen reflection of the class struggle between the exploiters and the exploited. The TUC had supported the Liberal Party for many decades, and naturally brought all its prejudices (reformism, indivi- dualism, pacifism, religiosity, and nationalism) into the newly-founded Labour Party.

Indeed, the TUC was so alarmed by the 1903 LRC reso- lution to dissociate with the Liberal Party that it ruled at the next TUC Congress that resolutions on LRC policy were 'out of order' , since the Con- gress 'had no control over what must be regarded as an outside body'! But trade union affiliations to the Labour Representation Committee continued to pour in. The circumstances of trade union history cannot be pro- duced as a justification for the political complacency of the socialists in the LRC. As Lenin points out, reformists always lay the blame for their own lack of principle on 'the effect of material environment that determines the road trom which no ideologist will be able to divert the movement.

None of the socialist groups, including Hyndman's 'Marxist' Social Democratic Federation, making proved capable of scientific analysis of the break- up of imperialism, as Lenin did, and of drawing the necessary political conclusions from that point of view of the working class. Indeed, they took a leading part in continuing the subord- ination of the Labour Party to the Liberals. No other con- clusion can be drawn from Ramsay MacDonald's secret 'election pact' with Herbert in 1903, in which Gladstone the two parties 'shared out' a number of seats between them so as to avoid conflict between Labour and Liberal candidates in places where it might help Tory candidates to succeed.

It must be assumed that MacDonald (a member of the socialist ILP) also played large part in framing Labour's manifesto for the 1906 election. This urged 'solidarity, not socialism. Members advised to were 'Forget all the political differ- which have kept you ences apart in the past-and vote Labour!' proposals Policy were Labour "deliberately mild. agreed with the Liberals on all such matters as tariff reform, opposition to 1902 the Education Act (which offended Non-Conformists), the 'Chinese labour question', etc. Issues which vitally affected the working class, such as the need trade union for new legislation, were merely in- cluded along • with the rest. There was no mention of the need to establish socialist property relations, or of what this entailed. The separate SDF manifesto was scarcely bolder (within a few years Hyndman was to end up as an advocate of British re- armament). A Liberal government was returned with a large majority over all the other parties com- bined. The election of 29 LRC candidates was also an achieve- The Parliamentary ment. nin Labour Party had a further success in persuading the Liberals to amend their pro- posed Trades Disputes Act in a manner which favoured the trade unions, restoring a large measure of legal protection to their funds and peaceful picketing. But during the rest of the pre-war Liberal government, the Labour MPs did very little to assert their independence in parliament. The Liberals en- this 'tail-ending' by couraged consulting frequently the Labour leaders. Yet all the reforms of this period-the establishment of Labour Exchanges, health and unemployment insurance, old pensions, age etC., were initiated by the Liberal Party.

Such reforms were a last des- perate bid by the Liberals to hold the working class behind them: as far as the Labour Party leaders were concerned, they succeeded. This was demonstrated when the trade unions once more came under legal attack in the Osborne judgement of 1909.

This restrained unions from contributing to Labour Party funds by means of a political levy of members. The trade inter- unions resented such ference with their use of their funds far more than the Labour Party did. They recognized the class nature of the attack on financial their independence and began an immediate cam- paign for legislation to reverse the judgement. The Labour Party supported the campaign, of course. But they were becoming dominated considerations by pragmatic within and parliament especially by the overriding importance of backing the Liberals, who had lost many seats at the election which followed the House of Lords' rejection of the 1909 Budget.

Dependence on Irish votes forced the Liberals to give an Irish Home Rule Bill priority, together with a Bill to end the Lords' power to veto legis- lation.

CONTINUED TOMORROW

You've heard the story The controversial Barbican about scheme in the City of London the rowdy students of Stirling continues not to make head- University who drank bottles of wine and made rude re- lines. The project, which is hugely-expensive marks when the Queen paid providing housing for the wealthy tofis a visit to the campus. from and Well the follow-up came last the banks stock- the House of Com- brokers' offices, is moving into week in mons. Mr William van Strau-.

the final phase of construction.

the City Meanwhile Corpor- benzee, the Tory under Secre- ation has reached a 'full and said what tary for Education, had occurred was 'disgraceful' with Laing's final settlement over payment for Phase 3.

and ought never to have Laing's have just accepted happened. £11.5m. This is more than £6m This taken a step was further by the Tory MP for above the original contract Norman St Chelmsford, Mir price. John Stevas, who called for a registrar of student unions.

