Talks today on disputed Hull wharf

TRADE UNIONISTS seeking a lead in the fight against the Tory government will be sadly disappointed by the agenda for the engineers' union national conference in ten days' time.

About the furthest any divisional committee is prepared to go in the resolutions tabled for discussion is an instruction that the executive lead a struggle in the TUC for united action to defeat this government'.

None of the major problems facing the working class can be solved except 'by the forced resignation of this Tory, government', says another motion from the same division, Kent. A Labour government pledged to socialist policies is needed.

This resolution continues by instructing the executive 'not to compromise, but to fight to halt the disastrous retreats made by In the main, however, the resolutions tabled sound as if the divisions concerned would like to just ignore the existence of the Tories altogether.

There is little which really challenges the retreat of the TUC General Council-and, more particularly, of engineers' president Hugh Scanlon himself.

This is certainly true of motions from divisions where the Communist Party has influence. The line from north London, for instance, stamping ground of Stalinists Sid Harraway and Arthur Gibbard, is simply, that 'every effort must be made by organized labour, the TUC and the people as a whole to remove them [the Tories] from office as quickly as is humanly possible'.

Other divisions want the executive to just 'disregard any norm or ceiling in any wages negotiagive full and immediate official give backing to 'any members in### OUR LABOUR CORRESPONDENT faces little or no criticism on the wages front at his own conference.

Although no new national claim may be submitted before August 25 this year, the conference agenda contains resolutions demanding increases of up to £15 on basic rates for skilled workers, and a five-hour cut in the working week.

The call for a £10 increase is widely supported (by south London, the north east, the Wirral and west Cheshire, the east of Scotland and east Midlands).

Every engineer knows that it is ridiculous to suggest rises of this order can be won except in the most bitter struggle with the employers and the Tory government, and that any serious preparation for such a struggle must mean learning the lessons of last year's disastrous plant-by-plant industrial action policy.

Yet it is left to the right-wing South Wales and north Yorkshire divisions of the union to raise the slightest criticism of the plant-by-plant policy and the final settlement-and their criticism is directed towards ending national struggle for wages all together!

This year's conference of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers, to be held in Torquay, faces the most crucial

ATUA

Central London branch Censorship, the media and the Tory government. Chairman: Royston Bull Speakers: Stuart Hood, David decisions in the union's history.

However much divisional committees might want to ignore the Tory government, they cannot. The £61,000 in fines and costs exacted from the union under the Tories' Industrial Relations Act are sufficient proof of that.

And if Scanlon is suggesting that amendments to the Industrial Relations Act might pave the way for industrial peace, this is certainly not the mood of his members.

Motion • after motion on the conference agenda congratulates the executive on its stand against the Act and calls for the fight to be continued until it is repealed.

Typical is the motion from the North Lancashire and Cumberland division which states: 'This national committee notes the attacks which have been made against the trade union movement under the guise of the Industrial Relations Act and is resolved that there will be no capitulation whatsoever by the AUEW whilst the Act remains on the statute book.' Other resolutions demand not only repeal of the Act, but also the repayment, with interest, of any fines imposed by the court on trade unions.

Only three or four right-wing motions propose that in future the union should defend itself when attacked in the NIRC.

SLL LECTURE SERIES The revolutionary and the history British working 'NO CAPITULATION' Grading dispute at Massey's arty class TALKS will be held in Hull today over the long-running and bitter dispute at the Bankside Wharf where unregistered labour is being used. Earlier this month the 2,000 Hull dockers took the day off to picket the wharf to stop unregistered men unloading timber.

The meeting with the dockers' leaders was requested by Mr J. H. Barchard, managil ng director of W. S. Barchard a ind Sons, timber merchants of We ist Docks Street.

Mr Barchard said: It is an exploratory gesture and I am going in with an open mind.

'Until we meet each other we do not know if anything can be done. The question of employing registered dock workers at the. wharf is not on my mind, but I am ready to discuss anything.' TWENTY-TWO ma chining method engineers are on official strike at Massey Ferguson's plant in Banner Lane, Coventry, over upgrading.

In December 1970 the firm reorganized and closed down the production engineering departA representative of the strikers told Workers Press: "The duties of these production engineers was then added to our duties. But they • were earning £4 to £5 more than us.

'We therefore put in a claim for upgrading which actually SLL LECTURE SERIES Socialist Revolution Middleton Mancheste Langley Community Centr Last year the National Dock Labour Board ruled that work at the wharf should be done by registered dock workers.

But a subsequent hearing by an Industrial Tribunal at Leeds decided that the company could use only its own regular employees at the wharf to discharge cargoes for its own use to be processed at the wharf.

The hearing of an appeal by the board against the tribunal's decision is still pending.

only amounts to £1.80 a week. We should have asked for more. We thought we were being reasonable. The firm agreed regarding the extra job content, but refused the money' The claim has been through procedure twice. On March 9, the company threatened a lockout if sanctions were not lifted.

'We resumed normal working and then gave them seven days' notice of an official strike. We came out on March 19:

All other members of TASS (the technical and supervisory section of the AUEW) in the two • Massey Ferguson plants are banning overtime.

Council of Action

Don't Let Hospital Workers, "eachers, Railwaymen, Gasmı Fight Alone!

Force the TUC to call a General Strike! the Tory Government Resign!

MONSTRAT

North London URDAY MARCH ble: 2pm Civic Centr Wood Green through Wood Lambeth SATURDAY MARCH semble 2 pm Ramsden Ro (near Balham Tube)

March through Tooting Broadway to a meeting at 4 pm at th Franciscan Road School, near Tooting Broadway.

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