Sanctions a provocation to railmen

THE RAIL dispute got closer to confrontation yesterday as British Rail began to operate new sanctions against drivers working-to-rule.

Inspectors, depot supervisors and local managers began reporting drivers who refused to handle trains with minor faults. The men involved will suffer an average of f2 cut in wages due to loss of mileage bonus.

The move has all the markings of a deliberate provocation and it follows calls from Torv MPs to sack drivers and close lines.

Yesterday the rail rebellion BSA take-over?

THE GOVERNMENT is having talks with Manganese Bronze which has expressed an interest in taking over all or part of BSA Ltd, the Midlands motorcycle and engineering group, said the Minister for Industrial Development, Mr Christopher Chataway, in a Commons statement yesterday.

In Birmingham yesterday shop stewards were told that the company would not be placed in liquidation; said Jack Rogers. happening, Transport and General Workers' Union engineering official. 'but liquidation is not one of the things that has been discussed.

Hospital 'peace':

Quick Tory reply THE GOVERNMENT moved quickly yesterday to turn down the British Medical Association's request for an independent inquiry into the hospital workers' pay dispute.

The Tories are alarmed at this proposal because it threatens to further erode the support they are relying on from the middle class in any showdown with the trade unions over the hard-line policy of Phase Two wage controls.

One 'special case' and government's tactics will be totally disrupted.

Late last night, the TUC belatedly began talks with hospital unions about 'co-ordinated action' in their support. Hospital workers have been crying out for solidarity action for three weeks, particularly sympathy strikes and picket support. TRADE DEFICIT SPARKS NEW CRISIS spread in London when drivers at London Bridge, headquarters of central region, refused to man trains with no speedometers. There were virtually no suburban services in Southern's three divisions-south eastern, south western and central, and main line services were restricted.

Drivers at Waterloo reacted angrily to the clampdown on bonus:

'This is a deliberate stunt bv the Tories, one locomen's representative told me. 'We don't earn the mileage bonus anyway.' Another driver with 14 years in the cab showed me his wage General Strike call from picket at 'conspiracy' trial FROM DAVID MAUDE AT SHREWSBURY A MASS meeting of building workers, Shotton steelworkers and Liverpool dockers yesterday called for a one-day General Strike to protest against the conspiracy trial of 24 Shropshire building workers. Police denied 'over-reaction' as 1,000 uniformed men block level at which capitalists have the will and the means to invest, production and trade • will be brought to a grinding halt.

With imports soaring to a new record, the beginnings of mutterings in the City that Heath is not doing the job on the working class that is required of him will grow louder.

The CBI language is again becoming violent, recalling the startling outbursts of three weeks ago when it threatened to fight to the last ditch and withdraw co-operation from the governIn the event, the Phase Two Green Paper, although piling further burdens onto the working class, failed to meet all the CBI demands for complete freedom to raise prices as they wish to cover all cost increases.

Before going to No 10 yesterday, W. O. Campbell Adamson, CBI director-general, complained that the Green Paper had been written by someone 'who hadn't the slightest idea about how industry works'.

STEPHEN packet—f18 net. "This figure of £2 bonus is laughable anyway. I only get 18p a week,' he said.

The problem facing railway workers at big stations like Waterloo are attacks from the most frustrated sections of the middle class. Feelings have been deliberately whipped up by the Tories and the media and railway workers have been subjected to unprovoked assaults.

One of them, Henry Kelly, a Waterloo porter, was back at The call to the TUC came unanimously from the 1,000strong meeting held outside the the Shire Hall in Shrewsbury following the committal proceedings.

Birmingham building workers' leader, Peter Carter, said this was one situation which could not be solved by negotiation.

He addressed a call to TUC NIE The sort of politics the CBI wants to see was spelled out by Adamson. It is up to us, because we are members of the public, to make it clear that the time really has come, after sliding for ten to 15 years, to show a minority element of the population that they are not going to dominate all the rest of us any more' 'The time really has come.' And no sooner were these words uttered than a railwayman was beaten up at Waterloo station by inflamed commuters and the disciplinary threats were made by British Rail and the Customs and Excise.