Mr St John Stevas' views on flourish the With a colossal the need for disciplining the Tele- new London Weekend 'militant minority' of students affairs current pro- ViSIon are no news to anyone who 'Weekend World', has gramme, knows the history of the cam- got underway. paign by the Tories for putting The rag-bags in sections of students' union funds into the media the immediately hands of college authorities.

«Trot slot, christened it the Last year he was unsuccess- apparently because Mary Hol- ful piloting in private land and other so-called 'lefts' members Bill through parlia- were in command there. the need for a ment on for all Surprise, surprise student union registrar. those eager media subversives The who tabled that man the major to discover that Bill, Sir Gilbert particular chunk of the inaugural pro- Hertfordshire), Longdon (Con devoted to Dick gramme was House also spoke up in the Taverne and a similar chunk last week. He said —wait for it the second on in was spent -that the government should Enoch Powell. introduce legislation for just Below: 'Weekend World' Beholities Waverne and Poweller.

such a registrar. Despite their anguished cries about the state of the economy, Bank is doing Barclays very well, thank you. The bank has just acquired Radbroke Hall in Knutsford, Cheshire, from the Nuclear Power Group. magnificent stately The home is three storeys tall and beautiful garden sur- set in There are 25 acres roundings. of parkland attached, including a croquet lawn, tennis courts and a bowling green. Barclays is to move sections of its head office in London to these new surroundings. At a recent Press confer- ence deputy chairman Mr W.

Bryan explained the move to faraway Knutsford which, the constitu- incidentally, is ency of the Trade and Industry Secretary John Davies. said the rentals were He cheaper, cost of living is lower, access to railways and motor- ways is easy, staff housing is available and the local educa- and entertainment facili- tion ties are excellent. Bryan did not disclose the which the monumental sum must have paid for the bank Barclays building. Next time increases its bank charges, you your money is know where being spent ...

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STALINIST CRISIS BY TOM KE

The Soviet Union has had to make huge pur- chases of grain in the United States and Can- ada to avert famine this winter. The grain harvest has been both in below expectations, cereal-growing the traditional areas of European Russia and in the new areas in Siberia, Kazakhstan and the southern Urals which have been opened up for production in the past two decades. weather condi- Abnormal tions have meant a poor har- vest in most areas. Last year frost came too early; the summer was too dry in some regions and too wet in others.

The collective farm manage- the local agricul- ments and administrations tural were thrown into chaos and panic.

Confronted with the un- the deficiencies of expected, bureaucratic mismanagement were in evidence everywhere.

break Every year tractors down and cannot be repaired for lack of spare parts, trans- port is inadequate and an element of chaos prevails.

When the harvest is short all these defects are magnified.

At the best of times Soviet agriculture barely suffices to meet the food requirements of the country. Even then yields low by European are very standards. Despite the use of tractors and farm machinery, amount of enormous an manual labour is still used...

and used wastefully. Too many people in the Soviet Union are engaged in food production and they still do not produce enough to pro- vide abundance. A Soviet farmworker only produces one-eighth that of his Ameri- can counterpart. The fact that so many resources are pinned down in agriculture holds back eco- nomic growth. But one of the reasons for the backwardness of agriculture is that it does not receive a sufficient supply of mechanical aids, fertilizers and pesticides from industry.

The agrarian crisis reflects a problem of the entire economy.

The real roots of the crisis Workers Press, Tua ИДЙ • КОЛХОЗ ГОМ КЕМР are to be found in the policy of 'socialism in one country'.

Stalin's drive to collectivize agriculture at the end of the of 1920s, after years •com- promising with the richer peasants, left an indelible mark on the Soviet countryside.

Forced collectivization was a gigantic operation which cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Soviet accounts admit that 4 million so-called 'kulaks' were deported from the Russian Republic and another million from the Ukraine. Conditions of civil war pre- vailed in the countryside. The peasants slaughtered other animals, and cattle creating a shortage of live- stock from which Soviet agri- culture has never recovered.

Not only did the reduction in the head of stock mean a drastic reduction in the food supply, but it also meant a animals scarcity of draught which the output of tractors was too small to make good.

