Workers Press no. 1041

workers press

MARCHERS RALLY TO HOSPITAL WORKERS

TORY PAY BOARD

SHOUTED DOWN

streets of London yesterday.

£100,000

PARTY

BUILDING

FUND

IT'S beginning to come in: south London readers clubbed together £52, a Manchester reader sent us 21 and a north Lon- don reader £20. The total is now £78. Keep it up. Who will be next? Post to: Party Building Fund 186a Clapham High St London SW4 7UG. That was Phase Two that was

SEE PAGE 2

Dockers' 'No' MORE than 1,000 dockers at the Wharves voted at River hames meeting yesterday not to a mass colleagues the their stoppage London CocKs London's 6,000 cocker. walked out on Mone employe s employers refused to fixed reTurn to man- scales instead new ning laid down flexible arrangements in tne mens agreement • See lorry drivers' support p. 3.

INCORPORATING THE NEWSLETTER • FRIDAY APRIL

DAILY ORGAN OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF TH

Y DAVID MAUDE

More than 2,000 hospital workers sup- ported by delegations of engineers, building workers, dockers, teachers and Post Office workers marched from Tower Hill to lobby MPs at Westminster. demonstrators shouted The chanting 'General Strike! Tories out!' and 'Heath out!'

along the route of the march.

general secretary of the National Alan Fisher, Union of Public Employees, was booed by his own members when he suggested that their case might be taken to the Tories' Pay Board.

We would be prepared to put our case to the Pay Board provided we know that when we go there and state our case it would be considered on its merits and implemented immediately,' he said.

leaders present said that Other hospital union Fisher was speaking on his own account and that not represent the collective this statement did view of the hospital unions.

Jack Jones, general secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union.

was surrounded by speech to the ancillary workers dockers after a "a massive' pay increase.

saying they deserved The dockers demanded to know if the London strike which has been going on since Monday would be made official. of the Oxford United of NUPE, Hospitals branch which brought two coachloads to yesterday's march, described Fisher's statement on the Pay Board as rubbish'.

He said: We won't get anywhere by going to the Pav Board. We must continue this fight and we must have the support of the rest of the trade It would be disastrous for the union movement. whole movement if we were to be defeated.

Oxford branch secretary, Vince Scannell, said: 'We need help to get the Tory government out- but this must be done regardless of whether we win or lose. Our branch is absolutely convinced we for the hospital workers will continue with this must be heard. It has to be action. esca- lated further. This is the same body of Don Steadman,

NUPE

bureaucrats which refused to branch secretary St at come to the aid of the Mary's, Paddington, also civil servants and the gas criticized Fisher's statement.

workers. 'We'll nothing from get Scanlon All that Feather, the Pay Board. This is typi- and Jones will do today is to al. We're getting no leader.

express sympathy' with the ship from the tod. and we've workers and offer ancillarv been let down already by the 'moral' support. TUC. But the fight must go and the on we must get At today's meeting Scan- Tories out.* lon has the -opportunity to act on his declaration that if felt Many strikers real the hospital workers are bitterness about the role of beaten, it will mean the end the TUC. of trade unionism as we know it. At today's finance and general committee purposes But since these left' meeting an appeal for help Y APRIL 6, 1973 • No 1041 • 4p

OF THE SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE

O LOVES

• PIBLIC

PE LONDON

PORT

POST OFFICE

WORKERS SAY:

LONDON FACTORIES

BRANCH

Teachors

SUPPO

WORKERS UNION

SUPPORT

FREEDOM

UNITY

HOSPITAL

WORKERS

BROTHERHOOD

Contingents on the d words uttered the were gymnastic Scanlon has somersaulted his way back into Heath's arms with the offer of a deal on the Indus- Relations trial Act, the

OXFO

Common Market and the Three pay laws. Phase When the engineering union's national executive Torquay at next meets Monday, Scanlon will be presented with a request by Glasgow district com- the strike mittee to organize action in support of the hos- pital workers. The Glasgow engineers have pledged to take indus- action if the trial govern- ment uses the penal powers of the pay laws against the hospital men.

NATIO

PUBLIC

Contingents on the demonstration

OXFOR

N.U.PE

HOSPITAV

workers press

MARCHERS RALLY TO HOSPITAL WORKERS

TORY PAY BOARD

SHOUTED DOWN

streets of London yesterday.

€100,000

PARTY

BUILDING

FUND

IT'S beginning to come in: south London readers clubbed together £52, a Manchester reader sent us £1 and a north Lon- don reader £20. The total is now £78. Keep it up. Who will be next? Post to : Party Building Fund 186a Clapham High St London SW4 7UG. That was Phase Two that was

SEE PAGE 2

Dockers' 'No' MORE than 1,000 dockers at the Wharves i voted at Kavor name mass meeting yesterday not to colleagues the join their London cocKs slobbarc dockers London's 6,000 walked out on Mone employe s employers pav dispute. atter refused to fixed man- scales instead new ning laid down arrangements flexible in tne men s • See lorry drivers' support p. 3.

INCORPORATING THE NEWSLETTER • FRIDAY APRIL

DAILY ORGAN OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF TH

Y DAVID MAUDE

More than 2,000 hospital workers sup- ported by delegations of engineers, building workers, dockers, teachers and Post Office workers marched from Tower Hill to lobby MPs at Westminster. demonstrators shouted The chanting Tories out!' and 'Heath out!'

'General Strike! along the route of the march.

Alan Fisher, general secretary of the National Union of Public Employees, was booed by his own members when he suggested that their case might be taken to the Tories' Pay Board. We would be prepared to put our case to the Pay Board provided we know that when we go there and state our case it would be considered on its merits and implemented immediately, he said.

Other hospital union leaders present said that Fisher was speaking on his own account and that did not represent the collective this statement view of the hospital unions.