Adamson's thirst for action was underlined by references to the 'disastrous outcome' of last year's miners' strike and the 'urgent need' for legislative action of the pay laws kind.

Any agreement between the government and the CBI could well involve plans to lock out the train drivers and organize wholescale scab labour in the hospitals. work yesterday after being attacked by commuters on Monday. After a television interview the Waterloo management have stopped Mr Kelly talking to the Press.

A spokesman for his union, the National Union of Railwaymen, said yesterday that no special steps or instructions were going out to their members.

'We have asked them to keep on working normally. I don't think the executive has even discussed these incidents. It's difficult to know what to do though. Naturally we deplore them, he said. general secretary Victor Feather TOT a General Strike of all workers when the 24 were brought to trial on April 25.

Carter contrasted the massive police turnout at Shrewsbury with their refusal to act in the case of building • union activist Mike Shilvock, who was beaten up at his home following the end of the building strike last year.

swamped Its streets.

The situation is balanced on a knife edge. The ruling class is hesitant and unsure of the full support of the middle class for such provocative moves.

But these measures, or something very like them, are now inevitable because of the insoluble nature of the crisis.

The only answer the trade union movement can make to such a situation is to move decisively to destroy such a conspiracy before it gets under way.

It is in this context that the TUC's paralysis over launching the political strike to defeat the government becomes the most perilous treachery for the whole class.

Every trade unionist can now see that the Socialist Labour League's policy for using the whole strength of the trade union movement to create through the General Strike the necessary political and industrial conditions to force the Tory government to resign is the policy of the hour.

DETAIL!

LEPHONE 622 7029 NUR men at Waterloo, however, defended the action of the drivers and spoke bitterly about the government.

Meanwhile a slight possibility of new talks emerged yesterday after British Rail invited the drivers' leader Ray Buckton to a meeting at 2.30 today.

Mr Buckton said that he would be asking the Board to allow more meetings of the tripartite committee on drivers' pay.

'I only hope the men do not get provoked over this £2 business, he said.

There had been no police attempt to find those responsible Ior the savage allack, ne clalmed. Building workers have had to conduct their own investigation.

Shilvock had taken CID officers into a Birmingham drinking clut and identified the ringleader, he went on. refused to arrest the man or conduct an Identit barate 'That's the this country at the moment."

An attempt was being made to whip up support for the Tories' projected legislation on picketing which would outlaw the "Alying picket' techniques used by the miners and the The meeting also heard greetings from Liverpool docks stedockers were repaying the debt built up year when bullding workers struck over jailing Luke McLoughlin, Shotton steelworkers' leader, said that the future of the working class lay in the type of strike action which had been shown mass picket.

'If the working class sticks the attacks which are being made upon it today, we will win,' he said.

During the meeting there was considerable criticism of the building union leaders who have so far done nothing to support threatened members, despite the tact that the charges have arisen out of official picketing duties.

Building sites all over Merseyside, north and the Midlands stopped work yesterday protest against the trial, 8.000 dockers the Port of Liverpool were out solid in support of the 24 accused.

Steelworkers facing closure at Shotton, wintchire. also stonned condemning the Tyranny'.

Most contingents taking part in yesterday's mass picket arrived after the scheduled thev were held un bv the police road blocks.

coachload of building union members from Wolverhampton that they had been stopped five times seven niles, ther did not arrive until mid-morning.

Liverpool rockers said that they had been given a 'Royal escort' of police motorcycle outriders from about 14 miles out Workers photographer and I questioned and had to our identification at a roadblock.

newlytrained anti-picket squad, used at Hull last week, had been called in.

I talked to who claimed he had been travelling since 4 a.m. to get here for 8 o'clock. Now where had he come from?' The head police. Superintendent Alex Nichol, dismissed suggestions that the arrangements showed evidence of 'overreaction'. The police have to be The insisted.