So Stalin's collectivization was quite different from that envisaged by Marxists. Instead of being carried out with the consent and willing co-opera- tion of the peasants, it was based on naked force, whole- sale deportation and a callous disregard for human life. The peasantry was not won over in its mass. The collective suffi- farms were not on a ciently high technical level- people were em- too many ployed in them and the surplus which they made available for the city consumer was too small. Instead of winning the sup- port of the peasants, these methods made them sullen and resentful. Their hostility to the bureaucracy remains to this day. Their conditions of life are inferior to those of the urban workers while the col- lective farm bosses are a privileged and arrogant caste.

The fault lay not in collec- tivization but in the way in it was carried out. which Moreover it was linked to the ultra-left turn in the policy of the Communist "International a united which, by making led to the front impossible, catastrophic defeat of the German working class in 1933 ress, Tuesday October 24, 1972 PAGE 9 Forced collectivization brought the countryside to virtual civil war which Stalin tried to cover up with propaganda pictures of peas- ant re-education (see above) the invasion of the and to Soviet Union eight years later.

German industry, which might have turned out the and chemicals for tractors which there was a crying need produced instead the tanks and equipment for Hitler's invasion attempt. disastrous policy The • of 'socialism in one country' had enormous consequences for the working class of the whole world-not just the Soviet workers and peasants. During the 1950s, in an effort to improve the food supply and make good the ravages of forced collectiviza- tion, considerable resources were poured into the develop- ment of the 'virgin lands' in distant parts of the Soviet Union. However, there was lack of preparation, particularly in irrigation. Instead of solving the agrarian problem, the 'virgin lands' merely created new ones.

It has remained a veritable nightmare for the bureaucracy and a constant reminder of its own crimes and failings. Over the years, and especi- ally since Stalin's death, it has tried one reform' after an- other in order to improve the situation. All to no avail. In 1972 it has to make its biggest grain purchase ever simply in order to ward off famine.

This is an admission that the policy of 'socialism in one country' is a disastrous failure.

It has to move still closer to the capitalist countries, offer them specially favourable trade opportunity to terms and an invest capital in the exploita- tion of Soviet natural re- sources. The time when the Stalinist could impose bureaucracy immense sufferings on the Soviet people and survive is past. Now it has made so many promises about improving lIV- ing standards, and it faces so much criticism and resistance, that it has to resort to massive grain imports. But this in no way implies that the Soviet workers and peasants will be "bought off.

PAGE 10 Workers Press, Tuesday October 24, 1972

ALL

TV

TRADES

UNIONS

ALLIANCE

BBC 1

MEETINGS

9.38 Schools. 12.30 Ar y trywydd.

12.55 1.00 Pebble at 1.45 1.30 Camberwick green orie Canvas. Schools. The 3.15 visit. 3.45 Report back from Rosla and after. 4.10 Play school. ATUA conference SOUTH EAST LONDON: Thursday 4.55 Animal magic. anory. October 26, p.m. Deptford Craven's 5.45 John newsround. Engineers' Club, opposite New News and weather. Cross Station. 6.00

NATIONWIDE.

HOLLOWAY:

October Thursday 6.50 TOM AND JERRY. Pecos 26, Co-op Hall, Seven p.m. Pest. Sisters Road. 6.55 "TAMAHINE'. Nancy WANDSWORTH: Thursday Octo- Dennis ber 26, p.m. Selkirk Hotel, nwan. Joll riasel Poly- beautiful Tooting Broadway. girl comes

STE

with the headmaster of a

WILLESDEN:

Thursday October boys' school. p.m. Trades ana Labour High Hall, Road, NW10. MY

WIFE

NEXT

DOOR.

8.30 The Absolute. End.

ACTON:

October 30, 8 р.т. Со-op Hall, High Road.

O'CLOCK

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NINE

NEW8.

Weather. CROYDON: Monday October 30, Ruskin House, Coombe 9.25

DOCUMENTARY:

'OUR

Road, nr South Croydon Station.

OWN

CORRESPONDENT'

What is it like to be a BBC WOOLWICH: Tuesday October 31, Foreign Correspondent? 'Queen's Arms, Burrage • р.П. Road.

10.45 MIDWEEK.

8 P.M. CO: To Sal, Canshawe 11.30

LATE NIGHT NEWS.

Fanshawe Co-op

11.35 THE OPEN PERSUADERS.

Avenue Joan Bakewell Taiks

CLAPHAM:

Tuesday October 31, Adolf Holl, controversial Clapham Baths, p.m. Manor Clapham Manor Street, SW4.