Jack Jones, of the Transport orkers non and General was surrounded by dockers after a speech the ancillary workers to saying they deserved 'a massive' pay increase.

The dockers demanded to know if the London been going on since would be made official. of the Oxford United Hospitals branch of NUPE, brought two coachloads to yesterday's march, described Fisher's statement on the Pay Board as 'rubbish'.

He said: We won't get anywhere by going to the Pay Board. We must continue this fight and we must have the support of the rest of the trade union movement. It would be disastrous for the whole movement if we were to be defeated.'

Oxford branch secretary, Vince Scannell, said: 'We need help to get the Tory government out- but this must be done regardless of whether we win or lose. Our branch is absolutely convinced we for the hospital workers will must continue with this be heard. action. It has to be esca- lated further. This is the same body of

NUPE

Don Steadman, bureaucrats which refused to branch St secretary at the aid of the come to Mary's, Paddington, also civil servants and the gas criticized Fisher's statement.

workers. 'We'll nothing from get Scanlon All that Feather, the Pay Board. This is typi- and Jones will do today is to cal. We're getting no leader- express 'sympathy' with the ship from the top, and we've ancillary workers and offer been let down already by the 'moral' support. TUC. But the fight must g° get the on and we must At today's meeting Scan- Tories out.' lon has the opportunity to act on his declaration that if Many strikers felt real the hospital workers are bitterness about the role of beaten, it will mean the end the TUC. of trade unionism we as know it. At today's finance and committee general purposes 'left' meeting an appeal for help But since these Y APRIL 6, 1973 • No 1041 • 4p

• OF THE SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE

PORT OF LONDON

POST OFFICE

WORKERS SAY:

STRENGTH

DON FACTORIES

BRANCH

Teachors

SUPPO

VAL

WORKERS UNION

FREEDOM

UNITY

WORMERS

BROTHERHOOD

Contingents on the demonstration uttered words were the Scanlon has gymnastic somersaulted his back way with the Heath's arms offer of a deal on the Indus- Relations the trial Act,

OXFORD

Common Market and the Phase Three pay laws. When the engineering union's national executive Torquay next meets at

HOSPITAV

Monday, Scanlon will be presented with a request by Glasgow district the com- strike mittee to organize action in support of the hos- pital workers. The Glasgow engineers take indus- have pledged to if trial action the govern- ment uses the penal powers against the of the pay laws hospital men.

PAGE 2 Workers Press, Friday Aprll 6, 1973 That was Phase 2 that was A family with two children could not run a car, his expenditure since the ANY WAGE award within the Tory In the north-west the average price of new houses mortgaged to the Nation- state pay norm of £1 plus 4 per cent manage adequately on less than £12 Iwo White Paper was pub- Inase wide a week expenditure on food, and in lished has gone up as follows: the last quarter of has already been taken awav by the £7.878. soaring cost of living. 1972 was The London - where prices are much older houses was £4,972. Mortgage repayments UP 72p a week.

higher-the figure would be around The increases in mortgage rates alone £14. Rates make a Phase Two rise worthless to On a 90-per-cent mortgage, which is Family food bill UP £2 a week. worker seeking to buy a house.

normally obtainable, The cost of the same amount of food any Car expenses UP at least 20p a week.

maximum £2 a week repayments on the former will go up has up by some The arrogance of the building society gone about f5 a month and on the latter since mid-January. chiefs in rejecting all pleas to keep In July £2.50 and £1.43 Will mortgage rates down has taken Many more rises are due. The European be added. pounds out of the pockets of many worse off than three parliament today debates, and is ex- after his workers and middle-class people.

months ago, wage The second part of the Tory rent Act evel into this farm The increase from 8.5 per comes operation crease cent to y.

MONTO.

typical 25-year mort- of 50p prices throughout the Market.

Dringing rises WeeKi This excludes expenditure any many council houses. Rates are also extra b8p per month fares, laundries cares cans del clothes, cinemas, The Tory government has already in- on every £1,000 borrowed.

going up. and football matches all dicated that it will accept further Repayments on a £3,000 mortgage will are costing more. All properties were recently revalued rises of 8 per cent on beef, 4 per cent from £24.45 month for the first time since 1962, and the up per on pork and 2 per cent on milk. But when food In the next three months £26.50; mortgage from new levels reflect the soaring infla- from and Laere

HOOLIC

will rise faster £32.60 to £35.32; on a £5,000 mort- cycl tion Increases of 30 to 40 other EEC powers to make Britain nortgage rates will g up to at least from £40.75 to on ratable expected gage +44• are vanes accept more. there is In parliculai, 10 per cent, he will be another £2.3( from £48.90 to £52.98; and €6,000 throughout Britain. to impose

VAT

food. pressure on week worse off-that €3.49 on £10,000 from £81.50 to £88.30.

Britain is the only Common Market Two Sir Robert Thomas, leader of Manches- down since Phase the 9.5 per cent is the highest amount ever which zero-rates food for country ter City council, has said that a 25 Paper was introduced. charged for home loans, but a fur-

VAT.

per cent predicted uncast rise certain This can only mean new battles Iner The cost of running a car is also rising.

Tories' three months subsidy of of 50 per cent in rates payments for The biggest car insurance firm £15m is a blatant manoeuvre to hold The trade union government. council the country-General Accident- the rate below 10 per cent until houses. The lower-valued houses, he negotiated has just announced a f33.5m annual after the local government elections.

