Workers Press no. 1028

workers press

INCORPORATING THE NEWS

DAILY ORGAN OF THE CENTR

From Stephen Johns at Lofthouse colliery THE FIRST rescue team from the flooded Lofthouse Colliery, near Wakefield, has reported no trace of the seven miners trapped on the face early yesterday morning. At a pithead Press conference they gave the grim news that water was at ceiling height about 1,600 yards from the face where the disaster struck.

Coal Board. They said there was no in- tailed charts of these at each dication that the water level area headquarters. dropping and was that the told Workers colliery road leading to the disaster yesterday: area was completely they dare go to submerged. the old shafts and then seal They did reveal, however, them off. that miners at the colliery had no idea that they were wor- king so close to such a lethal

DROWNINGS 'RARE'

quantity of flood water. Recently we had to leave a great of coal

DETAILED CHARTS

seam when we got too close to water. We could hear it bubbling behind The question that must be the coal! immediately answered is how A NCB spokesman duty On did, the be miners come to yesterday at Lofthouse said: working so near to the old 'We knew that there were old waterlogged shaft? shafts in the vicinity but we When the industry was na- not know did their where- tionalized in 1947 all drawings abouts until a hole appeared of and maps old workings in a farmers' field this morn- ing.' were passed onto the National INCORPORATING THE NEWSLETTER • THURSDAY MARCH 22, 1973 • No 1028 • 4p DAILY ORGAN OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE He said: No abnormal re- ports come in far. nave SU We've heard nothing about running water though Loft- like all house. collieries, suffers from nuisance water.' An NCB spokesman in Lon- said pit drownings don were 'very rare, very rare indeed'. He could offer no explanation how the NCB had for over looked' the existence of the disused shaft which was filled with tons of water and sludge.

The 10-man team took the first big pump down the col- liery and late yesterday water was being removed from the pit bottom. aqua special was standing by. rescue team On hand, ambulances—-with their grim threat of tragedy. CH 22, 1973 • No 1028 4p

HE SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE

young rescue workers shortly before the unsu The atmosphere in Out- wood, the small mining com- munity nearby Lofthouse, was tense and silent. Groups of miners waited outside the colliery for news of the men. The NCB and the National Union of Mineworkers have asked eye-witnesses not to talk to the Press about the disaster which is the first serious one in the colliery's 90-year history. *IN THIS JOB you run the risk of being buried alive, burnt alive, blown up, gassed, suffocated or drowned,' Brian Lavery, a north Yorkshire miner said yesterday. *The men working this seam would have been receiving the top underground rate—£34.10 a week. That's the top pay.* Yesterday's disaster comes on the eve of a ballot to decide national strike action to improve wages and condi- tions. Under the Tory state pay controls they have been limited by law to £2.60 more a week in reply to their €5 to f7 claim. Already Yorkshire, South Wales, Lancashire and Kent areas have recommended near- unanimously for all-out strike action. and proceeds from Output the coalmining industry have shot up in recent years while wages have • fallen behind the cost of living; at the same

HOOVER

APR 30.107

the unsuccessful first search.

The flood waters swept into the colliery at 2.30 a.m. with such tremendous force that coal moving equipment and seven electric panels weighing over 2cwt were ripped from their mountings. The only chance for the men now is the possibility that they have taken refuge in an air pocket. But this is a slender hope.

time death, disease and injury continue claim their victims. The latest figures for death.

disease and injury " (for the 1970-1971 year) show that 92 miners were killed and 598 seriously injured. 773 new of the killer disease cases pneumoconiosis were reported.

The Chief Inspector of Mines, in his report for 1970, stated: "There is little com- fort to be drawn from the figures of recent years and it is apparent that widespread mechanisation has slowed down the decline in pneumo- coniosis. Dust-suppression measures have not kept pace with production techniques.

More than 3,150 cases of disease other than pneumo- coniosis were reported. These include dermatitis, beat hand, beat knee, beat elbow, inflam- mation of the wrist and nystagmus (an eye condition).

After last year's strike out- put rose to over 2.6 million tons a week and output per man-shift reached an all-time high of 46cwt overall.

workers press

INCORPORATING THE NEWS

DAILY ORGAN OF THE CENTR

From Stephen Johns at Lofthouse colliery THE FIRST rescue team from the flooded Lofthouse Colliery, near Wakefield, has reported no trace of the seven miners trapped on the face early yesterday morning. At a pithead Press conference they gave the grim news that water was at ceiling height about 1,600 yards from the face where the disaster struck.

Coal Board. They said there was no in- tailed charts of these at each dication that the water level area headquarters. dropping and was that the told Workers colliery road leading the to 'They work disaster yesterday: area was completely they dare go to submerged. the old shafts and then seal They did reveal, however, them off. that miners at the colliery had no idea that they were wor- king so close to such a lethal

DROWNINGS 'RARE'

quantity of flood water. Recently we had to leave a great of coal

DETAILED CHARTS

seam when we got too close to water. We could hear it bubbling behind The question that must be the coal.' immediately answered is how A NCB spokesman on duty did. the be miners come to at Lofthouse yesterday said: working so near to the old 'We knew that there were old waterlogged shaft? shafts in the vicinity but we When the industry was na- did not know their where- tionalized in 1947 all drawings abouts until a hole appeared of in a farmers' field this morn- and maps old workings ing.' were passed onto the National oct INCORPORATING THE NEWSLETTER O THURSDAY MARCH 22, 1973 • No 1028 40 DAILY ORGAN OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE He said: 'No abnormal re- ports have come in far. SO We've heard nothing about running water though Loft- like all house. collieries, suffers from nuisance water. An NCB spokesman in Lon- don said pit drownings were 'very rare, indeed'. very rare He could offer no explanation the NCB had for how over. looked' the existence of the disused shaft which was filled with tons of water and sludge.

The 10-man team took the first big pump down the col- liery and late yesterday water was being removed from the pit bottom. special A aqua rescue team was standing by.

On hand, ambulances. -with their grim threat of tragedy. 707 RCH 22, 1973 • No 1028 \ 4p

HE SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE

• young rescue workers shortly before the unsur The atmosphere in Out- wood, the small mining com- munity nearby Lofthouse, was tense and silent. Groups of miners waited outside the colliery for news of the men. The NCB and the National Union of Mineworkers have asked eye-witnesses not to talk to the Press about the disaster which is the first serious one in the colliery's 90-year history. 'IN THIS JOB you run the risk of being buried alive, blown burnt alive, up. gassed, suffocated or drowned, Brian Lavery, a Yorkshire miner north said yesterday. "The men working this seam would have been receiving the top underground rate-£34.10 a week. That's the top pay.'

Yesterday's disaster comes the eve of a ballot on to decide national strike action to improve wages and condi- tions. Under the Tory state pay controls they have been limited by law to £2.60 more a week in reply to their £5 to £7 claim. Already Yorkshire, South Wales, Lancashire and Kent areas have recommended near- unanimously for all-out strike action. and proceeds Output from the coalmining industry have shot up in recent years while wages have fallen behind the cost of living; at the same

HOOVER

APR

the unsuccessful first search.

The flood waters swept into the colliery at 2.30 a.m. with such tremendous force that coal moving equipment and seven electric panels weighing over 2cwt were ripped from their mountings. The only chance for the men now is the possibility that they have taken refuge in an air pocket. But this is a slender hope.

time death, disease and injur continue claim their victims. The latest figures for death, and injury' (for the disease 1970-1971 year) show that 92 miners were killed and 598 injured. seriously 773 new of the killer disease cases pneumoconiosis were reported.

of The Chief Inspector Mines, in his report for 1970, stated: 'There is little com- fort to be drawn from the figures of recent years and it widespread apparent that mechanisation has slowed down the decline in pneumo- coniosis. Dust-suppression measures have not kept pace with production techniques.'

More than 3,150 cases of disease other than pneumo- coniosis were reported. These include dermatitis, beat hand, beat knee, beat elbow, inflam- mation wrist and nystagmus (an eye condition).

After last year's strike out- put rose to over 2.6 million tons a week and output per man-shift reached an all-time high of 46cwt overall.

US wage controls stay until 1974 PAGE 2 Workers Press, Thursday Marc

BY JOHN SPENCER

WAGE CONTROLS introduce the United States in August 1971 continue for another year follo ratification of further preside powers by the Senate in Washing President Nixon's current wage con involving a statutory limit of 5.5 per on wage increases, rigorously enforce a lay Board, can now continue to op until April 1, 1974.

BY A FOREIGN

CORRESPONDENT

CLOSE TIES beiween the American secret ser- vice, the Central Intelli- gence Agency, and the giant International Tele.

TODAY'S meeting of the Com- mon Market finance ministers in Brussels, chancellor Anthony Barber, 1s likely to see a bitter row over monetary questions. The French government, in demanding particular, will be joins the common that Britain currency float at the earliest opportunity. The Gaullists are backing their demand with the threat to op- pose Common Market payments towards British regional develop- unless Britain joins the ment float. Things could come to a head Tory on April 18 when the government is due to submit its own proposals for payments from the EEC regional funds. So far the Tories have given requests to evasive answers to fix a date for joining the com- mon float. In Bonn on Tuesday, John Europe, Davies, Minister for said Britain intended to join at moment' the earliest possible but still wanted backing from the other EEC central banks.

BY A FOREIGN

CORRESPONDENT

MORE than a quarter of a million workers went on strike or were locked out yesterday as Denmark en- tered its largest industrial conflict since a five-week general strike in 1936. As the clock struck midnight, night-shift workers in the engi- neering and transport industries walked off the job. Printers struck work on several major daily papers. Bus drivers in most cities and in the suburbs of Copenhagen came out on strike, and thou- sands of commuters had to find alternative means of transport.

Hotel and restaurant em- ployees, electrical and central repairmen, heating carpenters, bricklayers and workers in the furniture, ceramic, textile, book- binding and iron and metal in- dustries also struck work.

All sailors on Danish ships stopped work as soon as their vessels reached Danish ports. Freight and services passenger were also struck, disrupting This has been achieved as a result of the president's successful in trade leaders who the strength of the nela back working class. In return for lucrative postions presidential administration and the conian protectionist legislation Torelen produce the union policy. per cent enforced by This is despite the colossal increases in of prices, particularly .the over Dast beriou. Nixon graft phone and Telegraph Corporation, which for- merly partly-owned the in telephone service Chile, have been revealed by a Congressional com. mittee in Washington.

ITT,

vice-president ot William Merriam, told a Senate Foreign Relations sub- how he had committee worked with the top CIA man for Latin America to prevent the election of Salvador The Allende.