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ITV

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8.30

MY GOOD WOMAN.

LECTURES

9.00

DOCUMENTARY:

THE THEORY AND

OF

HEARTS'.

Eva

BBC 2

PRACTICE OF MARXISM

Genera Peron, wile once President of Argen- tina. Given by 11.00-11.25 Play school. 11.45- Cliff Slaughter (SLL Central 10.00

NEWS AT TEN.

12.00 State visit of President Committee member) ricinemalin 10.30

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ALIST LABOUR LEAGUE,

GH ST, LONDON, SW4 7UG.

BY OUR OWN REPORTER

THE SACKING of eight lorry drivers at a Birmingham electrical firm was done with the 'complete co-operation' of the local Transport and Gen- eral Workers' Union officials, the company's chief executive said yesterday. Kenneth Ratcliffe, director and general manager of H. F. Ward Limited of Highgate Road, said the agreement with the union had been reached 'amicably. The eight drivers were fired on September 28 when the com- pany decided to let out all its transport work to outside con- tractors. The firm now doing the trans- port work for Ward's is Summer- field's, a London-based company which has a depot at Coleshill.

It was a rational decision on the part of the company, said Ratcliffe, 'and advantageous to the drivers. They weren't shaken off without a bob, you know.'

Ratcliffe said the company had decided to close down its own section because of transport increasing costs in repairs and replacement of vehicles. Legislation on lorries was also becoming tighter. He said his company had unwittingly com- mitted a breach of regulations recently and had decided that it was better if road haulage was left "to the experts'. If they do something wrong, they go to jail not us,' he said.

The dismissed drivers belong to the T&GWU 5/35 branch, which has a reputation militancy. The secretary of the branch is Mr Alan Law. Some branch members are puzzled as to why the officials have not taken any action to defend their members. The Ward's drivers have a spirited history of fighting to maintain wages and conditions.

In 1970 police were called when angry drivers barricaded them- selves in the factory and refused to let in the night-shift.

And in February this year they staged a sit-in in the board- room after pay talks broke down.

Among those declared redun- dant is Mr Ron Riley, the drivers' shop steward. He resigned after the redundancy notices were and declared he was a issued workers' spokesman'. It is almost certain that the next branch meeting will include a fierce debate on the sackings, with Mr Law and his colleagues clearly on the mat. The case for nationalization of the docks and

FAISDOME MAIST

SEA

/ LAND

SEALAND

SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE POCKET LIBRARY NO 5

By Steghay Jonis and in Yeste Price: Thirty perice All aro avaliable from 186a Clapham Or The Paperback Contre, 28 Charlo New bid to end World's End UCATT official Len Eaton builders' pay strike NEW ATTEMPTS will be made today to try and We might settle the five-week strike which has halted all work at Cubitts' World's End site in west London.

bring out Union officials will meet Cubitts' management to try and get the firm to accept the result of a concilia- tion panel's investigation into the dispute.

all sites- te official The decision of the panel was a unanimous vote for the union side and against the company, which, at the end of the recént builders' national dispute, unilaterally abolished the site incentive bonus which in many cases meant an extra £l an In its place it standing posea a bonus of only 35p an Despite the hour. rejection panel's of their moves, the firm has so far refused to the decision against them. esterday las delega- tion of End lobbied men Union Trades aid Techniciand Ae o Trades and regional Len secretary Laton rearing Isolation in a Lorraine there oner assurances other Cubitts' in londor would be called out if agreement was reached today. Mr Eaton after- wards: 'The employers are in clear The World's End sile at Chelsea working rule agreement and they know it. What's at stake here give serious considera- 'independent investiga- only by two-hour tion tion' Le l Integnity involving other inTO role incente Tell on the conciliation Cubitts' sites in central bonus, but have refused back at the end of the machinery and London.' national dispute. our the status would The multi-million- credibility quo. Cutese Sanctore World's the new Hilton Hotel at End building pound housing On the of Shepherd's Bush best organized and wehe workers, some the Royal Borough question Mondial House of Kensington and Chel- further action against the firm. he had this City. paid in have seals 'We would, if we At present Cubitts now been out a total of over months offered interrupted behind schedule. agreement, have only ten weeks, Plessey foundry EEC plans hit workers seek rise FOUNDRY WORKERS at Ples- Sidcup engineers Cheney Manor works SCy S Swindon, Wiltshire, are on strike lemanding a substantial increase Ladie lalc involved, members of the foundry section ENGINEERS at Sidcup are far the productivity increase Engineering Amalgamated applies to the machine shop only.

