Co-op fund case for open court

CLYDEBANK councillors are near certain to vote to pay the £5,000 fine imposed on them for contempt of court when they meet tonight.

The 13 rebel members on the 21member council have spun out their disobedience of the law to the last possible moment.

every alternative.

What has changed even minds so dramatically is the application of the law to paign against implementing rent Act.

PERMANENT state control of wages at factory level was called for yesterthe rebels' unexpected their camintention contempt. put his name to an appeal.

on the town's ratepayers.

in favour of the rebels.

a vote was taken. putting themselves in any increases. question whether the traditional pattern of collective bargaining at plant level should continue to have a A HEARING has been set down for next week in the case where the London Cooperative Society is being sued for an alleged 'breach of trust' in the management An LCS employee, Mr Robert Evans, a Transport and General Workers Union shop steward, claims in a High Court summons that the Society has lent itself money from the workers' pension fund at low interest rates.

Evans contends that the Co-op's managefund has E deprived ment of the employees nigner rates of superannuation.

He is seeking a declaration from the court that the LCS should have paid a better rate of interest over the years and he is asking that the Society makes good the extra interest.

The case-which now comes into open court for the first time — is thought to have some considerable importance by legal circles.

Ainley • LCS president.

The sums of money run into millions of pounds.

There has been criticism in the past from the Registrar of Friendly Societies that Co-ops in general had placed too much reliance on pension funds for their capital requirements.

For over year, counsel for Evans and the LCS have been involved in internal wrangling about the case.

Last December an appeal by the LCS to a judge in chambers to have the case thrown out was dismissed.

And next Wednesday morning the Society will PHILIP WADE BY to a High Court judge against that decision.

A president and 15 director run the £100m LCS business on a day-to-day basis.

Four of these directors, together with one staff representative, constitute the pension fund's trustees.

LCS's board of directors is unofficially controlled by an electoral faction known as the '1960 Committee'.

This is made up of Communist Party members, 'left' Labourites and has included members of USDAW, the shopworkers' union.

President of the LCS is David Ainley, a CP member.

Before his recent retrement, he was secretary of the People's Press Printing Society which owns the 'Morning Star', the Stalinists' newspaper.

Of the 15 members of the board of directors, it is believed that up to 13 are supporters of the '1960 Committee faction. • committee, control by Effective members was achieved in 1964 when right-wing Labourite John Stonehouse MP was ousted in a bitter campaign.

This resulted in the election of CP member Harry Clayden.

When Clayden retired as president in 1971, Ainley, a long-standing board member, took It is believed that the four directors who are pension fund trustees are all members of the '1960 Committee'