Floating down the river of

Press

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March Appeal Fund 186a Clapham High Street London, SW4 7UG laundry over London's PICKETS at London's Whittington accused clerical staff and doctors accused clerical staff under police protection.

In what union officials believed to be the first action of its kind during the hospital workers' industrial action, police moved in yesterday morning and ordered pickets to cut their numbers from 40 to two.

Later private cars loaded to the rooftops with laundry crossed the picket lines.

"They are breaking our strike,' shouted one orderly helplessly. 'How can we stop them if the police keep moving us on?' A police constable told pickets that the police had the power to decide what constituted a 'reasonable' number of pickets, unlikely to 'intimidate vehicles entering or leaving the hospital'.

Although working-to-rule against the Tory pay laws, laundry workers at the Whittington hospital have ignored union advice to strike.

But the hospital is divided by a major road and laundry normally has to be driven into the hospital by transport drivers, who are on strike. Yesterday's police action protecting scab drivers must therefore have been a deliberate attempt to break If anything this action made the Whittington strikers, members of the General and MuniPEKING'S 'People's Daily' has published a brief article on Spain, the latest country to establish diplomatic ties with China. It does not mention the 1936-1939 Civil War, simply stating that a Popular Front united government was formed in 1936 and three years later General Franco came to power.

Registered as a newspaper at the Post Office. Published by Workers Press, 186a Clapham High Street, Printed Plough - O 3000. So Cud Newsdesk: 01-720 2000.

01-622 7029. Police help late on Sunday night is a further giant step towards the disintegration of the postwar capitalist monetary system.

It means that the currencies of almost all the major capitalist powers will be floating, either alone or in a bloc, when the foreign exchange markets re-open on March 19 after a shut-down of over two weeks.

The German mark, the Danish crown, the Florin, the Belgian franc, the Luxemburg and the French franc, will float together under the arrangement agreed by EEC Finance Ministers and central bankers meeting in Brussels.

PARITIES

The mark will be revalued by 3 per cent against the other Common Market currencies involved in the joint float and from next Monday onwards the six countries will try once again to keep their parities in a fixed relationship while floating against the dollar. will not be a clear, the dollar The float against the Collar ever: there were definite indications from the Brussels meeting picket line hospital yesterday. of strike-breaking cipal Workers' Union, more determined than ever. A 400Strong mass meeting voted to fight to the bitter end the hospital employers' £1.88, government-controlled pay offer.

Mike Taylor, regional officer of the National Union of Public Employees, said he would be at the hospital today to discuss the situation with his laundry members.

Last Friday, militant ancillary workers at the hospital voted to continue their strike for a second week. Committee member John Wainwright said: 'I've never seen such a passionate meeting.' A hospital orderly on picket duty yesterday said: 'If it was two days, it would be different, but after two weeks and losing all our money we won't go back so easily.' She added: 'The conditions we work in are rotten, and the wages are disgusting. We have to make beds that would turn your stomach over.

•We take home £18 with £6 rent out of that. When you've bought food and shoes there's not enough left to pay your fare back to the hospital.

'The TUC should be asked to back us. Everybody should be out on strike-all the unions together. That is the way to beat this government.' Nationally the number hospital hit by strike action rose yesterday-from 272 at the end of last week to 287.

Backing for the 'underpaid' hospital workers came yesterday from 11 doctors at Birmingham accident hospital, who called for settlement of their demands. Hospital managers in the Bangor and West Lothian group issued a similar call.

A shop • stewards' meeting at the_British-Leyland truck plant at Bathgate, near Glasgow, tomorrow, is to discuss industrial action by their 6,000 members in support of the hospital strikers. that the central banks will intervene to prevent the six currencies becoming too greatly revalued against the US currency.

Sterling, the Irish pound and the Italian lira will be left to float alone as they have already been doing for some months. The Brussels meeting extended an open invitation to on-EEC countries in Europe, notably the Scandinavian countries and Switzerland, to join in their jointly floating regime.

TARGET

Some, at least, are likely to accept because they know that any country which now remains on a fixed rate will be a certain target for 'speculation'. With the Brussels decision, every member country of the Interational Monetary Fund's group of ten, apart from the United States and possibly Sweden, will be floating.