the latest workers to be hit by the Tory plans to enter 'We believe will spread their basic 1s Sull very low and that they have no proper the Common Market throughout the plant, said next Mayes. "The aim make the dan January. the want union Their employers Richard factory some sort or alstouton submit a claim on their warehouse for the Common which would increase their basic Clinger. have Market operations. up output by 25 per cent with trom tio to tsu a week no increase pay as of in part enter the Dially Market

BOOKS

At a meeting on Fridav ther stewards warned shop that the products of Clinger subsidiaries

PAMPHLET

in Italv could be sold in Britair at a 40 per cent profit margin.

The firm which makes gaskets,

JUST OUT!

and causes olner Dall. 101 boilers, has been hiving-off pro- duction to firms it owns in Italy, Germany and Austria 101 months. Stephen Johns' and lan Yeats' 'They have been taking all the cream and leaving with the timely articles on rubbishy with standard very bonus payment

CONTAINERIZATION

them, said shop steward Alan Mayes. He said these have now put together in a useful meant that skilled men have been forced to do jobs like pamphlet which makes vital sweeping and all reading for dockers redundan- 'There have been no workers fighting for the right yet, cles we are keeble a to work. Available as below 30p close watch situation, said Mr Mayes VIl aro avallable from 186a Clapham High Si, London SWA TUG.

Clinger's employs shop 100 floor workers and 100 staft.

Press, Tuesday Oclober 24, 1972 PAGE 11

BY AN INDUSTRIAL

CORRESPONDENT

A FURTHER section of workers have now stated their determination to resist the Tory government's plan for the state control of wages. In Scotland 10,000 grocery store workers are threatening to strike next month if their de- mands for a substantial wage increase—above the Tories' £2— is not met. Last week staff in a Lipton branch shop at Buckie, Moray,' staged a one-day stoppage and the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (USDAW) has been told that members in the area are to set up a local co-ordinating committee in the Banfishire and Moray area for possible unofficial strike action.

The settlement on a new 12-month agreement between USDAW and the National Grocers' Association is already a month behind the union's own and dis- negotiating timetable is widespread among content assistants and managers shop throughout Scotland. USDAW has also received demands from the Edinburgh and Fife area for across-the- board increases of £10 for shop managers and f6 for assistants.

Efforts to 'control' the grow- ing militancy will be made at a meeting in Glasgow next Sunday further meetings and at in Dundee on Monday and one in Edinburgh some time later.

USDAW Scottish divisional officer Andrew Forman, said his members were becoming "justi- fiably restless'. 'There is a growing feeling among them that they are being left behind other occupations with wages. The present weekly wage for shop assistants ranges from £14 to £19, and the basic lowest for the category of managers is £22. 'There are talks going on about price control in the shops, but we will not tolerate price control the expense of the shor at assistant. We are not saying what increases we are looking for, but the government's £2 limit would not be sufficient.'

In the past month the union has rejected tht employers' offer of a £1.40 a week increase for assistants and £2 a week for managers. They are meeting the em- ployers again in London November 14 and Mr Forman said that if no progress was made there, strike action was a if there was a sig- possibility nificant demand for it. Moscow Trials Anthology Paperback, 62}P

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Association wants CIR recognition PAGE 12 Workers Press, Tuosday Octobi Press

£684.86 WITH

8 DAYS TO GO

WE NEED £1,065.14 In eight days time. Will we do It? It certainly is one of the toughest struggles we have faced yet. We know that these difficulties stem from the fact that you, dear readers, are having to face cost of living that is continually rising. But as one of our readers writes from Finland: 'I send my fullest support and heartily wel- come the birth of the revolution- ary party [a real working-class.

leadership] Behind Workers Press Is this magnificent support. Not once have you ever let us down, how- ever tough the fight might have been. We belleve that today, when the Issues of leadership are more decisive than ever, you will do maintain everything possible to and develop Workers Press, your paper. our Fund For this purpose, Is vital. We appeal therefore to everyone to rally round immedi- ately for October's Fund. Send something-give as much as you can afford. Post It straight away to: Workers Press October Appeal Fund, 186a Clapham High St, London, SW4 7UG. DIPLOMATIC moves towards a Vietnam ceasefire gathered when South pace yesterday Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu agreed to meet representatives of the National Liberation Front for talks.