CIA

also backed an anti-Allende cam- Latin palgn throughout America and in the European press. There were also •discussions

CIA

support for the about block cnnled Illllary Allende's election. The

CIA

William Broe, man, had assured the corporation tha wolld LaKe nara Jine Allende regime. An memorandum official of the Nixon Administra- reterson. sale 'everything should be done effectively quietly but to see Allende aocs through the crucial next six months.' The ITT is now claiming com- from the pensation government- Overseas SPOnSOrCU rivale Corporation Investors' The tune of $97m for the loss of its assets in Chile. While this case is going on. a House of Representatives com- mittee examining charges that the ITT received support from Danes join biggest strike for 37 years Copenhagen operations between and Also and Esbjerg and Harwich Unless a seluenent s reacned between the Tuc versi associa- tion and within a few Cays. Surikes Will sorcau lo include the oil and fuel industry bringing all transport bui dings a stand still and leaving cept and nursing „ Tor nestilas homes) without heat. The be employers claim to losing t7m a da as a result of which began when The cisnute. the

TUC

and the employers' federation failed to reach agree- wage menl o new Iwo-veaT settlement to replace the one which expired on March

NO COMPROMISE

The rejected employers the DUDusals l01 Culdi OlisC iorward at the last minute by a mediator appointed social-democratic suvetict. The mediator's •roDosal covered equal pay for women, for low-paid special wage workers, cost of living incieases. holiday pay and the length of the working week. The major point at issue be- hieved as a result of currently rising at an per cent, according to essful courtship of the who have deliberately Connecticut senator t ngth of the organized Ribicoff introduced for a freeze on pric rative positions in the products and meat, st promise of dra- Nixon has reaffirmed I legislation against the freeze of farm prices produce into the US, cost of food in the su lave accepted Nixon's The Administration taken all necessary ste e colossal increases in prices situation. Acco of food and housing, presidential committe iod. Food prices are food prices should bes top men in the Nixon adminis- tration in an anti-trust suit.

Those named include former he Attorney-General John Mitchell and former Commerce Secre- taries Peter Peterson and Maurice Stans. Payments were ed also made to the law firm of former Secretary to the Treasury, John Connally. The suit arose as a result of a threat to dissolve the merger betwen • ITT and the Hartford Fire Insurance Co under the anti- laws. The trust government finally allowed the merger to continue subject to ITT divest- ing itself of some of its hold- ings. The head of the anti-trust division of the Justice Depart- ment, Richard McLaren, was later made a Federal judge.

Among material being con- sidered by the committee is a thank you letter from ITT to Vice-president Spiro Agnew and another to John Connally which expressed belief that he and Peterson had been 'instrum- ental' in delaying the transmis- sion of the anti-trust case to the Supreme Court. Both cases establish that there close and frequent were con- tacts between officials of ITT and top members of the Nixon administration. The former CIA head, John McCone, is now an ITT director. Tribune' As the 'Herald puts it: 'Some con- delicately gressional investigators are pur- suing the theory that the ITT pledges of up to $400,000 to finance the Republican National tion action on both counts.'

In other words, graft and large scale corruption on a reached right into Nixon's inner circle. tween the unions and the em- ‚a proposal that the ployers is cost of living increase be raised from 30 öre to 40 öre (2p to 2.6p) an hour. The employers claim this would cost them over £44m a year. The unions say that the in- crease is only slightly above six per cent when the rising of living is taken into cost account. The employers have adamantly refused to compro- mise with the TUC, clearly hoping to inflict a defeat on the workers' movement with the aid of the government. Under premier Anker Joer- gensen the government has kept carefully out of the limelight, doing nothing that could be interpreted as favouring the workers in the strike. social-democrats, The who rely on the parliamentary sup- port of right-wing splinter par- ties, want nothing to upset the delicate coalition. Behind the employers' deter- mination is the recent entry of Denmark into the Common Market. Like British employers the Danish bosses are attempt- ing to smash the living stan- dards of the working class in line with EEC requirements.

sing at an annual rate of 56 mid-year and cording to figures produced by near-zero by t senator Abraham Ribicott. This pious ntroduced a measure calling millions of all raw farm wage packets • on prices prices rise. T i meat, starting March 1. But affirmed his opposition to any earlier this ye m prices or controls over the as the governt in the supermarkets. rents. inistration claims that it has Now that 1 cessary steps to deal with the round the cyn ion. According to the stooge talking about 'retail committee food, rent controls : on should begin to level off after against the ris THE TORY White Paper on Northern Ireland aims to con- rule indefinitely tinue direct and to intensify the oppression of the Irish working class.

The British army of occupation is to stay and the Royal Ulster Constabulary is to be increased in numbers and given im- proved equipment and training.

The Special Powers Act is to be replaced by even stronger 'anti-terrorist' legislation which will include trial without jury.

The detention camps will stay "as long as necessary', and the Tory Secretary of State for William Whitelaw, remains of 'security'. The proposed 80-strong Northern Ireland Assembly, which will proportional be elected by 'as representation soon as possible, is a fraud. Not only will it have no control over foreign affairs and the armed forces, but the Tory govern- ment in Westminster retains its direct powers over the judges and appointment of magistrates, and over public prosecutions and elections.

Westminster has power, also, to introduce 'exceptional law and order measures' whenever it considers there is an emerg- ency in Ulster and it retains its overriding powers to legis- late on any matter concerning the Six Counties. All measures passed by the Assembly would have to be submitted to the British Privy Council by Whitelaw and he decides whether such alone measures are within its powers.

It is he also who will appoint formally all members of the executive, the heads of the political departments and the equivalents of ministers.

And no powers at all will be handed to the Assembly until the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has reached understanding with its an i leaders 'which the UK govern- with confidence, ment can, recommend to [the British] parliament as a fair and viable basis for the devolution of power' Even then, the lory supremo will continue to exercise direct ministerial responsibility on several matters, including the police, public order and the prisons. The White Paper claims that the central problem in Ulster is 'the restoration of law and order', and that this requires improvements in the adminis- tration of justice'. To this end, 'continued and effective action terrorists' against will be demanded of the Cosgrave government in the Republic of Ireland. Of course the real terrorists are British imperialism and the Protestant bourgeoisie of the Six Counties. -year and the rate of increase may be -zero by the end of the year'.

his pious hope will be no consolation millions of workers watching their e packets shrink every day as food es rise. These same people were hit ier this year by the steep rise in rents he government lifted all controls over ow that rents have been raised all id the cynical Nixon administration is ng about the reintroduction of some controls as if this were a major blow nst the rising cost of living.

These are the forces which have and jailed murdered, robbed generations of Irish workers in the interest and peasants of profit and property. The purpose of the Tory White Paper is to give even stronger military and legal force to this oppression. The British Labour Party leaders, of course, are fully behind the Tories in this. Labour's spokes- man on Irish affairs, Merlyn Rees, MP, was on of the hrst rapturous reception to give a to the White Paper. And yesterday's 'Morning Star', organ of the British Com- munist Party, while admitting that the 'main instruments' of repression were retained British hands, nevertheless sowed dangerous illusions that the White Paper represented a step forward. Whitelaw, the paper's said editorial, has been compelled by the democratic and pro- gressive movement in Northern Ireland and in Britain to make concessions, including some introduction the of propor- tional representation for the proposed assembly, and a charter of human rights.'

This is the exact opposite of what has happened. The Stalinists are seeking deliber- working ately to disarm the class in Ireland while the ultra-right Tories and the forces prepare to launch an even greater onslaught against them. Meanwhile neither wing of the IRA has yet commented on the proposals. The immediate reaction from them both was that they would: require 24 hours to study the document.

Then the Provisional Sinn Fein,. political wing of the Provisional IRA said in Dublin yesterday that it would not be to the paper 'for a reacting day or two'. The British labour movement all collaboration must reject with the Tory plans. Those who seek to present them as 'democratic concessions', like the Stalinists, must be exposed.

The central demand must be 'Withdraw all British troops from Ireland!' The Socialist Labour League is the only organization in Britain which has consistently opposed the use of British troops in Northern Ireland and fought to establish the unity of the Irish working class, north and south, Catholic and Protestant, with the British working class against their common enemies, British and Irish capitalism.

The only way for the British working to help their class brothers in Ireland is, not to for 'good bits' in the seek Tories' plans, but to force the Tory government to resign and replace it with • a Labour government pledged to socialist policies-including an immedi- ate end to the oppressions in Ulster.

A socialist policy EIGHT THOUSAND London dockers have said that on April 1 they will withdraw from Clause 12 of the Devlin 'modern- ization' Green Book because they are dissatisfied with a {2.60, government-controlled pay award. The employers say that if this threat is carried out, they will withdraw the £2.60, which has been accepted by the men. Clause 12, which covers flexibility and mobility of labour, is said by the employers to be vital to the port's running. Below, Alf Waters, a shop steward for the National Amalgamated Stevedores' and Dockers' Union at Tilbury, writes in a personal capacity about the situation facing dockers and the policy needed to meet it.

PORT EMPLOYERS in voke a lock-out by the employ- The 'Port' London's enclosed docks are ers. magazine goes a step further by suggesting that standing firm on their con- a return to fixed manning might temptible offer of wage force the shipping companies to because £2.60. They do so the Royals alto- move out of they are encouraged by the gether. What is the of the Tory answer determination of the leaders, lay union delegates and and the Con- government shop stewards to the employers' federation of British Industry provocative actions? of They have none. None at all. to impose state control They would rather surrender They also wages. are they as have already done on encouraged by the TUC's Heath's Phase fight Two-than cowardly betrayal of gas, employers' lock-out an over hospital, rail and civil service Clause 12. But this is only the beginning.

employees. Port employers and shippers, Our union leaders and an 18- in preparation trade war tor the lay delegates' man committee heralded by dollar devaluation have placed dockers in an ex- and floating of currencies, tremely perilous by position determined to increase producti- recommending of acceptance vity and inroughput beyond the this offer, and their covering record rates achieved in 1972.

retreat with the of rejection How? Firstly by a massive in- Clause 12 of the Green Book. crease in unregistered labour and the of an increase in capacity unregistered ports. Secondly, by stewards shop in the involving of apparatus management through of fraud workers' the participation' and joint consul- tation'. This is the next stage of Dev- lin in which the stick of big unemployment will be combined with the rotten carrot of 'con- sultation' and 'control' to elimi- nate strikes and increase profits. Despite the phoney promises of Jones-Aldington of an inquiry into unregistered ports, wharves and jetties with a view to closing them down, the fact is that un- registered ports are moving far greater volume of cargo than when the Jones-Aldington fraud was set up. 15 At least ports have re- "casual' cruited supplementary, labour with union approval since the Jones-Aldington inquiry was established. The employers are the argument of Tory invoking Ministers that they did not pay £30.6m out In severance pay- keep the register ex- ments to panding! Employers' plans to expand the supplementary register and to ports and play off unregistered ports outside the Dock Labour Scheme registered, against Scheme ports is now a very real threat. Despite Jones and Aldington the most powerful sections of employers-the shipowners--have stated in their 1972 review that non-Scheme ports and wharves Steer should operate independently of the National Dock Labour Board.

They have not only accepted They want 'free competition be- the government's wage-increase ports'-in other words, tween and the prospect of dock- norm unemployment and speed-up.

ers' wages being frozen for three This is the real meaning of but they have opened the years, the Jones-Aldington That or so. dictatorship. door to corporate is why hundreds specially- the At same time they have trained police were used recently the ground for prepared the picketing Hull dockers against the threat of employers to use unregistered wharf. an economic blackmail against the This is the prospect for dock- dockers. 1973: on the one ers in hand This has already been done in fantastic increase in productivity the Royals, where the meat trade and reduction in labour because was retained on a six months' of and other containerization trial basis only condition on techniques and, on the other, that gang-shift tonnages went up steep decline in real wages be- while wages remained the same. Tory-organized of infla- The employers got what they tion, the abolition of piece-work officials, wanted because union under Phase Two of the Devlin and reformist and Stalinist stew- 'modernization' scheme and the ards like Bernie Steer and Vic state control of the pay-packet.