Heath while he picked the pockets said, would be hit most. profit and said it Chancellor Exchequer, Mr wants to of the pul up by less than 10 per premiums not Anthony Barber, made it clear that This could mean an increase of 50p a is cent. Petrol also going cost under would week or even more in rates.

cu cuts lances more. subsidy be extended beyond three The to protect the standard only way Since January 17, when Phase Two of of life working class against All this that in- pI ine Tory state pay laws was issued as the Wast inflation capitalist to force the In London it is virtually impossible to accepted under Phase Two 15 crease a White Paper, the price of almost Tory government to resign and re- buy a house for less than a £10,000 every basic foodstuff has risen.

has already been swallowed up. forced So people Labour mortgage. repaying such Take the case of a miner who has been nationalize basic industries, Large white for example, mortgages face an immeciate nave woos Coal Board's offer cluding the land, of £6.80 now and a further gone up from 19p per dozen to 30p. awarded the crease tne food maustry £2.29 week. If he lives in the the banks and the building indus- meat, sugar, flour, rise of £3.40 a month in July.

That Cereals, biscuits, per north west, has children, try without compensation and under increase in their cost of living tea, coffee and most canned foods IS 1s an old house and trying to buying an workers' control. of £5 a week. have risen in price. Gold may Top price of EEC entry- go on the THE PRICE of Britain's The influential Christian Mar- Democrat bloc in the admission to the Com- US market ket wants an average 4 per cent increase. mon Market is reflected The French Communist in sharp increases in food Party has also denounced in high 2.7-per-cent increase as

BY JOHN SPENCER

prices every inadequate. GOLD REACHED $92 an ounce on the Lon- street. The higher which por sood don bullion market yesterday morning as a in will be paid for Decisions United TaKen result of the news that the States Britain will ineffi- prop up Brussels Luxembourg senate has approved the purchase of gold by the cient peasant agriculture for determine what

LOW

American citizens. cost-of-living will be. The bit longer at the same The measure, which has still to pass the thousands of food time holdings pea- traditional House of Representatives and gain presidential which Britain has being upon samu are would extend the scope of the 'free abandoned each ear or aouloval. depended for decades are considerably. big farmers. taken over by Private Cuzens nave no more. banned from large-scale But farming Deell 'In this strange clim- for British prices are being. gold does not mean price reauc new breed analyst almost 40 years. the much tions: rather the contrary.

flourishing aa usted Nixon adminis- higher European The levels. the big firms As move among those great cathe. tration opposed Much as they are happy to 1S into agriculture, whether in arals or Mammon which Silizes to hold the right restoring soar into the blue Man- be in the Common Market, production on tne mat- sky: the Tories are wriggling keting side, they use their Drivalt nattan wupciucal gold. under the consequences of monopolistic Ursa Maior. cress - claims this would force up prices. mist extraordinary who lead to a further deficit fearlessly predicts a re- JOSEPH GODBER... Canute act falled.

They know that higher There that is chance oi pay- of the nightmare of run higher costs for of Mini- prices mean the protests by tory ments caused Tine 1929 great when ster import of gold to supply British bigger intend Side range introd in Inaustry They post-war bull market import food bill and anger Godber will stem the tide home demand. a wide foods finally crashing European came suosiente Lallac working-class con- flowing in of higher The private gold mar- agriculture's transition to a inevitable supplies have with alliums

DIICC

from the Continent ket was reopened large-scale basis. come from Europe rather Sunners new the roar coat haunted Japan at the beginning this than from dreams of a generation. The Common Market His for price they intend deal- of this week and Agricultural Commission has King Canute ensure that any advan- tries with lower production freeze Campbell quotes Wil- tages British capital derives costs. was act and just as futile. Tehan of liam orooosed avelaxe brisk with large amounts will per-cent increase farm Far from ease oh Co, The "partners' of British

1LOI

giving gold entering the Herzing and prices, to be as high bought. as Common capitalism new lease analyst who is investing capitalism in the country for sale. the all his money Market determined But the major part of the Common DeL cell cast are Marker enre The rising gold price beef. plus the seal on its decline century gold coins. increase prices, sets if above dline in the ot Take away Wildl end the and brings the decline Even these prices do not its historical advantage 'The present currency ercenace

TOI

interests which free cheap food be passed concerned, will whole historical of paper money. satisfy those access Desce says, valuc Tenan the work- which cheap food was a materials from the passed and raw only the first stage of a need the political support of on To dollar cont mes to the. will the peasants and farmers.

world market. panic that consumel. DalL. money dollar continues fall. bring about the grealesl crash in history.' 1l carly Chilean bus 'plot' Solidarity strike tercav it ter another ro He adds: "The crash points collaps s against sterling. will be the worst dollar, because we have floating anarchy in the never known Time

THE

CHILEAN

The president is suppor- money markets, with Renault 400 when all the currencies tion and the zooming yesterday placed ted bv a coalition of Stalin- ment price of gold Ine wore are coin social-democrat and are pro Santiago's see - owned Radical Parties. Haled. public system Cutt transport 'In the 1930s at least Last week he reshuffled on wall street, accora• laid off

WORKERS

at the giant and yesterday under military contol De. ing *Evening Stan- the dollar was still cabinet, bringing in his of a bus drivers' cause sound and fixed to gold. Renault factory outside Paris Renault executive director dard' columnist Jeremy civilians to strike. abandoned "England Boulogne-Billancourt Marc Ouin warned: navy and air force comman- canoel. are The walk-out 1,800 by 'One man describes it ders. ner role as tne mainstay to stop work for three hours large as depression sometimes of the monetary system demanding mel Day 'If the conflict continues coMbating a plot the armed Now, under the guise then, the rises began early on Wednes- de- in solidarity with 400 press- by temptic it is clear that we are head.

dayresident jection. could turn to America shop workers in the third forces are being used Salvador Now the dollar is in 'Another talks about for ing slowly towards a paraly- break strikes. week of a pay strike. "a sense of fear, a ris- Now charged that sis of the company and the world was a plan afoot to cause Allende maintains that demons default ing of all the Some 7,000 workers at the Labour including dem ecratic and rational: policies unrest, economic and cools une nas nODOGy to turn lo dreadful past". already been • See centre pages. Nobody at all!' factory Tactor occubations

LORRY DRIVER members of the Transport and General Workers' Union in London and the south-east have backed dockers fighting a £2.60, government-controlled pay offer from the employers. For the fourth day running London's enclosed docks were at a standstill yesterday. At a mass meeting today the dockers' 18-man committee is ex- pected to ask for reaffirmation of the policy decided last month.

