Collision due over docks pay

A MAJORITY of London's 12,000 dockers will be asked tomorrow to accept a £2.60 pay offer-but to withdraw co-operation with flexible manning arrangements and mobility of labour.

This recommendation will be made at a mass meetir g of the 8,000 men from Lon on's enclosed dock. It has support of their 18-man lay delegates' committee.

Port employers have said they will not pay the offered increase if co-operation is withdrawn, so after months of hesitation and delay the scene is apparently being set for a quayside confrontation.

PHASE TWO

On the recommendation of union officials, the 2,000 regisered men on London's riverside wharves have accepted an offer of £2.22 plus 4 per cent on bonus rates.

The capital's 1,500 tally clerks are being asked to accept a £2.70 increase. And the enthusiasm with which the officials will support non-co-operation in these circumstances is open to question.

The employers say their enclosed docks offer-f2.60 plus 4 per cent on the differentials paid to ship workers, crane drivers and others—is the limit the Tories will allow them to pay under Phase Two of their pay-control laws.

At a meeting last week, union officials asked them to look again at the new rate at which they propose to pay sick benefit. But the officials' recommendation tomorrow will not be conditional on an employers' reply on this point.

DEVLIN

The action the dockers' leaders are proposing involves another Phase Two-Phase Two of the Devlin 'modernization' scheme for the docks.

It was under clause 12 of the Green Dock agreement resulting from Phase Two that the docks unions committed their members to flexible manning and mobility of labour.

If tomorrow's meeting does refuse to co-operate with clause 12, it could mean a big increase in gang strengths. Dockers would be able to insist on 12 men per gang for discharging and 13 for loading.

But the employers are already attempting. to frighten the dockers with the threat that such steps could once again threaten the future of the South American and New Zealand meat trades in the port.

By refusing to lead a straight fight with the Tory pay laws, the officials and lay delegates may be preparing their own defeat.

is relentlessly pursuing its plan for a conrking class. Each day new sections of ecome criminals — under Tory law - to living against government-inspired soaring workers openly acknowledge that the only maintain a decent standard of living is a the creation of the industrial and political to implement the Charter of 4) The right to defend rights Basic Rights, along the follow- von in the past and chang‹ The system. All the changes ir 6) The right to health and wel- out the Lynch and Heath govlegal procedures made by the fare benefits. Every Tory gov- ernments. 2) The right to work! Capital- Tory government must be re- ernment cut in welfare beneism demands mass unemploy- pealed. All secret police and fits, in the health service and Socialist United States of ment. The right to a job must MIS organizations must be dis- in all public spending must Europe, the only alternative to I would like information PAGE 1) A Labour immediately tainl ing lines.

Tuesday THE TORY government frontation with the wo workers are forced to t defend their standard of cost of living.

Large sections of these answer to their fight to General Strike. That is, conditions which will for In its place must be elected a Labour government which is pledged by the mass action of the working class to implement socialist policies.

policiesSay iDledged to socialist policies' knowing that the present leaders of the Labour movement have no intention of introducing such policies. Indeed, in the last analysis some of them will be prepared to join a coalition government with the Tories to head off the working class.

But if the working. class is strong enough to force the Tories out, it is strong enough to deal with the traitors in its own midst. This can only be achieved by: exposing them in the fight for alternative socialist policy.

The Central Committee of the Socialist Labour League calls upon the working class to support the following policies to unite the working class against the Tories and the present Wilson-Feather leadership of the labour movement:

Here is the policy which the next Labour government must be forced to carry out.

government must repeal the Indusural relations Act, Housing Finance Act, Immigration Acts, Fair Trading Act and all wage control. After the repeal of all Tory anti-working class measures, there must be legislation i the government to resign.

be guaranteed. This can only be done by breaking the grip of capitalist ownership on the economy. Employed and unemployed must unite to insist on a Labour government nationalizing the main industries and banks, under workers' control and without compensation.

The struggle must begin now. No closures, no sackings, must be the policy of the trade unions. Occupation of factories threatened with closure, as part of the fight to bring down the Tories.

3) The democratic right to strike and to organize in trade unions. Only the organized working class can lead mankind out of the historical crisis. Every right and every gain won by the working class, every democratic right in Britain, has been won because of the organized strength of the unions and the strike weapon.

A Labour government must immediately repeal the Industrial Relations Act. This fight must begin now by forcing the TUC to break off all relations with the government and mobilize the working class to destroy state control of wages. banded and fully exposed. The secrets of the Tory administration in this sphere must be published. All rights to assembly, free speech and the Press must be guaranteed.

5) The right to a higher standard of living. It is not the living standards of trade unionists, but the profit system, which causes the crisis. The first step must be to expropriate all the great fortunes of the_rich, close down the Stock Exchange, place a state control over all movements of capital in and out of the country.

Nationalization of the basic industries and of all large companies, banks, building and insurance societies will provide the resources for a unified plan to improve the living standards of the whole people. Workers' control of these, as well as the present nationalized industries, will run them in the interests of the workers and consumers.

Again, the fight must begin now. State control of wages must be answered by the most widespread fight for wage increases to meet price rises and improve standards. This means a fight to remove the Tory government and change the union leadership. be revoked. On the basis of nationalization, a crash programme of expansion of services to the unemployed, the low-paid, the sick and the aged must be undertaken as an absolute priority. The working class and the Labour government must take immediate and absolute responsibility for these victims of the capitalist 7) The right to decent housing. Decent housing is not a luxury; it is a necessity. People have the basic right to decent accommodation at rents they can afford. Nationalization of the handful of building monopolies and building societies will provide the basis for a massive programme of new house building. The disgraceful problem of the homeless in the cities must be immediately solved by census and takingover of all unoccupied property.

8) The international responsibilities of the working class. The working class is international. We fight for the unrestricted right of any worker of any nationality to move freely through the world.

Withdraw the troops from Ireland. Unite the Irish and British working class to throw Unite in the struggle for the Anr the Common dictatorship.

Withdraw

Market plans for all Rritich tranne from abroad and disband the present standing army.

Sign treaties with all ex-colonial countries for programmes of equal trade and mutual assistance, Break from NATO imperialist alliances.

For the carrvine out policies the SIL fights for the setting up of Councils of Action to lead the struggle against the Tory government in every area. These Councils unite trade unionists, tenants, inemployed, all political parties and tendencies of the working class (Labour or Party, Communist party, SuL, 10, IMG, etc.) to fight against the main enemy, the Tory governThe SLL calls upon every socialist and class-conscious worker to consider this programme and manifesto very carefully, and to decide now to take up their inescapable responsibilities. The building of the revolutionary party is the burning question now, not in some remote future. The SLL is determined to carry through its transformation into a revolutionary party.

We appeal to all readers of the Workers Press and our supporters to join the SLL and help transform it into a revolutionary party.