Turner dropped the nine-point Dockers have been warned.

well as the four-point plan as The for of the national port shop major responsibility stew- ards' rejected this situation leader and the committee, unity with other sections like lorry trade union leaders Social- Stalinists, drivers and refused to fight the international ists' and reformist stewards who Jones-Aldington plan and the Tory government. trading dockers' jobs and are Maurice Foley-on behalf of conditions for the most paltry the 18-man committee- increases in rates and who re- -now says that implementation of the one- mobilize workers in a tuse to one-shift rule might pro- fight to force the Tories to resign.

man, Jones confronts angry docker members during I Dockers reject • Electio must com- pletely the Stalinist reformist de- ment whi mand that one-day stoppages and nationaliz protests will defeat Phase Two container pay control and defend dockers' without c basic rights. Such protests will workers' help the Tories to stampede the middle class without undermin- ing the government. A government which is pre- paring for civil war against the working class, and secretly arms the police without even a refer- ence to parliament, is not going impressed by a one-day be to national strike. one-day national A stoppage can be a only if it is success extended into an indefinite Gen- eral Strike. The Tory government cannot be reformed. It must be forced to resign. It is only through the defeat of the Tory government and its by a i Labour gov- replacement ernment with socialist policies that unemployment, unregistered speed-up labour and the on docks will be eliminated.

Only the nationalization of all the ports under workers' control and the integration of the trans- port industry and its operation within a central plan can satisfy the demands of dockers. We think this objective is possible in the next entirelv period but that this requires: • The creation of new leader- ship on the docks based on the revolutionary socialist policies of the All Trades Unions Alliance.

• Opposition to all those like the CP and IS who refuse to mobilize workers in a political struggle against the government and who refuse to call for an indefinite General Strike of the TUC against the government.

• The maximum unity of the dockers and other sections of workers, particularly transport a struggle to lorry drivers-in defend their basic democratic rights. • Recall of the docks delegates to fight for the retention of the Dock Labour Scheme and its extension into every port.

• Complete opposition to the fraud of 'workers' participation' and the collaboration of shop stewards with management.

• Abolition of the supplement- ary register. All new labour to be incorporated fully into the protection of the scheme.

ME • Election of a Labour govern.

must be forced to the port, shipping, and haulage industries without compensation and under

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28 charlotte st london wl Fridays (late night opening) 9 saturdays 9 a.m.-5 n.m ress, Thursday March 22, 1973 PAGE 3

BY IAN YEATS

AN ex-Labour Minister rocked consumers yester- day with the disclosure that the Tory government is buying up food and destroying it prices artificially high.

Douglas Jay, meeting Market Safeguards Campaign that the government had set up a special buying board for the purpose. He accused them of "buy- ing up food in the home market in competition with the British housewife, so as to keep prices up, and then either storing it or deliberately mixing chemical with it so as to make it unfit for human consumption'. Jay said that the Tories were already applying the sys- tem to beef, the product about which price hikes recent caused a public outcry. He said: The junior minis- ter at the ministry said in Parliament on March 7 that he had to give "an assurance against market collapse" in beef prices. So he had ar- • "sold ranged for beef to be intervention"-that into in Brussels language means mixed with chemicals and destroyed.' Jay also claimed that under the terms of Britain's entry into the EEC the Tories had imposed an import tax on from out- mutton and lamb side the Common Market which was to rise to 20 per cent, agreed to abolish the bacon subsidy, agreed to stop subsidising the price of sugar and agreed to an EEC ruling which allows the continued export of beef.

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MARXIST PHRASES HIDE BACKING

lan Yeats replies to a two-part analysis of the 1972 Official Sinn Fein Ard Fheis (conference) by Gerry Foley, a member of the editorial board of 'Intercontinental Press', the theoretical journal of the Pabloite Unified Secretariat of the Fourth International.

PAGE & Workers Press, Thursday Mars lan Yeats replies to a two-par board of 'Intercontinental Pre Gerry Foley's analysis of the 1972 Official Sinn Fein Ard Fheis (confer- ence) is nothing more or less than a eulogy of nationalism as a solution to Ireland's economic and social problems. Writing in two issues of the Pabloite Unified Secretariat's 'Intercontinental Press' , he new unity be- argues for a Officials, Provisionals tween and civil righters in a revolu- tionary party using mass action the streets as its on number one tactic. He deliberately avoids the question of the political and class character of this party.

The Sinn Fein leaders do not mean a Leninist party of the working class, but a reformist blend of social- party with a and nationalism for its ism ideological basis. In the second of two articles, which appeared on February 5, Foley attacks the moralistic con- 'absolutist, demnation' hurled at each other by both wings of Sinn Fein. He urges 'A more fruitful approach would be a concrete and rigorously objective ana- lysis of the Provisionals' com- position and political dynamic and a corresponding explana- tion of the differences sepa- rating the two groups. 'At the same time precise areas ought to be marked out aday March 22, 1973 .. two-part analysis of the 1972 Offici ntal Press, the theoretical journal of where the interests of all who lay claim to the Republican tradition come • together and where co-operation is possible and necessary to win the fight against repression? Realizing that the civil rights movement by itself has failed, Foley goes on • to urge that the Officials should make civil rights central to the new party's programme to be won through mass action. Officials The already are committed to the building of such a party and despite their 'dogmatic' railing against the policies of the Provisionals it has been made clear that they would welcome rank and filers back to the fold. The Ard Fheis was distin- guished by an almost complete move away from backing the on-the-streets reformist mili- tancy of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Movement and the Communist Party of Ire- land to the concept of build- ing new revolutionary nationalist party. It was of this development that Foley wrote (under the headline, 'A Step Forward for the Irish Vanguard'): In the area of political analysis, im- portant progress has been registered'! 2 Official Sinn Fein Ard Fheis (con ournal of the Pabloite Unified Secr Foley quotes at length and approvingly from the pre- amble to a resolution on • the north not on the Clar (agenda), but which he claims was cir- culating among delegates.

A spokesman for Gardner Place confirmed that no such resolution was on the Clar or put to the Ard Fheis. However Foley quotes the preamble as having said: "In this country more and more the events of the past few years demonstrate that the struggle for democracy is also the national struggle since it is British power and influence that maintain the undemo- cratic structures and it is the nationalist population that suffers under this system.'

The nationalist population is now, almost to a man, Catholic, placing the resolu- tion's proposers in the now familiar revisionist posture of throwing the entire Ulster Protestant working class to such wolves as the Rev lan Paisley and William Craig.

Foley goes on: "The same document criticized economis- tic radicals who biamed the civil rights movement for dividing Catholic and Protes- tant workers. 'It noted that the struggle of the minority for their rights was bound to alienate the Protestant workers, corrupted as they are by the caste men- tality deliberately fostered by the British authorities and shaped by the historic system of imperialist rule in Ireland.'

is (conference) by Gerry Foley, a n ed Secretariat of the Fourth Interr Since last November, both wings of Sinn Fein have publicly recognized the need to win Protestant workers to their but throughout cause, Foley's two long articles there is no suggestion that Protes- tant workers are anything but stooges of imperialism and definitive enemies of na- tionalism. But if Ulster workers are divided it is precisely because revisionists like Foley, and indeed all those organizations affiliated to the Unified Secre- tariat, have activeły applauded fostered and de- sectarian mands and movements as a substitute for building Marxist revolutionary con- and organization sciousness capable of uniting them. With responsibility this upon him, Foley can still des- cribe his mysterious resolu- tion as 'symptomatic of a lot of new thinking going on in the Republican leadership' Foley's quotation continues: 'Correct or not, but the feel- ing is abroad that a lot of people in the country and many of our members have the idea that we are not in favour of the "National Struggle" or the ending of this "Struggle". 'This is one reason why the Provos are still a force today and why they will not fade away for a long time yet.

We must begin to show people and demonstrate clearly to all that our objec- tives are National Unity and ley, a member of the editorial h International. oth Independence and the Social- ist Republic.' This is a frank and blatant appeal for unity between the Officials and the Provisionals.

The device used to bring this about is to suggest that Provisionals be can divided into a left and a right wing, permitting him to argue the prospect of an alliance between the anti-bomb-and- bullet followers of Kevin Street and the Officials' right.

wing, led by Costello. - The Ard Theis made no formal commitment to con- tinue its previous on-the- policy-consistently streets backed as a tactic by the Uni- fied Secretariat-and Foley worried by the omis- was sion. The resolution put to the Ard Fheis by right-wing Bray delegate Seamus Costello. which more than any other summed up the Officials new course, laid down that in.

civil rights was to be future seen as part of the overall programme and struggle of the revolutionary party. this for- The problem with mulation, said Foley, was that it did not chart a militant nd course for the civil rights

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1e47 denstown address in July 1972. Above lan Palsley's face adorns a loyalist dr s to such wolves as Paisley and Willian there is no future in a polic of 'back to the streets'. Thei present turn of parliamentar politics and local election illustrates this. They also realize that in th north civil rights demands fo the 'nationalist population' ar undermining sectarian, of the triumph o prospect Republicanism. The one 'step forward' a Ard Fhei the December which went completely ove Foley's head was the decisiv trend to regard elections a ove left: Funeral cortege an OT The revisionists throw tl

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Iliam Craig. olicy the new revolutionary trend verified by of Sinn Feir Itary pearance tions dates in not The rare lists. 1 the This is how the for leadership already new revolutionary part are all 1ng and how sectors Provisionals may com it too, time. Indeed, Octob at on heis 1972, No. 1 of 'An So Officials' Belfast

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with the theol appeared •Elections workers Press, Thur approach'. Foley sets out to cover up this descent into the worst kind of reformism. He con- cludes: "The convention was unanimous in endorsing the correctness of the basic policy followed in the past period, • that is, concentrating on revo- lutionary political activity and mass organization as opposed to the old apolitical guerrilla- ist outlook of the Irish Repub- lican Army.' This illuminates the current criticisms which the Pabloite Socialist Workers' Party is making of guerrillaism. They make points many correct against it, in the formal sense, but only in order to justify reformism. Foley argues that the Offi- cials are in danger of aban- doning civil rights altogether and that the reason for this is their failure to analyse where the role of the Communist Party helped the movement go wrong. But as the preamble to Cos- tello's resolution, in which he took the CP to task for their reformism, clearly showed, this analysis had been made.

Not only had it been made, but it was largely responsible for the plea for a coherent nationalist ideology and the integration of civil rights de- mands into it. That is the meaning of the phrase Foley quotes from a resolution by the national committee: "The revolutionary vanguard party cannot be an umbrella organization embracing differ- ent ideologies.' A new, 'democratic central- ist' structure is to be given the party to make sure that in future. the leadership's writ in unchallenged uni- runs formity. Casting around for a whip- ping boy, Foley slates 'worker- ist ultra-lefts' for distracting the Officials attention from the importance of civil rights.

He blames them for character- izing the movement as sec- tarian and as one which failed to "explicitly challenge capital- ist productive relations' Yet everything that has hap- pened since direct rule, includ- ing the growth of Protestant organizations and the decline of all reformist and terrorist suggests the critics groups, were right. Although from now on the Officials' programme will em- phasize social issues every bit as strongly as political ones, there is little to indicate its socialist character, unless it be a form of national socialism based on partnership between small employers and workers.