This was to accept the £2.60 but 'devalue' an agreement covering flexible manning. It was the employers' refusal to accept any devalu- ation of the agreement which sparked Monday's walk-out by dockers at Tilbury, in the Royal group and at West India and Millwall docks.

The London south-east road transport stewards' and committee of the T&GWU has 'blacked' all docks, wharfs and stores where dockers are in dispute -and called drivers in on other areas to do the same.

BY A WORKERS PRESS

CORRESPONDENT

SOLIDARITY

ACTION

shipping may be diverted by the •soute The resolution passed by the invite our core cues which represents other areas to join with us Committee. estimated 30,000 this wish Call Dale. reads: success to our cocker brothers in this fight. This committee, representing picketing Limited registered container and meat vestered halted a small-scale re- morning drivers and general haulage driv- London, Essex and the turn to work by some dockers calls all John Lunch, director-general Soul cast

THE

three pickets arrested al members to show solidarity with of the Port of London Authority, George's nospital, fellow trade unionists in the our Park Corner on Wednesday has told the 1,>0u men docks bv retusing to move trame enclosed docks that there can be remanded until were May or out ot docks, wharts no concessions to their demands.

magistrates Bow other premises where dockers court yesterday. The national port shop stew- are in dispute The hospital workers at St expected aros earlier voted at George's had The committee also calls upon discuss support for the struggle its meeting in meeting to suppori men's at Our send lo lelse Lo service any unregistered ports where Birmingham on saturday. WORKERS at the big Perkins militant frame mind diesel engine factory in Peter- Two pay companv's t2.09. Phase borough banned A FUTURE of ever-rising beef have offer-made as part of the annual time, begun a work-to-rule and of the Measured-Day review prices was forecast yesterday by refusing accept and are Work deal work-study timings. conditions in the factory.

the head of Britain's largest This deal has now expired-it multiple butchers. He said world which was recom- Ihis action, Monday- the ran out on mended by shop stewards, demand would continue to be full from the pressing or backing workers alt Coll crete steps towards parity with Amal- • Collet greater than supplies, Already the Massey-Ferguson workers gamated Union of anoineers Most of the 5,700 Coventry. Vorkers Common Market was 360,000 the Although part of the same paid workers the Coventry workers combine, tons of beef imports short.

factory are AUEW Announcing the Slater stake SUSPICIONS that the pro- Unions believe Inal lue slacel of which held in tie-up is part of a plan to net some perty tycoon Jim Slater was Parker said: Since Rockware around the Greenford

LIUSLO.

blocks announcerer behind a decision to close a situated in a prime shares have changed hands and plant, gained Middlesex glass factory and recently •omer drea vest ur Luluur.

situation. The closure is ot the _nOT throw over 600 workers on decline Rockware's perform- Slater-the Last year guru 'moral' capitalism -bought the the dole have been confirmea.

alice. Westland Helicopter Britain nearby bolte-make Rockware glass, which is clos- over The „actory read The its Greenford plant next last months £1,775,000 hundreds redundancies. ing Slater site is now being promoted for revealed that £1,830,000 anuary. las that he and Slater development. -boss Walker The parker 8al0

DIODCILY

-controls a quarter of the The Guardian empire had enjoyed 'friendly More and trank recently and that the property exposed the near starvation discussions culpally. wages paid by the Slater Walker Peter Parker, Kockware coalt- marmale calcullai South African man, said that Slater's stake was assurance' That nis avesument "confidence' was long term. Rockware ration- ranches. had encouraged Why the Rockware fight col- plans way Rockwale was atonalis alicaliull lapsed—See page 4. by axeing assets. dater to make une the right bers non-teaching staff gives union members of the UNION members have the iegas to whether their 'on giving resign imnerial Losere. Icasulallc so

NIRC

sards dent sir condonalde for wanting to do notica and compiying redsulls could reasonable unions are good had or indifferent. the that it consti- they The court held National Industrial Relations members sai Court has ruled. want, to added, unfair industrial prac. ASTMS to But, had lice for threaten con- they be them members whether the treat as flict between he CASSOCIOn Telle reasonable Scientific, Technical and Man- given. thes 101 have Staffs, The Industrial Relations Act notice of resignation. and mem- agerial Workers Press, the one-day stoppage and to picket the court, where they were joined by delegations from several other London hospitals. The three arrested pickets (I. to r.) Mark Palmer, Alex MacKay and Peter Bradley.

are much higher paid. Reg Briers, AUEW convenor at Perkins, told me yesterday the • differentials were as much as £l6 and £19.

'We are telling the company they can't hide behind the gov- ernment on this' , he said. "They say they're paying com- petitive rates in the area. But all our sick pay and holiday schemes are Massey-Ferguson, the same as in Coventry-why should the rates of pay be any different?'

On Monday 3,000 Perkins workers walked out demanding the withdrawal of a work-study team and the reopening of nego- tiations their parity claim. The following day 4,000 day-shift workers staged a sit-in and the whole night-shift walked out.

GET YOUR BOOKS. PER

NEWSPAPERS FR

NOW OPEN Monday to Thurse Fridays (late night opening) Saturdays 9 a.m.- r8 Press, Friday April 6, 1873 PAGE 3 TORY INTERFERENCE in the steel industry is criticized today in a parliamentary investigation into the industry, where 50,000 sackings are planned. A report on the British Steel Corporation by the special House of Commons committee nationalized industries finds on that the government deliberately delayed the BSC's capital invest- stopped it ment programme and charging big business a fair price for steel. The committee paints a pic- ture of grim hostility between the BSC and the Department of Industry and Trader Walker.

led by ex-City financier Peter The report says: 'The Corporation has suffered from ministerial interference in its commercial operations, hav- charg- ing been frustrated from ing what it thought proper and delayed in carrying out the capi- tal investment programme which it thought necessary. "The benefit to the national interest from these interferences is dubious: the damage to the corporation is patent.' However, the report backs the sacking and closures present which have been dictated by Common Market steel plans.

