Stalinists and union chiefs help Moves to split Ford strike

THE right wing is making a concerted effort to undermine the struggle of the Ford workers to resist the state pay controls imposed by the Tory government. Aided by the Press and exploiting politically backward elements among sections of the 250,000 employees, a comnation of government, Tory back-bench MPs and Ford Motor Company forces are trying to whip up anti-strike sentiments.

Considerable newspaper publicity has been given to a vote in the Dagenham engine shop against the idea of all-out strike action from March 1 in rejection of the state pay norm of El plus 4 per cent.

In Liverpool, the Press is trying to cast doubt on the result of a mass meeting of workers from the body plant at Halewood which approved the all-out strike.

Now Tory MP Edward Taylor is suggesting that the NIRC imposes a compulsory ballot on all the Ford workers, just as was done on the railwaymen last summer.

Despite the rebuff to the Court then, the Tories are willing risk another stunt because of the desperate position they are in with their pay controls.

Aiding and abetting the right-wing in all this are the Stalinists in the car industry and the Stalinists and left Labourites in the trade union movement in general, whose policies are sowing the confusion and feeding the right wing.

The TUC, "left' and right, are making no clear call for united, trade union action to defeat the pay laws in the only way possiberial and apontical conditions to force the Tory government to resign.

OUR I NDUSTRIAL CORRESPONDENT Ford convenors' chairman and Communist Party member Sid Harraway and other car industry leaders are doing nothing to force decisive action on the TUC leadership.

As a result, workers are saying that since there 1s no chance of an individual trade union or section of workers beating the Tory government on their own, and since there are no convincing plans for all-out, united, trade-union action, then a strike by Ford workers on their own is a stupid proposition.

this another Ford plant-the Basildon radiator shop— has voted against an all-out stoppage from March Teachers plan their action for the day.

But important sections at Dagenham, Halewood, Langley, and Swansea have already indicated their willingness to strike in defiance of the new legislation outlawing such strikes and in rejection of the wretched company pay offer dictated by the Tory government.

It is up to more class-conscious workers in Ford's to insist that the meetings of convenors and works' committees later this week make the decision for strike action from March 1 decisive.

From there, a political campaign must be organized by Ford workers, centring round the special Congress on March 5, to force the TUC leaders to call a General Strike. hospitals will ban overtime working and withdraw cooperation from manage