Foley dges not bother to analyse this programme, but contents himself with the utterly a unsupported assump- tion that nationalism equals socialism. He says at the beginning of his second article: 'As they their sights towards set making "a socialist revolution, the Republican leaders found themselves faced with more more complex problems and ties and it has become and obvious that a loose political organization with vague poli- nan tical positions is not adequate tire to this work.' He cites with approval Sean Garland's July 1972 Bodens- on in which he town address ap- called for the building of a di- 1on revolutionary party. for cam- Garland called als' paigns on issues ranging from pollution to 'more equitable the rewards for labour' and, in rk- formally abandoning 'élitism', the he set the seal on all future see work by the movement in the civil rights 14, association and particularly in the trade the unions. er, From now on, all sections ne: ary of the Irish people, in their ress, Thursday March 22, 1973 PAGE 5 organizations, were to be won to the nationalist banner. In essence the entire long speech amounted to no more than an urging of Republicans to real- ize that they could not win without 'getting the mass of the people behind them. The debate on these , poli- cies, incapable of offering workers a single solution to the pressing problems posed by the crisis of world capital- ism, Foley described as a high point of political discussion.

Foley's backing for nation- alism and his commitment to a policy of mass action on the streets forms part of an ana- lysis outstanding only for its Marxism. remoteness from . Political and social up- heavals in individual countries are flashpoints in the develop- ing international crisis of capi- talism. Trotsky says in "The Perma- nent Revolution': The com- pletion of the socialist revolu- tion within nationalist limits is impossible. "The socialist revolution begins on the national arena, it unfolds on the international arena and it is completed on the world arena. 'Socialist construction is conceivable only on the foun- dations of the class struggle, on a national and international scale' Bourgeois nationalism, be- cause it is inescapably tied to capitalism and imperialism, holds no answers to the prob- lems with which the crisis of the private enterprise system confronts workers. And in the context of the Six Counties, it can only deepen the sectarian divisions within the working class.

Not only is Foley's ap- proach to nationalism utterly non-Marxist, but so, too, is his Indeed in approach to class. his second article, slating those who foster 'dogmatism', Foley condemns 'the tendency of a de facto combination to develop between young Re- publicans influenced by ultra- left currents, opposed in prin- with ciple to any co-operation "middle-class nationalists" He goes on, quite wrongly, to say the Stalinists adopt the same line and concludes even more outrageousiy wrongly that such opposition is 'un- pleasantly reminiscent of the attitude of the German Com- munist Party in its ultra-left period when it threatened to Social Demo- liquidate the cratic workers at the very time the fascists were preparing in fact to liquidate both the CP and the Social Democrats?

It hardly needs saying that the German Social Democrats have nothing in common with bourgeois-nationalists of the Sinn Fein. . concept of the With no international character of the socialist revolution and none of the role of class in the structure of capitalist produc- tive relations, it comes as no surprise to find Foley writing off Protestant workers and backing a hotch-potch of social forces in the nationalist movement. The only way to bring the Irish working class together AND fight successfully for basic rights and decent living standards lies in the struggle for the programme and organi- zation of the revolutionary Marxist party. At this time, in different degree, British and Irish work- face basically the same ers problems and the same repres- sion at the hands of the Tory government. The only road to liberation of Ireland from British imperialism is the road struggle to bring of united down the British Tory govern- its puppets and ment Dublin. The first step in the fight back is to forge unity between British and Irish workers in campaign the to force the Tories to resign and elect a Labour government which must- be forced to carry out socialist policies.

SOUTH AFRICA: LAWS FOR REPRESSION AND TI

PAGE 6 Workers Press, Thursday Marc

BY JACK GALE

Thirteen years ago on March 21, 1960, a peaceful demonstration against the South African government's humiliat- ing Pass Laws was mown down by the bullets of the state forces. According to the govern- ment's official figures, Africans were killed and 162 wounded. But unofficial esti- mates say 170 were killed and 400 were wounded. Either Sharpeville way, symbolized 'apartheid'. South Africa is a state com- mitted to repression. The National Party government came to power in 1948 deter- mined to end what it called danger. By 1950 'the Black it had erected the four pillars of apartheid. These are the Race Classi- . tio fication Act, Group Areas Act, Immorality Act and Suppres- sion of Communism Act. Under the latter, the Minister of Justice is empowered to impose stringent restrictions person who he con- on any siders is 'promoting the objects of Communism'. He can issue arbitrary orders which are not subject to review by any court.

non-violent Following Campaign of Defiance Against injust Laws' launched by the frican National Congress and ¡he South African Indian Con- gress in 1952, a new law-the Criminal Law Amendment Act -laid down savage penalties in 1953 for the contravention raday March 22, 1973 of any law, however minor, 'by way of protest. The courts were instructed for a second offence that against this Act, imprisonment or whipping must be imposed.

After Sharpeville, the Ver- woerd regime embarked on an massive military increasingly and police build-up and even more ruthless repression.

Unlawful passed the Organizations Act, banned the African National Congress and the Pan-Africanist Congress and detained thousands of people under the State of Emergency Regulations. stay at home nationwide protest was broken by brutal attacks against Africans in the locations. In the Transkei, armed forces were moved in to suppress an African • revolt and Proclama- tion R400 was promulgated to empower the government to subject any African to arbitrary banishment or indefinite deten- si- . tion without trial.

This process was intensified after B. Vorster was appointed Minister of Justice August, 1961. Peaceful African leaders such as Chief Albert J. Luthuli were jailed and more and more Africans decided that peaceful protest was futile. From about December, 1961, the military wing of the African National Congress, the 'Um- konto We Sizwe' (Spear of the Nation) began to olo'nize acts of sabotage in many cities.

In 1962 the underground Pogo, associated with the Pan- Africanist Congress, recruited thousands of followers in the African locations and began to attack police stations, whites the and African chiefs. The South African govern- ment then passed the Sabotage Act of 1962, which established a virtually permanent state of emergency. This Act introduced a new crime-the "intent' to commit sabotage. It also laid down the death penalty for juveniles, provided for summary trials without juries, and a minimum sentence of five compulsory years' imprisonment. Following a demonstration of African workers in Paarl, during in November 1962, which several people were killed, Prime Minister Ver- woerd declared that he 'put the safety of the state and its citizens nicalities, above tech- mere The government would not sit back, he said, simply be- cause it did not have enough evidence to proceed through the courts. In May, 1963, the govern- ment enacted the 90-Day Law.

This provided for the deten- tion, incommunicado, of any person under special regula- tions. By this time the strength of the political section of the Police Force had been increased since 1960. Nearly six-fold 3,000 Africans were in prison on suspicion of association with Pogo and hundreds more accused of connections with the banned African National Congress or Umkonto We ind Sizwe. Mass trials were held under ted the Sabotage Act and earlier the legislation but even so, trial by court in political cases was tes • the exception. When trials did take place, the accused had to prove their innocence not the prosecution their guilt.

On the rare occasions when accused people were acquitted they by the courts, were usually redetained and retried.

In 1965 the Criminal Law Amendment Act, and in 1967 the Terrorism Act, extended powers granted to the police under the 90-Day Law.

Between 1963 and 1966 the Security Branch of the Police was trebled in size. In addition the 1967 Terrorism Act was made retrospective to 1962.

This meant people could be sentenced to death for acts which were lawful at the time they were committed. The 90-Day Law authorizes any commissioned police officer to arrest without warrant 'any he person suspects upon reasonable grounds, to have committed or intending to commit, or having any formation relating to a political offence' • The officer can detain the arrested person for interroga- tion 'in any place he may think fit' and keep him there 'until such person has in the opinion of the Commissioner of the South African Police replied satisfactorily to all questions at the said interrogation'.

A clause in the Act provides that no person shall be de- tained for more than 90 days 'on any particular occasion when he is so arrested'-but this is interpreted to mean that prisoners can be re-arrested immediately they are released and begin another 90 days.

This procedure continues so that, in practice, the 90-Day Law provides for indefinite detention. Innumerable people have been redetained under this clause. One, Mr Alfred Nzo, a leader of the African National Congress, was detained for 247 days before being released without charges. Another, Mr Tommy Ntoyakhe Charlieman, a trade union leader in Uiten- hage, detained for 19 was months from May 14, 1963, to December 9, 1964..... There is also a 180-Day Law, ostensibly designed to protect witnesses them prevent or absconding, but which in fact 1s used to jail opponents of the regime. The 1967 Terrorism Act also provides for indefinite deten- tion without warrant or charge.

No court of law can pronounce on any case under this Act nor order the release of any- one detained under it. No person except the Minister of Justice or an officer in the service of the state has any right of access to, or of information about, any prisoner detained under this law. Under both the Terrorism Act and Proclamation R400 there is no limitation to the period of detention. Almost all detainees under the 90-Day Law, the 180-Day Law, the Terrorism Act and Proclamation R400 are sub-

PAGE

Workers Press, March 22, 1973

SOUTH AFRICA: LAWS FOR REPRESSION AND TORTURE

ND TORTURE

ment are Security are kept. Solitary the at Town. vidual's widespread forms. unable Collie even develop hallucinations. 'We Know some tc technique legalized and Another administration shocks. Prisoners between cyco. down by the they are criminals re- Pro- Head of of Cape in the indi- reality take many be- distinguish to and reality Some may denisons enough about psychological regular of the part form of of electric allegations Deer uniform. 1S handcuffed, squatting knees 200 then put over their thumbs, toes, te genitals and electric administered Electric shock treat the 'advantage fol it leaves no that the medically untra to see In March, 1964, t a scandal when a poli accused of murde African prisoner tein police station test violence was used d terrogation at station in the followed shortly death under question African prisoner name After this adverse electric shock treatn for stopped number of Namibian used alleged it was in 1966-1967. Mr Francis claimed in had been subj he shocks in 1968. And an inquest death of Mr James I 1969 produced clear of electric shock tor Since 1964 a new has been developed South African police 'Statue Torture'. the This involves prisoners to stand narrow square for hours. variation of th Torture was reporter Mkhalipi and others Mrs and by Winnie and others in 1969. T forced to stand on b long hours. In the former case, Town, while the priso standing on bricks, des, temples or lectric shocks • treatment has for the police marks for untrainedeye there was a police officer murdering an Bultfon- on testified that sed during in- every police land. This after the of an estioning named Ngudl verse publicity, treatment was while, but a ibian prisoners used on them Dasingee in court that subjected to into the mes Lenkoe in clear evidence k torture. new refinement the police. This is Ives forcing within for up to 60 of the Statue ported by Mr others in 1965 into vances They were on bricks for • case, in Cape prisoners were icks, a paraffin Events at Sharpeville. Top left: A saracen passes unmolested thraugh the crowd. Top right: People turn to run as the police open fire. Below left: No one has a weapon, yet the police fire with revolvers and sten-gun. Below right: The victims.

tin was placed on their heads and beaten. The present Prime Minister of South Africa, B. J. Vorster, was largely responsible for the intensification of these methods when he was Minister of Justice. During World War II, Vorster had been a General in 'Ossewa Brandwag', the a paramilitary organization which supported Nazi Germany. Vorster was, in fact, interned from September 1942 to January 1944 and then placed under house arrest. Little wonder that a report to the Commission on Human Rights in 1967 could state: "The procedures and methods utilized by the Special Branch and police for interrogation of detainees and arrested persons similar to, if not are very identical with, those reported to have been used by the Gestapo under Hitler's Nazi regime.' Another source of inspira- tion to the South African police was the French army torture machine in Algeria. Many South African military officers visited Algeria during the war to study interrogation methods. In their recent years apparatus has been strength- ened. In 1969 a new Bureau for State Security was created under General van den Bergh, with a budget of over 4m rand. The Security Police budget was increased that year by 200,000 rand to 1.2m rand.