These are on the right lines for future competition, it says.

KS. PERIODICALS AND

ERS FROM THE

to Thursday 9 a.m.-6p.m opening) 9 a.m.—7.30 p.m.

9 a.m.-5 p.m.

WHAT WENT WRONG AT

PAGE 4 Workers Press, Friday Aprit 6, 1973

TOP FIRM

SACKS 82

BRISTOL

ENGINEERS

One of Britain's top 50 com- will today sack the panies second 'batch' of workers from a Bristol engineering. factory which close the completely by end of June. The is Thomas company £120m Tilling Ltd, trial holdings group which financially backs the right- wing Economic League. The factory

BDR

Ma- high- chines, which produces and quality butter-packing egg-grading equipment, and where 1,700 workers will have lost their livelihoods in a year by the time the closure takes place. Sit-in Last Friday Tilling's the first group of 82 workers down the road after crushing a sit-in strike with the threat that closure would be imme- diate, and workers would lose benefits unless it was stopped.

which involved The sit-in, all 500 production workers and staff left in the factory, started a week last Tuesday after the breakdown of nego- with Harpeneros plans to keep the factory open. Backing was given by the of regional committee the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions. With employment Bristol In already threatened by the can- cellation US options on OI Concorde, the fight to keep BDR open was crucial. But by Thursday the strike was finished. ( Three years ago Brecknell, Dolman and Rogers was taken over by the Vokes engineer- In its turn, Vokes was taken the Thomas Tilling over by holdings company, after serious fall in its profit rate. Soon after this happened, last question-mark year, was hung over the future of BDR Machines. Black picture Tilling's claim that BDR is 'bankrupt, and that there is no alternative to closure, but union officials say they Sus- pect a black picture is being painted justify what the to company intended to do any- way. chairman, Former and founder of BDR, Harry Dol- has been quoted as say- I'm if they ing: wondering haven't just piled up all the Vokes losses into one corner."

Tilling's, under its chairman Sir Geoffrey Cecil Ryves Eley, last profit increased its yeal by 4.2 per cent (from rate 16.4 to 20.6 its per pre-tax profits went up from E16.3m to £22.5m. Eley (69), a former naval intelligence officer and direc- tor of contracts in Churchill's Ministry of Supply, wartime British Houses and steel firm Richard chaired Thomas and Baldwin, and sat board of the Bank of on the England. Besides the Tilling's job, his include chair- present posts manship of publishers Heine- vice-chairmanship of Illalill British Oxygen and a seat on the board of the Equity and Law life assurance company.

Eley Charles succeeds SiT Hardie, chairman of BOAC, ultimate master of the BDR Hardie, workers' fate. who chaired the Vokes group, has now resigned. ay Aprt 6, 1973 The fight to keep open the Rockware glass fac- Greenford, tory at Middlesex, has, on the admission of its leaders, collapsed. Yet there has been no lack of enthusiasm on the part of the 650 workers threatened with being sacked next Jan- uary. Rumours of an impending closure of the 60-year-old works began to circulate be- fore Christmas. On February 9, at a lively 600-strong meet- ing of the men, the decision was taken to fight tooth and nail to keep the plant open.

A five-union co-ordinating committee was set up and less than a week later the plant was brought to a dead by a 24-hour strike. On the day of the stoppage deputations from the factory lobbied MPs at Westminster.

The following day, the local No 4 branch of the Amalga- mated Union of Engineering Workers sent a resolution both the district and executive committees calling for action against the closure by workers in all four of the Rockware group's factories. month later, at a meeting on March 13, the fight for jobs appeared to be over when the leadership was defeated on an amendment from the floor calling for nego- tiations with the company to get the best possible redun- dancy terms. What went wrong? How was the initial militancy and determination transformed in the space of a few short weeks into demoralization?

When co-ordinating com- mittee co-chairman and engi- neers' leader Mr Arthur Harris got up to speak for a continuance of the protest The Industrial Society con- tinues to scour the leader- ships of the trade unions looking for guest speakers.

At their next major seminar on Wednesday, April 11, there are none of the old favourites L ES otsky Now available from New P 186a Clapham High Street, howled campaign he was down. Why? Some shop • stewards blame the collapse of the fight on their men. Mr Harris and Communist Party AUEW district secretary Mr Len Chouleton blame it on Transport and General Workers' Union stewards and officials in opening talks with Rockware about redundancy pay off their own backs. Mr Choulerton claims: 'This split the men. What could we do with the majority against Slater: Rockwares are now owned Slater Walker by Securities.

T&GWU

admit stewards they went it alone with man- agement, but only after they had come to the conclusion that the fight could not be won as it was being waged.

The attitude of both stew- ards and men to appear have been 'If we can't win, let's do the best we can for ourselves.' The company is offering statutory redundancy pay, to 165 per cent for plus up long service employees. Rockware, now owned_ by Slater Walker Securities Ltd, has never yet been stopped like Hugh Scanlon, Jack Jones, Roy Grantham and Derek Gladwyn. The society has enticed Mr Amalgamated J. M. Boyd, Union of Engineering ; Union executive council member, to speak. Which is some feat because Boyd is usually re- garded as the strong, silent type. What weighty matters will Boyd be sermonizing about to the assembled businessmen at the Hotel Russell? Company law! This may sound odd, and it probably is, but it makes a little more When you sense read a Press release from the society's headquarters. "A series of practical amend- ments to the Companies Act have been drawn up by a By LEON TROTSKY Paperback. £1.00 Illustrated Sharp pen-portraits of leading figures of the Second interna- tional in Russia and Europe, for the first time published in an The translations English edition. were first commissioned by the Young Socialists' 'Keep paper Left' Their enormous success has completion of the led to the translation of the whole book, which is the first part of Volume 8 of Leon Trotsky's 'Works' pub- in lished in the Soviet Union 1926. It provides the most vivid picture available of the historic figures of the Second Inter- national, their strengths and weaknesses, written by an obser- ver who was also a participant in the daily struggle of the Euro- pean and Russian working class.

