THE PROMISE made by the TUC to lead "co. ordinated action' to back workers fighting the govern- ment over the state pay laws will be put to the test for

POLICE PROTECT SCABS AND REDUCE PICKET LINES The hospital workers' leaders will be asking the TUC economic committee for help in its industrial action for a living wage. But all the signs suggest that this hard-pressed section of the working class will be betrayed and fobbed-off with more fake words and The so-called moderates around Victor Feather will argue that the movement is not committed to industrial action to support unions fighting the government. This is because the special TUC Congress on March 5 passed to nothing, as well as a later more militant amendment. The right leader and a member of the economic committee, electricians has already said he will ignore the call for a one-day national strike.

The Tories are extremely encouraged by the paralysis that grips the union leaders. Yesterday Employment Secretary Maurice Macmillan openly boasted that isolated stoppages did not impress the government. 'No one will gain a penny Society. HOSPITAL WORKERS SEEK TUC HELP OMISE the first time tomorrow. pledges from the union leaders. the original policy statement which committed the TUC wing will support this treachery. Frank Chapple, from the present industrial action,' he told businessmen at a conference held by the corporatist - style Industrial The inactivity of theories coupled with determination to smash down the hospital workers, gasmen, train drivers, teachers and civil servants underline the gravity of the situation facing the working class.

The TUC chiefs spend their time leisurely planning the one-day strike, making sure its impact is as slight as possible. Meanwhile actions by tens of thousands of workers fighting for basic rights and decent wages are being bled to death before the whole labour and trade union movement. Yet their battle is the battle of every working man in the land.

This is more than cowardice by the TUC-it is downright complicity with the Tory drive towards dictatorship.

The TUC is putting off all action until the great and as yet unnamed day of proTheir efforts are applauded by the Stalinists in the Communist Party and revisionists and liberals who gather in the International Socialists. nade back pay laws will b e put tomorrow.

Both these organizations say the one-day strike is a good thing.

It is time there was some plain speaking about this 'day of protest'.

FIRST everyone knows, including the and IS charlatans, that a strike confined to one day will be utterly futile. It will not budge the Tories an inch.

SECONDLY, the Tories welcome such actions. They provide useful fuel to the fire they are lighting among the middle class. As rail leader Ray Buckton said yesterday, the Tories want the unions to be what the jews were for the Nazis.

THIRDLY, workers can become demoralized by protests that lead to a dead-end. This spreading feeling encourages the right wingers, like Chapple, to come out and openly split the moveThe battle against the Tories for basic democratic rights is not an abstraction— a painless, effete, protest to be launched on a specified but union chiefs inaction bleed strikes to death NO ENTRY date. The battle is on now, Police cut the picket at the Whittington Hospital north London yester. at the hospitals, outside the day, enabling administrative staff to strike-break. See full story-back gasworks and on the rail- page. ways. HOŞPITAL