The legal system in South Africa is a cruel farce. The white supremacists make the laws, run the prisons, haul their before the opponents courts (or, more frequently, straight into jail) and sit in judgement over them. Hundreds of examples could be quoted-here are just a few: In a case brought on behalf of Mr Albert Louis Sachs, a barrister detained under the 90-Day Law, the Cape Supreme Court ruled on November 13, that 1963, detainees were entitled to rights not specific- ally taken away by parliament.

The application concerned mainly the right of the • de- tainee to a reasonable period of exercise and to reading matter and writing materials, which was denied him during detention. The Appeal Court, hot. ver, reversed judgement on the March 24, 1964. While con- ceding that detainees may not ill-treated and that the be denial of reading material could amount to 'psychological compulsion', the Court said it obliged to take account was of the purpose of the law in combating subversion. It found that it was not the intention of parliament that detainees should as a right be permitted to relieve the tedium of their detention with read- ing matter or writing materials'.

In 1964, Mrs Leslie Erica Schermbrucker brought an urgent application before the court that her husband, a detainee under the 90-Day Law, was being subjected to torture and asked that he be produced before the Court. She produced a note, smuggled from prison in which her husband alleged that he had been tortured.

Mr Justice Snyman rejected the application. He declared that the interruption of deten- tion, by giving detainees access to the Courts, would frustrate the purpose of detention and that the Act specifically • ex- cluded access by the detainees to the Courts and transferred the power of protecting citizens Workers Press, Thur -normally the province of the of Courts-to the Minister Justice, Commissioner of Police and his commissioned officers.

In the Rivonia trial, on May 3, 1964, counsel for defence sought to call two expert wit- nesses, professors from Cape Town by detainees kept in solitary confinement under the 90-Day Law was not reliable. A number of detainees had appeared as state witnesses in that trial.

Mr Justice de Wet rejected the application. He ruled: regard this evidence as inadmissible. It is the function of the court to assess the evidence of witnesses and to decide to what extent their evidence may be relied upon.'

In a trial of Mr Paul Trewhela and nine others under the Suppression of Communism Act, the defence counsel applied on September 9, 1964, to hand in affidavits by three of the accused, Mr Paul Trewhela, Mr Norman Levy and Dr Constantinos Gazides, that they had made statements to the police during detention after being forced to stand from 40 to 43 hours in a small square. The judge refused the application. In the Pietermaritzburg ter- rorism case in 1969, when a witness, Mr state Dasingee Francis, alleged brutal torture, the Court held that it was not inquire its into duty to allegations of ill-treatment of state witnesses by the Security Police. During a trial of members of the Unity Movement under the Terrorism Act in Pieter- maritzburg, counsel for one of the 13 accused submitted an application on February 6, 1972, to call witnesses to establish that people who were into detention for in- taken terrogation were subjected to concerted investigational system which included assault or other forms of pressure.

The overall purpose of the system, he said, was to pro- duce a pattern of dependency, debility and dread in order to make the detainee give 'satis- factory' statements. He sub- mitted 16 affidavits and state- ments,. including those from exiles in the United Kingdom and Zambia. Mr Justice James refused the on the grounds application, that the evidence sought to be led would not afford the court any real assistance in deciding whether certain state witnesses falsely implicated the accused.

Prisoners in South African are grouped into five jails categories, as follows: A: allowed to write Group and receive three letters per month and to receive visits from two persons twice a month. Group B: allowed to write and receive one letter per month, and to receive visits from two persons once a month. Group C: allowed to write and receive one letter every three months and to receive one visit from one person in three months. Group D: allowed to write and receive only one letter every six months and a visit from one person in six months.

Group D is officially reserved for people with a record of violent crimes, such as rape, etc., robbery, knife assaults persons convicted of but political offences are invariably placed in this category. One of the worst prisons is Robben Island jail for non- whites-—where Nelson Mandela is held. A letter smuggled out of Robben Island in March, 1969, read: "The poor medical treatment we receive is a matter which must receive your first atten- tion. From last year four of men died, mainly from our negligence. Practically no treat- ment was given to them until they were completely helpless.

Their ailments became comp- beyond remedy, and licated then only were they taken to ress, Thursday March 22, 1973 PAGE 7 Somerset Hospital in Cape Town. 'In a matter of weeks, Marks died. Simon Mkele stayed for a few days in hospital. He also died. This one had a medical recommendation to be dis- charged from prison but this never materialized. 'Headman Sindile Ncaphayi, of Port Elizabeth, is a case that requires special attention.

He took ill on August 6 and reported sick. During this time an epidemic at there was Robben Island. About a hundred or more were affected.

The doctor did not come until August 26. Only on August 30 was Ncaphayi sent to Somer- hospital. He died on set September 1. 'We have a few more of our men who are really seriously ill. If no action is taken they will definitely die. IB and asthmatic patients are forced to work in the quarry, a most brutal arrangement.' Not surprisingly, the South African government does all it can to prevent information about prison conditions and treatment getting out of the country. One important mea- sure in this conspiracy of silence is the Prisons Amend- ment Act, No 75, passed in 1965. According to a provision in this Act, a newspaper which published an article on prison conditions is guilty of an offence even if only one state- ment in the article is in error and had not been verified with the prison authorities. The most notorious case under this Act was the one against the 'Rand Daily Mail' in 1965. The paper's editor, Laurence Gandar was fined 200 rand (about £110) and reporter Benjamin Pogrund received a six month suspended sentence. But it is becoming increas- ingly difficult to maintain this wall of silence. Over the years number of trials have attracted international atten- tion - among them those of Nelson Mandela in 1960, his wife Winnie Mandela in 1971, the 'Rand Daily Mail' case of 1965, of Albie Sachs in 1963 , Dean ffrench-Beytagh in and 1971. First hand accounts have been published outside South Africa — including the 'Jail Diary' of Albie Sachs, Ruth First's '117 Days' and Caroline de Crespigny's 'Prisoner of Verwoerd' The most significant develop- ment of recent years, however, is that opposition to the re- gime is increasingly taking the form of organized working- class action rather than isolated terrorist raids. The largest of these struggles began in December 1971, when 13,000 workers began a pro- longed strike against the 'slave-labour' contract system. This struggle reached the dimensions of civil war, with violent clashes in which several strikers were shot dead, until the South African authorities virtually sealed off the whole area. In June and again in October 1972, Johannesburg bus drivers on strike and 318 were went arrested. Last October 2,000 Durban dockers went on strike against working conditions which in- • a 12g-hour week, five cluded days a week, for £4.25. Other disputes have involved 400 unskilled shipyard Wor- kers in Durban, 1,500 brick- workers, 50,000 Johannesburg miners, over 7,000 textile workers in Johannesburg. Dur- ban and Cape Town, and 1,000 rubber workers. In February 3,000 municipal joined a workers in Durban strike wave which almost led another Sharpeville. to It is these developments which usher in the beginning of the end for the apartheid regime.

TROTSKYISM AND THE JVP: THE RECORD

PAGE 8 Workers Press, Thursday M Part four of a series on revisic We can rip the cover off Jaya Vithana's base- less lies that Workers Press did nothing to 'break the curtain of silence about Ceylon'. He also claims-wrongly- that we spent 'most of [our] time slandering and villifying the JVP'-the young Guevarist guerrilla group so brutally crushed by Mrs Sirimavo Ban- daranaike's government. In particular, Vithana speci- in the Inter- fically states national Marxist Group's pam- and the Healy phlet 'Ceylon School of Falsification': 'In April-May 1971 the theoreticians in Clapham High Street put the total blame on the JVP for the April mas- sacre. A year and a half later, without making any self-criti- cism of this position, the Workers Press admit that the massacre was actually initiated by the Ceylonese government?

We will now prove in detail that Vithana is just an impu- dent liar. We will quote our record and we will go back further than April-May 1971.

We invite any supporter of the Unified Secretariat to com- pare Vithana's statement with the following extracts from Workers Press. On November 9, 1970, we wrote: If the choice before Mrs Bandaranaike in 1964 was coalition or military dictator- ship, the choice now confront- the coalition's leaders is ing what kind of dictatorship- military or police. Behind the façade of the coalition's rhe- toric, the most reactionary sections of the ruling class are preparing for a brutal offen- sive against the working class.'

On December 28, 1970, we wrote: 'The government is act- ing in • the spirit of the ex- United National Party (UNP) regime which launched witch-hunt against militants in the latter part of its rule. The only difference is that the Bandaranaike government is carrying out this same policy hursday March 22, 1973 1 revisionism and Ceylon by Jack G wider and more open er on a scale.' On January 1, 1974, reterring to the strike wave of Decem- ber 1970-January 1971: 'While the revisionist Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) and the Stalinist Communist Party have accepted positions in the coalition cabinet, Mrs Sirimavo Bandaranaike's gov- ernment is using brutal repres- sive measures to hide the causes of the strike wave.'

On March 9, 1971, we re- Ceylon's 'Crisis-hit ported: United Left Front coalition yesterday as it prepared action threats of against alleged left-wing armed uprising. Re- cent police reports [have] led • to the Minister of Justice recommending laws new to deal with "subversive" organi- zations and greater powers for the police. "These proposals mark a sharp turn towards open dic- tatorship in Ceylon.' On March 15, 1971, we head- lined: 'Coalition is Counter- Revolutionary' and declared: 'The state of emergency de- clared in Ceylon ... indicates obiectives of the treacherous the counter-revolutionary co- alition government.' On March 18, 1971, we said that the Ceylon government's second set of emergency regu- lations constituted 'a threat to the entire Ceylonese labour movement'. We reported that Bandaranaike Mrs at- was tempting to link food short- the activities with of ages "secret bands of youths' who, were trying she claimed, to create confusion by terrorizing people with bombs and other lethal weapons' We commented: 'Faced by a growing economic crisis and chronic shortages of basic foodstuffs, United Left the Front coalition is hunting for scapegoats.' On March 24, 1971, under the 'Mrs heading Bandaranaike widens her net', we reported that with the excuse of having about left- 'positive proof' wing extremists' the govern- ment had introduced severe Jack Gale. penalties, including death, for arson, looting, trespass and use of explosives and heavy fines and jail for distri- buting leaflets. We warned: 'Ceylon is fast heading towards dictatorship' On April 5, 1971, we said that the leaders of the pro-Moscow Party and the Communist LSSP were 'spearheading pre- mier Mrs Bandaranaike's re- pressions against the left'.

We said: 'Recent emergency measures and repressions are rising mili- directed against tancy in the working ; class', we continued: 'We de- and nounce the witch-hunting role played by the leaders of the Communist Party and demand the immediate release of all political prisoners' On April 14, 1971, we re- ported: •Mrs Bandaranaike's terror campaign is supported by her coalition partners, the pro-Moscow Communist Party and the ex-revisionist Lanka Sama Samaja Party. ... •.. the United Left Front government has abandoned its modest reform programme and gone over to a bloody offen- sive against Ceylon's workers peasants. British and in- and ternational" labour must de- Bandaranaike's Mrs nounce repressions and demand the release The following day—we were, in fact, carrying daily reports on Ceylon (so much for Vithana's 'curtain of silence') —we reported: 'Ceylon In that report we placed the blame squarely where it be- longed: 'The blood of these young fighters is not only on the hands of Prime Minister Mrs Bandaranaike and her im- perialist backers, but the pro- Moscow Stalinists and the traitors to Trotskyism who serve in her United Left Front coalition. "Their policies of class- collaboration have created the conditions which lead frus- trated young militants, into adventurist actions.' So much for Vithana's slan- der that we 'put the total blame on the JVP! On April 20, 1971, Workers Press declared: 'We denounce as traitors to the working class and social- ism the Stalinists of the pro- Moscow Communist Party and ex-revisionists of the the Lanka Sama Samaja Party who serve the counter-revolutionary regime while Mrs Bandara- naike's troops shot down, without trial, young workers students fighting for a and socialist Ceylon.' On April 21, 1971, in a special statement on Ceylon, issued by the Political Committee of the Socialist Labour League and published in Workers stated: Mrs Ban- Press we daranaike's coalition regime is brutally suppressing, the up- rising of unemployed rural youth and workers in Ceylon.'