1 New Park Publications h Street, London, SW4 7UG from shutting a works even when, as in the case of Gar- Liverpool, it has been ston, brought under considerable shop-floor pressure. Mr Fred Annakin told me: • The men just got disillu- sioned. Nobody seemed to have any plans. They didn't say we were going to sit-in or strike or anything. He added that the 100- strong engineer's group led by Arthur Harris had been thought the most militant in the works. He said: I'm sorry to have to say that I'm very disap- pointed with the engineers.

They said they thought they could keep the place open, but they never came out with any plans.' On March 20 the AUEW, the electricians' and plumbers' union and construction, allied trades and technicians pledged to 'discuss all aspects of the closure' with Rockware aimed at getting a 'fair settlement'.

In addition to the action of the T&GWU stewards, Mr Harris told me he believed the stuffing had gone out of the 'because fight couldn't you show in tangible form how you could stop the closure.

He said: 'I don't believe we could take the factory over because of process difficulties and the glass furnaces could we stopped be damaged if work. 'Taking the UCS idea, we were trying to organize pres- on Rockware from out- sure side.' He explained that the plan was to enlist the backing of the four other factories in the Rockware group at Portland, Wheatley and St Helens and to mobilize the community in support and to lobby MPs.

But T&GWU steward and co-ordinating committee co- chairman Mr Brian Holder working party including George Goyder, former chairman, Bri- tish International Paper; Pro- fessor L. C. B. Gower, vice- Southampton chancellor of University and one of the authorities country's leading on company law; Sir Bernard Miller, former chairman of the John Lewis partnership; and John Garnett, CBE, director of the Industrial Society. "These amendments are gaining wide support among managers and union officials(!)

and will be submitted to the Department of Trade and In- dustry — which is responsible for changing the Act - after the conference' Why, you may ask, are trade union officials worried about amendments to the Companies Act? Most unions are pledged to expropriate all companies and put them under state ownership. But all becomes clearer when we see the corporatist principles of the working party. They are: • Extending the definition of a company's 'members' to in- clude employees. • Rights of employees to in- clude at least as much infor- mation as shareholders. • At least two directors to have their appointments en- dorsed by employees. • Employees and shareholders to be told if industrial rela- tions practice meets standards of the Code of Practice (of the Industrial Relations Act).

• Appointment of a liquidator during voluntary winding up to be approved by employees.

'principles' These are part of the 'industrial partnership' which the society is perennial- ly urging. But it is always a partnership — the one-way employers and owners retain told me med culde hor neither would paign closure. "They felt just end up losing said. The factory has reprieve. It is old the glass-meltng beyond the point worth rep alc are not replaced. The question for of the 650 shop-fl and the 300 staff is Rockwar wietic cannot be saved The question ployers to to shut factories l find their Kens o native employment If they are not, done about it? Unemployment v ended with tion of all the tries, including gla comensation and kers' control. inc ıc the neither he nor hi see how this cam preven the 'hey felt they would ip losing money,' he tory has no hope of is old and when tanks decay e point where they orth repairing, they stion for the leaders ) shop-floor workers 10 staff is not merely Rockware or can is are em- freely allowed ictories leaving wor- nd their own alter. ployment? are not, what can be oyment will only be nationaliza- the Il the major indus- withou uding glass, ion and under wor the policy on which Rockware group and second ruggle for the righ hrough expropriation ployers can only be campaign rough the he Tory government ernment forced on to carry out real ockware men know of protest is over enemy must now be the throat and ht for the right to and while the work- t holding a few arti- imple, what is the se of the 'right of get as much nformation as share- reading the City national Press alize that sharehold- • in arms about the tails they receive il Companies eir shareholders the num of informatior checkable and ofter want these They want con- he books of the firm v much profit is be- d off for the bosses much is being put vages and new include accel the Industrial Rel and a laughable - joint appoint- liquidators in the ankruptcy. get-together Boyd trade 'the i. The brochure in- and senio €25 fo attend £38 for "trade union owards the responsi- companies to* their main Michael president, said last must solve of • declining y by getting more each worker. mpany law? That's capitalism.

162 YEARS FOR THE CARABANCHEL TEN

Corporatism in Spain by Juar On June 24, 1972, the Spanish Civil Guard arrested ten workers in Pazuelo de Alarcon, a village on the outskirts of Madrid. They were charged with holding an illegal meeting of the National Co-ordinating Committee of the Wor- ker' Commissions'. The Public Prosecutor has recorded in his report to the Madrid Tribunal of Public Order that the men were part of the workers' commissions 'built on the initiative of the Communist Party on a national scale with a view to subver- sive action to violently over- throw the Spanish regime through the means of a General Strike'. The arrested men have been fined between 100,000 to 250,000 pesetas each (£600- £1,500) and now face the following prison sentences: Marcelino Camacho Abad 20 years Eduardo Saborido Galan 20 years Nicolas Sartorius 19 years Francisco Salve 19 years Fernando Martin 18 years Juan Ruiz Zapico 18 years Francisco Acosta Orge 12 years Miguel Angel Zamora 12 years Pedro Santiesteban 12 years Luis Fernandez Costilla 12 years Far from following any path of 'subversion', Camacho companions have and his pursued faithfully the CP policy of taking over the fascist union. A brief survey of the record of Camacho and Nicholas Sartorius. will show how by Juan Garcia. — Part five hollow is the claim in the CPs fortnightly 'Mundo paper Obrero' that this policy has 'disrupted the vertical union'.