This is the end of the system of 'fixed but adjustable parities'. From now on there is no saying from week to week or even from day to day what the parity relations between currencies will be.

The ramshackle Brussels arrangement follows a week of crisis meetings between the capiHospital workers from St James' hospital, south Londan, marched to Balham lube station yesterday to give out leaflets, then marched back to join their picket line.

Civil servants start their selective strikes campaign CIVIL SERVANTS leader Bill Kendall Civil and Public Servants' Association (CPSA) has called on the TUC to move quickly to follow up the special Congress call for a one-day General Strike.

In a letter to Victor Feather, Kendall drew attention other TUC commitment to support individual unions fighting the pay laws.

The civil servants particularly needed help and solidarity because of threats of disciplinary action against them by manageCivil service workers who are starting a week of selective strike action around the country yesterday stepped up • their campaign following a threat by the head of the Customs and Excise Sir Louis Petch. JOHN SPENCER talist world's Finance Ministers and central bankers. It marks the final stage of the disintegration of the Bretton Woods system established in 1944.

Since March 1968, when the US inaugurated the two-tier gold price system to protect its dwindling gold reserves, the monetary system has reeled from crisis to crisis. Each successive crisis has weakened and undermined the Bretton Woods system still further.

The two-tier system effectively ended on August 15, 1971, when the Nixon administration refused to sell any more gold to central bank dollar-holders. With the aid of a 10 per cent imports surcharge, the Americans forced other countries to accept their terms for a dollar devaluation at meeting in Washington's Smithsonian Institute on December 16, 1971.

The Smithsonian agreement lasted less than 14 months. The first breach was the sterling float of June last year. This not only breached the Smithsonian terms, but also the EEC's own 'snake in the tunnel' arrangement intended to maintain the relationship between member-countries' currencies.

The Smithsonian terms were finally buried on February 12 SUPPORT YOUR NUPT SAYS YOUREA SUPPORT IOSPITAI WORKERS If any civil servants not on strike refused to carry out the work of strikers when ordered to do so, he said, they would be suspended without pay.

When this news was reported to a strikers' meeting in Glasgow, the civil servants took instant action.

Immediately we heard this threat, we decided to leave the meeting and picket Customs House, said Cliff Bush, CPSA vice-president, who was addressing the meeting. 'This only the start in Scotland, he added.

Half the staff of the Glasgow Customs House were on strike. Over 300 computer punched-card operators started a week's strike at the National Savings Bank headquarters at Cowglen, Glasgow.

In the north east, two groups civil servants, including export German mark and other European currencies up-valued against the dollar.

This arrangement broke down within eight days. A new wave of selling finally forced the closure of the markets and they have remained closed since. The general float which has emerged from the Brussels meeting is simply an acknowledgement of break-down.

The advent of a generalized floating regime must have severe effects on all forms of international commerce. It may well increase the rush to buy gold and further undermine any remaining confidence in paper money.

GOLD RUSH

Furthermore it will lay the basis for big commercial crashes in the immediate future caused by the disruption of commerce resulting from the closure of the exchanges and the lack of stability in currency exchange.

At the same time the breakdown of currency relations will fuel an even more ruthless trade war characterized by the extension of protective tariff barriers, the lumping of cut-price goods and the restriction of commercial relations to exclusive bilateral agreements-in short the worst trade recession in the history of capitalism.

SUPPOR HOSPITA WORKERS documentation staff, went on a fortnight's strike in the Newcastle area.

At the Southend headquarters of Customs and Excise, 50 women and girls who work on talance of payments Stripe: meso intouchend, coon A SO CONputer staff working on ValueAdded Tax registrations came out for a week.

Freight customsmen went on strike at London's Heathrow airport.

A total of 5,000 civil servants were on strike. A CPSA spokesman said more would be brought out at key points if disciplinary action was tried.

Social Security offices, customs points and taxation departments were the main areas affected. Towns covered included London, Manchester, Liverpool, Hull, Newcastle, Aberdeen, Swansea and Southend.