We denounced 'the offensive of imperialism and Stalinism against the defenceless youth and peasantry' and the 'trea- and unstinting sup- cherous port' given to imperialism by the LSSP. On April 21, 1971, we began a special series on the Ceylon emergency which we intro- duced with the words: 'Death without trial and bloody re- pressions of the workers' and peasants' movement revealed the true face of the Ceylon coalition' So much for Jaya Vithana's claim in the International Marxist Group's pamphlet 'Ceylon and the Healy School of Falsification' that we "slan- dered and vilified' the JVP!

In this series of articles we raised serious political critic- isms of the JVP, in particular of its underestimation of the working class, which it claimed 'crippled. We sharply was opposed the JVP's hostility to the immigrant Indian planta- tion workers. We declared then, and we stand by this today, that 'how- ever much the sacrifices of the youth may be, they cannot by themselves overthrow the capitalist system if they are not disciplined and led by the revolutionary Marxist party.

Left: Soldiers of the Bandaranalke government with weapons cap- tured from the JVP. During the uprising many youths were Imprisoned, executed by the military. We stand by these critic- isms of the JVP. But we defy Vithana or any other revision- ist to show us one line from the many Workers Press arti- cles on Ceylon which did not unconditionally defend the JVP against the United Left Front, which included the Moscow-wing of the Com- munist Party and the ex- Trotskyists of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) in its Ministries. We will refer to only one more of the many articles which we carried on Ceylon during the oppressions and afterwards. In the Workers Press 'International Youth News' column on May 6, 1971, we published an article on the 'Isolation of guerrillas' Here are some extracts from what we said in that article: 'The coalition government in Ceylon was paralysed when the struggles of the youth on April 5. The broke out forces, which made a consider- able number of trained police- men flee from their posts and brought capitalist law and order to a halt in many parts of the country, were mainly unemployed youth. 'Young people in these countries cannot expect any future other than starvation and pauperization. In Ceylon almost half the adult popula- tion is unemployed or under- employed... Youth are con- vinced that the only solution to this problem lies in struggle against the capitalist system and its state machinery. That is why they have chosen to confront the state apparatus in many parts of the land.' Our article went on to out- line the struggle of the unem- ployed youth and continued: "The basic political weak- ness of the JVP which led the rural insurgence, was that its leadership did not take mea- sures to unite these struggles youth of unemployed with the workers. The result was isolation of guerrilla forces from the working class which helped the ruling These extracts from our reports and policy statements today and yesterday com- pletely refute Vithana's alle- gations. They show him to be a liar, not once, but a hundred times over. Our position was a prin- cipled Trotskyist one through- out—by contrast with Bala Tampoe who collaboated un- critically with the

JVP

leaders. For instance, Vithana makes much of the fact that 'the JVP comrades agreed to a joint rally with the hold YSF and the LSSP(R) to pro- test against the shooting of plantation workers of two Indian origin. 'Our task', says Vithana, in such a 'was to intervene influence the manner as to best elements with the goal of winning them to revolutionary Marxist politics.' How did Tampoe set about that task at the meeting of which Vithana is so proud? He issued a joint appeal with the JVP leaders asking Mrs Bandaranaike to intro- duce legislation to protect the workers from the estate own- ers and the police. That is how these self- styled Trostkyists set about educating the inexperienced youth of the JVP. This same, Tampoe hailed the JVP leaders as Marxist- at the same Leninist'-while time, never let it be forgotten, writing to Mrs Bandaranaıke granting that the JVP youth could be guilty of the crimes of which she was accusing them! Unlike Bala Tampoe and the revisionist LSSP(R), our com- capitulated neither to rades the JVP nor to Mrs Bandara- naike. TOMORROW: Marxism and the colonial revolution.

The political relatively new of the 'Daily Mail' columnist brought you The Manchurian is Mr Andrew Alexander. His first column appeared during War epics about the horrors the Labour Party conference of so-called communist brain- last year. It poked fun at the washing - capitalist Party accents Labour delegates. from from North Vietnam are being Alexander came the Tory-owned 'Daily Telegraph' 'spontaneous', to take up his new job. cuff remarks to make to TV He is making a big now name for himself in the right- wing Monday Club. In Decem- when they get there. of almost 80 infor- at ber he was guest speaker the Hammersmith Town Hall officers has been hired South by the Pentagon to travel back meeting of the at a Monday Club West London advertising agency would sack and then joined in the wine- them on the spot for the kind and-cheese party afterwards.

they appear to be He billed as "Andrew was turning out. Alexander-a favourite poli- According to 'Guardian' re- tical journalist with many Simon Winchester, the porter Monday Clubbers'. sort of natural, relaxed com- these highly-paid com- ments munications experts are coming with is: 'God bless Ame- up monthly rica. God bless the President. journal Fire Brigades Finest country in the world.

Union, appeared in new Many thanks for bringing me format this month. back home. Peace with hon- From rather scrappily- a our, etc., etc. designed large tabloid size, the Coming of the re- on top. journal has adopted a cleaner, ports of 24-hour closed-circuit magazine - type presentation television 'bring- programmes with more imaginative use of date' ing the boys up to on both type and pictures. what's been happening since Unfortunately the reformist they were captured, it all adds message of the union leader- up to something just as sinister ship remains exactly the same as the far-fetched of most it was before. as Hollywood's anti-communist In a strikingly set out page fantasies. three article on the March The best way to really take special TUC, the journal re- the pants off the whole busi- ports the vote of the union's would be for all the nes delegation for the 'pay protest' returning Gis to goose-step motion decided there. off the planes, saluting Seven crisp paragraphs are frenziedly and chanting craftily deployed, in large type, the Pentagon exactly What with lively-looking vote men tell them, over and over to make it look as if picture, and over ... something really happened at the Central Hall, Westminster, Paragraph that day. seven, though, tends to give the garr More graft than corruption. being a from This should have been, but away, Parry, the FBU's Terry "Tri- wasn't, the headline the bune'-ite general secretary. following United Press Inter- Says Parry: I have no doubt national report (March 16): that firemen, as victims twice 'Meyer Lansky, 71, a reputed already of government pay underworld figure, underwent policy, will be very ready to heart surgery today open to to rule day of work on the enable doctors to replace protest? blocked arteries in his heart All the typographical tricks with grafts from other parts of the world aren't going to his body. He was listed as in in "satisfactory" condition.' convince firemen that a hire- Sorry, Meyer, we couldn't station go-slow will smash the resist it. pay laws. By LEON TROTSKY Paperback. £1.00 Illustrated Sharp pen-portraits of leading figures the Second interna- ional in Russia and Europe, for first time published in an The translations Snalish edition. were first commissioned by the •Keep Socialists' Young paper "of Their enormous success has the the completion of translation of the whole book,! which is the first part of Volume of ieon Trotsky's 'Works' pub- chec in the Soviet Union It provides the most vivid iate available of the historic Second ligures the Inter- national, their and strengths weaknesses, written by an obser- who was also a participant in the daily struggle of the Euro- pean and Russian working class.

Now available from New Park Publications 186a Clapham High Street, London, SW4 7UG The Anti • Apartheid Movement this week accused British firms not only of using black and coloured workers in South Africa as 'slave labour' but of shutting home-based factories to do it. No less than 17 of the 26 companies they named at a House of Commons Press con- ference last Monday created redundancies in Britain in the last 12 months. Firms which sacked workers include British-Leyland, Rio Tinto Zinc, Delta Metal, Plessey, Joseph Lucas, Reckitt and Colman, the British Steel Corporation, Pilkington Bros, Metal Box Company, Guest, Keen and Nettlefold, Reed Corporation, British Insulated Callendars Cables, Bowater Paper Corporation, General Electric Company, . ICi, Tube Investments and International Computers Ltd. Of these, all but British- Leyland have plans to expand their operations in South Africa. RTZ has announced new plans to mine uranium at Rossing, Namibia. Delta Metal has just paid £125,000 for the Johannesburg factory of Dor- Electrical Sales. man Plessey is in the final stages of negotiations for a plant at Retreat to produce automatic and manual telephone ex- Lucas bought the changes. distribution and service Susi- ness of Stanfield Ratcliffe and opened a new car components plant at Florida, near Johannes- burg Pilkington's will spend £10m on a new float glass plant at Springs, Transvaal. Reed ex- pects to invest £5m in South Africa this year and BICC a similar sum for a new cable factory. ICI and Tube Invest- have both built new ments plants. Others with expansion plans are Associated British Foods, Barclays Bank, Charter Con- solidated Lid, Consolidated Goldfields Ltd, Hawker Sid- deley, Hill Samue! Group Ltd, Lonrho Ltd, Slater Walker Securities Ltd, Turner Newall Ltd and Distillers Company Ltd. The low wages paid to African workers is one of the prime attractions of South Africa for British firms. British- Leyland pays African workers a month. RTZ pays £30.29 £39 a month, compared to £218 for whites. Reckitt and Workers Press, Thursday March 2 Colman pay £10 a week com- pared with £40 for whites.

Barclays pay £47 a month compared with £210 a month for whites. GKN pay unskilled workers £5.50 a week com- pared with £23.30 for lowest- paid white employees. GECS top rate for Africans is £9.67 a week, ICI up to £8.30. Of the 26 companies only British-Leyland and the BSC failed to make fat profits as a result of their South African activities. Two of the allegedly worst employers, RTZ and Consoli- dated Goldfields, made highest profits. British-Leyland Peter Walker Anti-Apartheid's 'slave tops labour' list employers and, nearly 5 million shares are owned by churches. Churches and colleges be- tween them own about 50,000 of issued by the shares Rowntree Mackintosh-another company alleged to pay below subsistence wages. And British churches have shareholdings of up to 400,000 units in Metal Box, Tate and Lyle, Chloride 'Storage Electrical Co and Associated British Foods-all accused of exploiting African labour. Well-known public figures holding directorships in firms said to be paying starvation Jim Slater wages include Tory Environ- ment Secretary Peter Walker (until he took office), finance and property speculator Jim Sir Val Duncan, Lord Slater, Pilkington, Sir Raymond Brookes and Princess Alexan- dra's husband, Angus Ogilvie.

Altogether about 700 British firms, including most house- trade in South hold names, Africa. In 1971, the last year for which figures are available, there was an all-time record net inflow of capital into South Africa. British firms own 25 per cent of South Africa's top 100 com- panies and account for 60 per Lord Plikington ceni of all foreign investment.