It has only led militants to jail. Marcelino Camacho Abad entered trade union activity when he joined the reformist UGT (General Workers' Union) in Osma la Rasa in 1935. After the insurrection of the generals against the Republic, he had to go into hiding in the hills of Soria since region quickly became a fascist stronghold. In September, he joined the volunteer militias, soon to be transformed into the Repub- lican army units. At the end of the war, he was jailed for six years being a UGT member. He es- caped to Algeria where he worked in the engineering trade until 1957. Then he "amnesties 'o Spain returned when granted as were part of Franco's 'new liberal, European' face. From 1957 1964, to Camacho held positions in the corporate union for the engine- ering industry. He was elected and re-elected vertical as union representative in 1957, 1960 and 1963. He has been in and out of prison ever since: June 1966: Arrested for organ- izing a petition with 30,000 signatures that was presented to the Labour Minister. January 1967: Arrested follow- ing huge demonstrations on January 27. Released after the strike of over 50,000 engineer- ing workers for his release.

February: Tried for organizing these demonstrations. March 1: The Public Order Tribunal sends him to jail for ow 'as long as the present latent state of labour abnormality lasts'. He remained in jail until March 10, 1972. On June 24, he was back in Carabanchel prison Madrid, and has while awaiting mained there Nicolas Sartorius belongs to a young generation of students who have fought against the Franco regime. 1956: Leader of the Demo- cratic Students' Union built in opposition to the state students' union. April 1962: Arrested in the Asturias and condemned by Military Tribunal for the activities proscribed under the laws against banditry and terrorism. Sartorius had written and distributed leaf- lets in support of the miners' strike. 1965: Joined the committee of representatives of print wor- kers in Madrid within the official union. 1966: Sacked from the editorial board of the magazine 'Triumfo' 1969: Sacked from the pub- lishing house of EDAF when he was arrested because of the state of emergency. November 1970: Arrested in 57, relation to the Burgos trials.

As the police have no proof of of connections with the Basque nationalists, he was tried for having been present at an illegal meeting of workers in La Moraleja. January 1972: After his re- lease, he wrote for 'oppositiun' journals like the Christian Democrat 'Cuadernos para el Dialogo'. June 24: Arrested in Pozuelo.

The Communist Party has chosen the Carabanchel Ten as their central campaign now, as a vehicle for party policy ent on the Common Market and Workers Press, 'democratization' of the the vertical union. The future of the Caraban- chel Ten along with the future of the Spanish working class, is handed over by the CP to the European Economic Com- mission, the International Labour Organization, the trade union bureaucracy throughout the world and the strange phenomenon of 'world public opinion'. • Presssure trom these progressive quarters will, in theory, make the fascists see reason. In a letter from Caraban- chel to Franco's Minister of Trade Union Affairs, Enrique Garcia Ramal, dated February 6, Camacho makes this most clear: ... I have spent 105 days in freedom over the last six years for my crime of illegal association". . Now they are demanding a 20-year sentence not a sentence of just a and few months. 'Because my activity of • as a trade-unionist, recognized by my fellow workers when they elected me, by the then Minister of Trade Union Affairs, Solis, who received me on January 7, 1965, as a member the engineering workers' committee, by the international workers' move- ment, and by the International Labour Organization (ILO)...

'For identical reasons, there at the several are moment jail; this is the workers in truth, Minister, and it would be logical if you told this to the Procurators, who listen to you... [members of the pup- pet parliament.] 'If only you would recog- nize us as the real represent- atives of the working class, making your vertical union a workers' real organization. 918 Press, Friday April 6, 1973 PAGE 5 Above left: Building workers in Asturias. Above right: Marcelino Camacho Abad faces 20 years for 'illegal association' for being part of the workers' commissions.

This is the plea from Cara- banchel.' While it is conducted on this campaign for the basis, the release of the Carabanchel Ten, holds enormous dangers for the arrested men.

Fascism has never been shifted by public opinion or protests from trade union bureaucrats.

The eager response from who leading the men are of British trade unions into the que corporate state trap is proof enough of these dangers. TUC general secretary Vic- tor Feather has registered his protest with Franco's ambas- sador in London, and _Jack Jones (T&GWU), Hugh Scan- Ion (AUEW), Alan Fisher (NUPE) and others issued a statement on February 21 on the lack of 'human rights' in Spain. These same men who did not murmur during utter a the trial of the Burgos 16 are now exercising found their new 'responsibilities' in Europe.

And they are beginning to accept laws which can Their statement said: '... It is obvious that there can be no support in the labour and trade union movement in Great Britain towards the establishment of relations be- tween Spain and the EEC as long as the Spanish govern- ment denies its workers the right to create their unions and practise other basic free- doms.' So Messrs Scanlon and Jones, etc, now have a say in the decisions of the EEC!

CONTINUED TOMORROW

Comic. Inter: Syrdical. C.G.T-C.F. DT.-FO

FRENCH STALINISTS ON THE SPOT AT

PAGE 6 Workers Press, Friday April 6, Talks broke down again on Wednesday between the management and the unions at the state- owned Renault combine, France's largest auto- mobile manufacturer. The largest Renault plant, in the Paris suburb of Boulogne Billancourt, has been strike- bound for three weeks and the firm has laid off 7,000 men.

have been sympathy There strikes in other parts of the Renault combine. Press work- ers at Sandouville and Flins walked out in sympathy with the Boulogne-Billancourt strik- ers last week. At Le Mans, site of another big Renault factory, there were stoppages in walk-outs and support of the Paris strikers by press-shop workers. Át the core of the dispute are 400 workers from the fac- tory's press shop - mostly immigrant workers brought in- to this dirty and dangerous section of the plant from north Africa and Spain. They are demanding classification of their jobs- ay April 6, 1873 which would bring an increase both in pay and job-security over the present grading.