After talks with Dr Henry Kissinger, the US envoy who negotiating in secret has been and the Vietnam with North NLF, Thieu is reported to have agreed "in principle' to a pro- posal for a ceasefire to announced in the next few days. proposed Details of the ceasefire are not clear, but it is believed that if and when the fighting stops, the two sides would to discuss a meet political settlement. The North Vietnamese and the NLF have been pressing for a three-segment 'govern- ment of national concord'.

Until recently they insisted that the fighting would continue until such a government were set up. The Thailand dictator Thanom Kittikachorn said Kissinger had told him there was a possibility of a settle- ment soon. Groups of South Vietnamese officers are believed to be working out details in preparation for a ceasefire.

Registered as a newspaper at the Post Published by Wonkers Press, Office. 186a Clapham Street, London, High

SW4 7UG.

Printed by Plough Press Ltd. (TU).

Street, London, 180b Clapham High

SW4 7UG.

day October 24, 1972 THE Telecommunication Staff

BY DAVID MAUDE OUR INDUSTF

Association yesterday applied to the National Industrial Re- lations Court for a Commission

TSA

is conducting its own on Industrial Relations investi- the NIRC and before case in should be gation into why it Willie Butt opening, secretary recognized as a union by the complained that attempts Post Office. a negotiated solution to the had The Association, which, unlike dispute which existed much larger Union of Post Office failed. Workers, under Recognition had been with- has registered the Industrial Relations Act drawn from his organization by 10,000 Post Office September membership of the in 1970. amongst telephonists and other But he and his colleagues felt telecommunications workers. The UPW has 32,000 members

UPW

that the could not pro- perly represent the grade.

They in the grade.

"NEO-N

PALESTINIAN workers and students prisons without trial as part of the Bonn government's witchhunt against Arab organizations. And following the Common Market sum- mit conference in Paris last week the Pales- tinian movement is also coming under attack from the French government.

Arab students in Britain reported yesterday that France has already deported Palestinian one student leader and claimed a list of 70 names for deportation had been drawn up by police.

Palestinian students in Britain who recently staged hunger strike at the Arab League offices in London were told by police that they Palestinians protest | would be deported if there was trouble as a result of the strike, regardies res who had caused it. These repressions, coin- new

EEC

ciding with the summit. could indicate that a new round of anti-Arab attacks is being planned by the European govern- ments. THE GOVERNMENT has re- This would prepare the way for fused a Labour Party request millions of foreign the stripping intervene the Tyneside to in workers in the EEC of all poli- boilermakers' dispute which tical and trade union rights.

Swan has halted the giant The attack Palestinians in on Hunter shipbuilding con- with the Zion- Europe is parallel sortium. Israel and the ist campaign in occupied territories. Israeli lead- Employment Secretary Maur- ers have stated in recent weeks ice Macmillan told Labour MP of Geoffrey Rhodes yesterday that their intention permanently the lands they took by involvement of his department annexing force in the 1967 war. in the dispute, in its noW The latest move to assert third week, would be incon- Israeli control and strip the sistent with its pay talks with Arabs of their remaining political the TUC and the employers. territories rights in the occupied Rhodes, the member for the sacking of the stooge Rashed of Gaza, el- mavor Shawwa. Shawwa had refused to the Israeli out from an order military authorities and his nine- member council has now resigned AN APPLICATION for an in- in solidarity with him.

BBC

iniunction prevent the to showing further broadcasts of an

LATENEWS

interview with Mr Tohn Poulson -the Pontefract architect whose public in bank- evamination

PRIME

MINISTER

Edward ruptcy resumes on November 20 Nor- Heath has agreed with at Wakefield- -was heard by Mr wegian Prime Minister Lars Kor- Tustice Ormrod, sitting in cham- vald to postpone a visit to Nor- bers in the High Court at Leeds way he was to have made from No vesterday. statement was 16-18. The November invitation originally came from the former Minister of Norway, Mr Prime Bratteli. whose government resigned after a national plebis- cite rejected membership of the Korvald Common Market. renewed the invitation to Heath,

FROM PAGE I

but the two Prime Ministers have decided it would not answer the amendment was tabled by them if the visit took place purpose demand the trade to unions so soon after the change of of gov- break of all contact with the be ernment. new date government. arranged later. Now these same people-after wasting valuable time chatting beginning with the Tories-are to make fake-left noises ahout special Congresses. are now at the The crossroads. The only alternative to the coalition the

TUC

has been Tory trying to get with the Cabinet and the employers is fight to bring the government down.