Anti-Apartheid's detailed ex- British cavitalists' posure hefty share of the spoils from super-exploitation in the apar- theid republic confirms the predatory character of British imperialism. It demonstrates the impos- sibility of hehtins apartheid by means of protest without a ruthless combat against the imperialist masters who stand behind the Pretoria regime.

It also shows how ludicrous it is to appeal to Christian South morality against the, African slavedrivers — because churches themselves are the Sir Raymond B waxing fat on the proceeds!

PAGE 10

Workers Press, Thursday March 22, 1973

BBC 1

ITV

REGIONAL TV

9.42 Schools. 12.25 Disc a dawn. 12.55 9.30 Schools. 10.30 VAT 73 (London News. 1.00 Pebble Mill at one. 1.30 only). 11.00 12.05 Hickory Schools. house. 12.25 Witches brew. 12.40 First urumoton. 1.4> Hign street. 4.05-4.2 Cinema 2.50 3.15 report. 1.00 Jokers wild. 1.30 Crown schools. and children. Bean's General Hospital. 2.30 Parents 3.40 2.00 boots. 4.10 Play school. 4.35 Jackan- Good afternoon. 2.45 Racing ITOl 4.50 Blue Peter. 5.15 John Doncaster. 4.15 Cartoon. 4.25 Voyage ULy• Craven's newsround. 5.20 Brady kids.

to the bottom of the sea. 5.20 a ne 5.45 News. Weather. Barkleys. 5.50 News. 6.00

NAJIUNWIDE.

6.45 TOP OF THE POPS.

ESCAPE FROM SAN

Hood weather.

QUENTIN'

Desmond, I L LAK, haro man. Anders

SOME

MOTHERS DO

6.Vl criminal: 'EM. 3.30 8.30 THE BURKE SPECIAL. James Anatomy giants Burke. 7.00 lIm 10:30 3.000 London. 9.00 NEWS. Weather. 8.30 9.25

MENACE.

Goat. With Judas William Gaunt. 11.00

CHIMENST

10.40

MIDWEEK.

11.25 LATE

NICHI NEWS.

11.30

MYSTER-

TAKE ANOTHER LOOK. The 12:90 beginne or lie. Ro Mary Stowardurnaist. weather. Lains

BBC 2

1.00-11.25 9.15 school. . en TIMES KEMEMBERED. Margo. jalkar 6.40

TAKE ANOTHER LOOK.

9.25

HORIZON.

waal lime Is Iou Body? Body

7.05 OPEN UNIVERSITY.

10.15 OSCAR PETERSON TRIO. In 7.30 NEWS SUMMARY. Weather.

concert 7.35

THEIR

Tracking.

WORLD,

10.45

'ARROW

FOR

8.00

EUROPA.

by mast Germane

AUDREY.

By Brian Finch. Looked at stars. 11.15 NEWS EXTRA. Weather.

television. 8.30 BEL-AMI. Clotilde.

REAL TIME.

11.45 Stalinist Panorama mensions. From the Stalin- cisely because did not

BY JOE HARPER

ISIS

HOL

a wore Chance covernment Party not interesting that through not going is It the most important challenge the arm government the capitalist state's ideolo- the power that 101 nos bilal coverage weat on this advertis. and the whole Workers 'Pano- should put class are fighting on ing piece for the Commun- Phase rama Stalinists Party during SuCH political develop- periodi detenoraling economic ment in Britain? ation now it impos. They able to state The establishment, who for the Tories buy LO their case: Britain will Poul- have just banned off strikers Lalc ware become through count- turns every Drop anne cessions less items on Ireland, do strike into •brought the these things by frontation, Stalinists accident. The Stalinists are gane

DCISOCCE

groomed for the important Hence sell-outs at role they have play on the Ford's, docks, and Their on labour through lorncoming revoludon the things disorient the trade miners exe- untu coere Mast the working with left major- they lead the while ity legis in decep- late They neht would like alleys. to be Lo on be This was the Communist Communist erous. to achieve France Party from Seafield Party's role this. colliery, spoke they headed off 1700 were ideological proudly mass princel strike of movement most im- immense pro- work being provided 11140 Harless the pro- struggle Wales order avoid revolutionary crisis. sys-

DICIS

Cadilas! avoid the tem and state power he question. or need for the annual Was posed ano Stalinists deliberately ISt ran away from it. The and In order establish the IS, always has i see. the peaceful Jimmy Reid Daniss the and Bernie Steer, the

BBC

Soviel and the Communist Party bureaucracy and imperial- the stage resorted nuixture capitalism. lies and fantasy. of in- The dinese thousands at

UCS,

thousands and where Reld outright men were made recuncan activity by and private capitalists promoted al y 'perspective' back in the saddle une Arenis czecos o• different from what vakia 1956, Stalinists after the working Fabian Society has been try- word Potsdam Yalta in Class every for 70 years, willingness expropriate in the Dall the "Tribuneites' in whole business and the direct C only without the murderous against political launch direct suspic participation. Trotsky Left Oppo- spread fight, was Ine 1his policv is a comolete recorded as a triumph. Was illusion, and a deception on The jailed release of the the working intellectual dockers was mentioned, but One The rapid escalation of said he protest at the

NOT

elsasters Class steele persecution Devlin and Jones-Aldington writer methodical preparations by Union. What plans which the Stalinists Doviel the Tories for showdown hypocrisy. helped with the trade smuscle unions point which have decimated jobs Stalinism confron- LOWards dockland. in the workers' tation in General Strike. of the 1920s The Stalinists kept The ot the quiet miners strike was and 1930s. about this. described by Scottish Stal- Stalinism seriousness extreme MCLean of the dislocation of the policy. chae ed government exposed defeated in capitalist system points policy. strike was political and revolutionary enormously step revolutionary forward but was pre- party. CuSs

TODAY'S TV

SLL LECTURE

IAL TV

SERIES

The Socialist Revolution Women only. ess 4.25 family.

LON ON

S.50 Lon wit Londone 6.00 17.00 in Britain mondone Sky's •Return Film: Middleton 9.00 Hawk. 10.00 212.0001 Lond What the 11.00 (nr Manchester)

TO LONDON

live. 5.20 F T Langley Community Centre 6.00 Today + 0055 six. Middleton Belv 4 p.m. London. Police 11.05 Sundays: March 25 London. April 1 and 8 fights 12.35 Greatest of the century. ker. 11.00 Spyforce. Lectures given by Lectern. Citt Sauahter Sce 2.55 London! 12.04 News. • Date. (SLL Central Committee) 4.10 bygones line. 2.45 5.05 Pebbles Sand 30d bondon 00 The Socialist Revolution 5.35 Wind Crossroads. Britain: 6.00 gon 10.00 Political tasks facing the 11.35 Baron. 12:30 Gardening today: British working class. Marxism and the revolutionary role of the working class. Lessons of London. Pro.

CRAMP AND 10.5

ondon. the history of the working ondon. class in Britain. •Raw The roots of capitalist Persuaders. crisis: Marxism and the contra- London 11.20 Seek'. dictions of capitalism. Britain Persuader Borth wick and the world crisis. 12.00 Meditation. The state and revolution. Reformism and revolution Pufnstuf.

CHANNEL:

9.30-12.00 Britain. The fight for democra- 1.30 London. Nes London. tic rights today means prepar- 2.45 reports. 4. U five. ing for working-class power. Basic reading: about? Lond 8., 7 Perspectives for transforming London

SLL'

the into a revolutionary 10.30 200. 02 scales 2000. 11.02 11.35 party. her 50 Lond and Marxist Analysis of the Crisis.

European weather in French: Problems of the British Revo- a Brigade

WESTWARD.

lution except: (Trotsky). 12.37 Theatre London. ( 2.05 12.5 Gus Death Agony of Capitalism and London. 10.30W5 tor Report. the Taske of the Fourth Inter. don. 12.00 12.D0 Faith" 10.59 News: Manfred. national, Communist Manifesto.

'Forward Revolutionary to the Party! BERMONDSEY: Thursday March 'The Havelock Arms', 8 D.m. Balaclava Street (off Southwark Park HOLLOWAY: Thursday March 22, Soad. Co-op Hall, Seven Sisters

HACKNEY:

Thursday March 22 Parlour Room, p.m. Central Hall, Hall. opp. Town Mare Street.

SLOUGH:

8 p.m. Community Rood Slough. ham

STEVENAGE:

March 22. 'Red Lion', 8 p.m. Old Town. WILLESDEN: Thursday March 22 p.m. Labour and Trades Hall, High Road. NW10. MIDDLETON: Thursday March 22, 7.30 'Assheton Arms'.

EWISHAM.

Monday March 26, 8 p.m. Deptford Engineers Club, New Cross Road. 'Build Councils Action'.

WANDSWORTH:

Monday March 26. Kings Arms. High SW18. Road, The Fight against Stalinism'

WATFORD:

Monday March 26. p.m. Trade Union Hall. Wood. lands Road, Watford near Junction.

ABERDEEN:

Monday March 26, West Front Room, Music Hall. Union Street.

DUNDEE:

Tuesday March 27, 730 p.m.

YMCA,

Constitution Road. Ramelson

BY IAN YEATS

the price of bread to will go up by 10 per rise the new increases cent. THE TORY govern- 'marginally would only The Tories have pro- alleviate' bakers' rocket- mised that ment has given the go- ing costs Prices Commission ahead for the prices comes into operation He said under Phase Two of the buns, rolls and yesterday: Bread be pay laws on May i the prices must bakers' special pro- increase as can apply for as possible.' another, general ducts-like croissants more coon increase -to be raised by 10 Meanwhile in addition Products costing up per cent in the next buns, rolls and to 5p will go up by tp special products the and those costing up to few days. price of household flour 10p by Ip. But bakers point out that they have had to bear increases of their wages cent in bill and 40 anic per cent in the imported MORE THAN 50 teach- the college's teaching uhant from Maidstone ere ctrenato. Joseph Rank. chair- College of Art The teachers say the yester- Rank man of Hovis day ioined half-day may a lower nute McDougall, warned that strike to protest against teaching standard at the County Education of the oovern. hepatice courses pallada ment's refusal to allow plans halve having be cancelled. mittee

Pickets outside Bolingbroke Hospital, started a three-day strike in defence of

WORKERS PRESS REPORTER

HOSPITAL workers in Birmingham are becom- ing increasingly militant in the prosecution of government's pay laws. At East Birmingham Hospital, the 600 ancillary workers have remained out on strike since March 1 and have now withdrawn all emergency workers. At the Birmingham General Hospital 200 ancillary workers came out on strike on March 8 in sympathy with strikers at the Queen Elizabeth, and after one week's strike voted to continue the strike for another week. It is believed they will continue this action into the third week.

Arthur Harper, Transport and General Workers' Union senior shop steward at East Birmingham said: 'We do not agree at all with selective strikes.

DEMONSTRATION

• Halt rising prices and rents.

• Force the Tories to resign.

• Elect a Labour government pledged to socialist policles restore democratic rights. • Victory to gasmen, civil serv- ants, hospital workers, teach- railwaymen car workers.

SATURDAY MARCH 24

Assemble: 10.30 a.m. Corner of Cray Orpington Avenue and High Street. Socialist Labour League

PUBLIC MEETINGS

The Road to Workers' Power Build the revolutionary party

LIVERPOOL

Sunday March 25, 7.30 p.m.

Mona Hotel, James St (entrance at back Moor St)

PRESTON

Sunday March 25, 8 p.m. Windsor Castle Hotel. Egan Street Hospital, Batterson, gouth London yesterday lefence of their pay claim.