} INDUSTRIAL CORRESPONDENT

had therefore decided to apply for a Cik investigation. Where the UPW had 'the usual political affiliations', said Mr Butt, the TSA's rules, and those of its predecessor, the National Guild of Telephonists, precluded this. Butt told NIRC president Sir John Brightman, and lay judges, John Arkell and Raymond Boy- field, that the TSA had no in- tention of taking industrial action in support of its recognition

ITE AND

FEAT

RMAN

- HUN

PICKETS SUFFOR

IN LONDON

s protest in Britain Newcastle - upon - Tyne East, asked for the Department of offi- Employment conciliation cer to step in on the strike.

But Macmillan said would be wholly inconsistent with safeguarding the objec- tives agreed by the CBI and the TUC in the talks in which they are currently The Labour demand • will anger local leaders of the 3,800 Swan Hunter boiler- makers who resent any govern- ment interference in their pay battle for a cost-of-living rise.

issued afterwards. The writ arises from a broad- cast on September 25 of a ten- minute extract from a filmed in- terview with Poulson at his home in Carlton Green, Ponte- fract. It was shown in three news programmes and came in the middle of his resumed two- day public examination at Wake- field town hall. The Tories certainly have no illusions about this. Beneath Heath's so called 'friendly' approach to the unions, the government is preparing for all- out class war. are preparing par- The Tories ticularly to break the strength of the power workers should they decide on industrial action.

Two notable additions to the government talks on inflation at the weekend were Robert Carr of the Home Office and Lord Car- rington, Secretary for Defence.

These are the key men on the Tory Home Affairs com- mittee specially designed to deal claim. he the He said understood Post Office's desire to rationalize trade representation the union and that the TSA was willing to modify its own structure to meet the corporation's needs. 'Monolithic trade unionism is The UPW, which was rep- in court yesterday resented separately from the main res- Office, is Post pondents, the to give evidence in expected court in a hearing which could last for more than a week.

BY IAN YEATS

LONDON'S 23,000 busmen told for the were yesterday second time in a week that there could be no reply on their interım pay claim until the result of the Tory-TUC talks is known. London Transport hinted at an eventual rise of f2 a week and "broad said they accepted the principle' that shift recent a award to municipal busmen in the provinces should apply in the capital. Larry Smith, the iransport and Union's Workers' General national bus secretary, estimates this to be worth up to another £2.58 a week for drivers, £4.50 for conductors and £2.o5 tor one man operators. The 10 per cent award on basic rates for 80,000 busmen outside London was given only a week ago by Prof Hugh Clegg as compensation for shift work.

No decision was made yester- day on the amounts London bus- men will receive or when and no offer was made on their 4t- per-cent interim pay claim.

London Transport will meet the unions again on November 2 when they hope the outcome of the Tory-TUC talks will be known. The busmen want to close the gap between the 8 per cent rise they received last April and the increases of around 12 per cent given to London Underground workers under the rail pay settle- ment in May. London Transport bus drivers at present receive a basic rate £25.85 conventional of on and £29 for one-man vehicles operation. Conductors get £25.

Busmen question management earnings claims that average range from £30.96 to £35.39 a week excluding overtime. Larry Smith, national bus secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union said last week's adjourned after meeting: I am convinced that London Transport has an offer to make to us today but refrained from making it because of Chequers and the Clegg award.' HULL was without buses for the second successive day yesterday during an unofficial strike by and labourers 200 craftsmen over a pay dispute. No buses can be refuelled. Corporation pump attendants have petrol agreed to work an hour each day to refuel ambulances and welfare service vehicles.

with emergencies caused by strikes. Already union leaders have given the Tories a crucial breath- ing. space by continuing talks and postponing important wage struggles. If there is to be a fight now, it must be one which can unite all the workers with pay claims in action to force this government resign. This the only to alternative to the Tory plan to control wages. The talks should be called off immediately and a special Con- gress called to discuss this vital working-class offensive.