'One-day or three-day protest strikes are no good. We think hospital workers have stood for low wages for far too long.

'Heath said that his govern- ment was out to help the lowest of paid under the pay laws, yet we have been the hardest hit.

'Every union should be fight- ing these pay laws together.

'The days of slavery are gone forever. No one is going to dictate our wages.

SCEPTICAL

'Heath really showed what he thought of lower-paid workers when he announced the salaries of the Pay Board administrators; they are to get £300 per week most of them are already and in jobs paying £4,000 to £5,000 per vear.' Other pickets were all of the opinion that there should be a General Strike to force the government out. They were extremely sceptical of the role of the TUC. One picket said: 'What we think of Vic Feather could not be printed.'

An attempt last week to split the strike up by getting Con- federation of Health Service Employees' members to return to work was decisively rebuffed.

Peter Starkey, who had been said: 'The regional secretary COHSE came to us and tried to separate us off from the Trans- port and General Workers' Union in a vote to get us to go back to work. 'He ordered all T&GWU mem- bers out of the room, threatening that if they did not leave he THE QUEEN Mother will open the Industrial Society's new conference and office centre on April 5. The building, in plush Carlton House Terrace, is being leased to the corporatist-style society by the Crown Commissioners.

It is to be called Peter Runge House, after the late Sir Peter Runge, the deputy chairman of the sugar monopoly, Tate and Lyle.

NUPE

OFFICIAL

AND

STRIKER

CASUALTY

yesterday where 60 ancillary workers would not pay out strike pay to the COHSE members. 'When the T&GWU members left the room [and up to that time we had always had joint meetings and joint decisions], the regional secretary. then said "Either you take a vote that you return to work Thursday or you will get no strike pay" 'We all refused to take such a vote. All the members felt that this was nothing less than economic blackmail. We piled the pressure on Baxter and in the end he paid the strike pay and then decided that our strike from last Wednesday, was as March 14, unofficial! 'At this the stewards resigned from COHSE and I resigned as secretary. We joined the T&GWU and then the majority of our members also transferred over.'

The regional secretary an- nounced on Tuesday that as a result of the Ministry's per- mission for the Birmingham hospitals to recruit volunteers, another hospital will be called out on strike next week. At the General Hospital pickets were in a determined frame of mind. One young cleaner, Mrs Croak, 'We have now been out said: since March 8. If we give up now we would only be laughed at. 'When this Pay Bill becomes law we will not be able to strike unless we do it illegally. But I say all unions should be striking with us together to defeat the government. 'There's not one of us that can afford to live-with prices as they are today-on our low wages.' The cost of renovating . the building is believed to have been about £180,000. Donations for this lavish project came from the TUC, the Transport and General Workers' Union and the General and Municipal Workers' Union. The society has held semi- which give nars advice management on how to operate : Industrial Relations Act and the Phase Two state pay laws.

Workers Press, Thursday March 22, 1973 PAGE 11

ENTERTAINMENT

United Kingdom'. workers in films, theatre and television He added, 'Many entertain- workers are the will be balloted on March 31 if one lowest paid in the land on whether to strike for higher their considers unsocial hours pay. of work. Bob Keenan, general why secre- see no reason my tary of the National Association union should be tied bad to of Theatrical, Television and when employers, Kine Employees yesterday who said have agreed to better that if his members prevented by voted to deals, are the strike 'it could lead to from instituting an en- government tertainment blackout in the better pay and conditions'.

ANCILLARY

Hos- workers at kers Press local hos- that al north London, pitals in Barnet, pitals should be out. Some said Coventry Hull have joined and that victory could only be Strike the selective strike action.

achieved by General the government. against The Friern Hospital in Barnet Fifty-six-year-old Mrs Emma has been without domestic staff Grace, a laundry worker at Hull Monday and since they are Royal Infirmary, said Heath did strengthening the line picket not know what it was like try- who against volunteer workers ing to manage a home on belong to local charities.

'After ancillary worker's pay. Pickets at the Gulson Road stoppages I take home £13.50,' Coventry, Hospital, she said. told Wor-

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PAGE 12 Workers Press, Thursday March 22, 1973 Union chiefs undermine strike

BY ROYSTON BULL

The hospital workers' leaders and the But if these reformist leaders are not against the government, the NUPE leaders lUC are now Concucule a real cicade

WE CO

ao the opposite. THE MASSIVE propaganda campaign pletely demoralize and disrupt the mili- hoodwink _ The They false hopes about raise lurther the hospital workers on the picket lines tancy being shown in the hospitals. against con- local managements defying the government be doing something i demnation of their leadership not tinues. Tory-controlled Press and and concluding generous local wage settle- v barshals 'co-ordinated enough. Workers must begin to replace if Dy television still trying to stage are with Wells agreed principled fighters for socialism support or tne nospital workers as whip stunts to up middle class by the special congress of the

TUC.

pledged to carry out their members' There is not the remotest chance of the But the Tories allowing this. have brought against the strikes. wishes. anger i t do are doin are doing nothing. And laws to reality impose strict all this comes only real danger in sale

LULL

they inten dare The current is deliberately urus and from the spineless leadership of the tion. The NUPE leaders are receiving their the hands the Tory playing into gov- The

TUC

have responded to biting hospital workers' and members with this rubbish -and delib. unions the off the real fight yet again.

TUC.

criticism or their do-nothino posurewilo ately putting selective strikes, 24-hour stoppages, tem i em to amount demonstrations circular to trades councils asking The porary and so Without totally The hospital workers have already of supp determined sal sympathy. all-out industria action shown bu Passing the buck out making Inel determined struggle that unus not only bold If the unions show their absolute deter- ure nosoilal workers backed Dy they can take any amount of provocative sure it gets lost in the process.

approach to all workers around them to minion to smash this government verming cand rubbish dished out by the Press and out in sympathy the government monstrous laws, vision. Their hospital union con- would follow them all the way.

1 he leaders inve pay laws cannot be broken.

situativlis nived at this by tackson victor the move. manacements neve been coroee to Snake the Feather Because attacks victimization attacks has been to step up Todav's Finance and Generall Workers Press capitalist the industrial he then Committee meeting will give the conunued mount. Calle

OUL

newspapers at work this week at with another masterly piece another to make show of pportunit their Balham, doing their best to pile bad publicity James's, but ten most vumeradie He Keith joseph ction while in reality doing nothin The own leadership. terri- to illus: reconsider making the hospital workers a onue guns nursed The at the head of trate the difficulties being be set delivering the good There career canised elc., special case. the TUC and the individual unions. etc. mentality makes them Feather could whole compromise These cantity and loyal sud-outer os n every hospital ward in be of respectability loyal supporters heard in every Britain. nothing but lory what's could hear it confrontation protest politics to put 'pressure' parlia- And more everyone with lie ruling

CASS

SUCH

complete standstill as is now developing in Britain.

The mass he would ment ano lad enolovers. nev realact

KACW

demand their immediate all-out political strike movement must hostile to strikes being organized to have turned down. company a real effect. a show of doing something.

with other trade removal from office.

TO SA

No lead at teachers' march

IS NOI

- THATCHER

BY IAN YEATS

The march, which stage stretched from Speakers' ABOUT 15,000 teachers Point, Corner Centre was so long it had to be split marched through London two by police to keep traffic yesterday in a monster

TEACHER

demonstration a gainst Scores of pupils from 3,000 the Tory decision not to schools in London shut down Di the one-day turned out increase the special Lon.

leaflets. distribute help teachers don allowance by Max Morris, National Union more Teachers president-elect of and than £15 per year. Party told communs member. me empnatically betore the march

INSLOW

that there will be no mass meet- Savage sentence the end afterwards mark 1112 four-week or lie unon s can-

PAUL

STOREY,

the 16- year-old Birmingham boy It is just a demonstration, he

NO LONDON

sentenced 20 years de told me angrily. Notning else. for attempted Lencon Meanwhile the NUT executive

TEACHERS-

murder, was yesterday sen- been tenced to a further 20 years associations informing them that for robbery! it has decided not to support TUC's NO The swingeing Call 101 Gay

LEARNING

Scalcice protest and stoppage' against the corcurrenty WITh the Tory state pay laws. years-was handed hect out by Justice Croom- spokesman the NUT's Johnson at Birmingham Crown London once vesteroav reTused stealing five cigar- to give reasons for this any ettes, bunch of keys and decision. London teachers In militant mood yesterday-but their leaders want to plead with the Tories.

were 30p. The execuu ve aboarenly Two other 15-year-old boys Tory £182 the lieves it will succeed in a ance-an Deputations increase OI went charged with Storey Employment Secretary, over Their Maurice Macmillan year- but Tory Education Secre. heavily-guarded Department of robbery - Mustafa Fuat and Education and Science at Water- Margaret Thatcher

MARCH FUND

nas Lal y Duignan- given were London allowance claim. loo to ask for the allowance to onered tem a derisory too. 1ne pay the The judge demonstrators marched through teachers went he raised. Later

£623.78--ONLY

vears' But Macmillan has made clear the West End's crowded streets to parliament for a mass lobby ordered for 10 year there will no special each concurrently cases school

WIISLICS

ale with the each under Phase Two. years were Lambeth Bridge chanting want Thatcher From onwards

TEN DAYS LEFT

'we ordered Monday serve about 800 police lined the dem- Yet before yesterday's demon- onstrators' causing grevious narm To moved their victim.

NUT

suallon Irom a ve spokesmen warned the foot intervals

THE

RESPONSE is still

NUT

to0 warned ParK public over loud hailers that un After spending Gooe unes outside parlament that you, carrying asking slow. We know . dear against placards Winson less the allowance was increased Mounted police were standing Prison, anything readers, must feeling the more than a rise in the education in by. This is the biggest system concentra. brought back huge deepty into cost living Increases turee boys were the London allowance. would collapse from lack capital to court yesterday to hear the

SCOT

bite your pockets. judge say that had 'occur- London for many years. No political slogans were car- reacters. him after Monday's red it teaches are evided ity Worker Post back with had teachers were bewildered

FOR

THE

day third running strength. failed to deal separately with

NUT

executive decision This political situation de- the car worker: British Mass meetings have robbery count. vesterdav with we eno use Canvado Oxford, mands inat ously endorsed the shop stewards' Levano s cowev. plant nothing apparently gained. readers in otery district only • Fuat's flat (4s). driver walked out yesterday in protest refusal to allow the rate fixers forry readers in district. every Mehmet Fuat said after- against the management's intro- in to oversee the work. In the absence leadership Workers Press strike will This from executive said continue until Leyland drop The unior WardS. sentence auckon old Leann Inausunai prepared savage engineers to speed up the work. all anso ute y could see they way ot con- a fight the bitter end has been at is deeply Production com- squeezing extra whole family upset. pro- tinuing the campaign. against We appealing immediately. plete standstill Monday ductivity of the Measured- London's 36,000 is nothing are Work scheme in operation here else we teachers aternoon ano use disoute is mov mediate pun im- do.' demanding a £300 special allow- developing into a major trial of there. mediately our total right need £1,126.22 10 days time by target. Add something extra yourself if you can. Rush 13th ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF a our concuons aimeddary

FOR DETAILS

March Appeal Fund

YOUNG SOCIALISTS

TELEPHONE

186a High Clanham 0168l London SW4 7UG 01-622 7029

BLACKPOOL APRIL 14/15 1973

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