The strikers belong to the same grade as the majority of workers in the Renault empire.

are among the 48,000 They manual who workers are graded as 'specialized workers'.

These workers are at the heart of the system of exploita- tion which reigns at Boulogne- Billancourt. They are the men on the production lines and in the press, paint, trim and assembly shops. There are 12,000 workers at this grade in the Paris factory alone. Their attention is rivet- ted on the press-shop dispute, because regrading for the press-shop would workers mean regrading for most if not all their grade. The whole hierarchical pyra- mid of job gradings is in danger unless the press-shop workers can be driven back or forced to accept a rotten com- Hence the promise. manage- ment's determination to force the strikers back. Renault management is well aware that what it decides today will set the pattern to- morrow throughout the entire engineering industry in France.

Behind the management is the patronat, the powerful em- ployers' organization. And behind the patronat stands the Pompidou govern- ment, flushed with its victory at the March elections for the National Assembly. And caught between the workers and the management are the leaders of the main union confederations, the Stalinist-led CGT, the reformist CFDT and the FO. The Stalinists, who treat Boulogne-Billancourt as their own political fiefdom, have been holding back the wage demands of the factory's labour force for months. The workers were told that to ensure the success of the Union of the Left at the polls they must restrain themselves and above all do nothing to frighten the middle class.

cowardly, re- This typical formist line did not succeed in winning the election for the Communist Party and its allies.

They remain in opposition and the workers are still face to face with Pompidou. That is what gives the Renault dispute its potentially explosive significance both for employers and tor Their attempts union leaders. at a compromise were rudely shattered when the 400 press- shop workers threw out the agreed formula. The CGT and the Communist Party Press proclaimed 'Vic- tory at Billancourt', but they spoke too soon. The workers voted to stay out on strike and rejected the management- union compromise. In negotiations the shop floor represented union was delegates, most of them drawn from the core of hardened militants who rigorously toe the Party line. 'You know, the delegates don't know us very well, one striker said. 'In my shop there are two delegates, but neither of them big works on the presses. loud ughter: Weve had enough says laughter: of delegates. They never are there to start action, they're always there to put the brake on us and tell us to go back to work' The Communist Party's tech- str nique in the factory is not very subtle. The hard of ye Cure who often eq atlegales, strong-arm squad against ra "ertists, are used to intimidase the workers and push through tai the required decisions The adds: "It's striker scandal. In Department 34 when they voted on whether th to return to work, the dele. th gates came from all the other Out of 60 voters there pr shops. were 26 delegates. 'And the other day in the when the day and press shop fo night shifts had to vote on the th offer, management severa dozen delegates, almost 80 of them all were there ha ere We just refused to 120 ofl advice strikers. an F. listen to them. The press shop workers have be tic been particularly affected by the speed-up at Renault over the past two or three years.

Even the management has been forced acknowledge the to inhuman pace of work and the and fo appalling offered to Renault Special bonuses for the work.

has offered Press-shop wages before the

ch- ery as inst ugh her ele- her ere the and the eral of 120 to ave by ver ars. een the the and the strike totalled 1,724 francs a month for a worker with four years' experience. This is equivalent at current exchange rates to £153 a month. This does not include cer- tain fringe benefits. The man- agement's rejected offer would have brought the wages to 1,827 francs a month for a 43-hour working week. Given the cost of living in France, this is not by any means a princely wage. The Renault management obviously considered, however, that it was more than sufficient for the immigrant workers in the press-shop. For years these workers have been neglected by the official trade union movement and their demands ignored. The Stalinists have now begun belatedly to pay some atten- tion to the problems facing workers from foreign coun- tries, fearing that they might otherwise fall into the hands of the 'leftists'. A third of the total work- force in France is composed of immigrants, many of them condemned to live in appalling conditions in the Bidonvilles Workers Press, Friday April 6, 1973

PAGE 7

Above left: On strike the at factory cancelia 1971. Above right: Renault May workers leaving the factory. Many north little rainl Africa and Spain are now at the centre of the dispute. current Riaht: Renault factorv. the press

RENAULT

shop is on the right the (shanty-towns) around cities, under close police sur- veillance. These workers, OuCC garded as a docile labour force for French capital, have begun their rights and their action at Renault threat- ens to shatter the fragile "social peace' which the Stalinists have forcibly imposed on the workers' movement. This the exodus ment's latest turn of the legal screw against immigrants: Fontanet which circular tightens work-permit regula- tions and which has been met by hunger strikes in cathedrals in various parts of France As one immigrant said at a recent demonstration against the new law, the Renault press operatives are showing their fellow immigrants a far more effective way fight than LU hunger strikes.

The Greek regime. Jack Gale investigates the tortures and the police state. — Part four

POLITICAL PRISONERS OF KORYDALLOS

PAGE 8 Workers Press, Friday April ( The Greek regime. Jack Gale i Yiannis Leloudos was arrested on August 21, 1967, and sentenced to lite imprisonment by the Greek junta. The prose- cutor had only demanded 16 years, but Leloudos had the temerity to defend himself in court. He was subjected to all the usual tortures but testified: "The worst part of being held in the Athens security police headquarters is the sounds. It is the screams of being people tortured, the moans, sometimes the weep- ing of your neighbours, the orders for the people not in solitary confinement to go down and more than any- thing else the agonizing soft, slow, five-minute, four- metre interminable voyage on all fours of a tortured man lay April 6, 1973 • Gale investigates the tortures and i whose name you do not know, and whose face you cannot see, from his cell to the toilet and then the whole bowel-tearing thing all over again on his way back.' Most of the political prisoners are former resistance fighters against the Hitlerite fascists. Some have served— at different times—-as many as 25 years in jail under different the regimes. Some were prisoners during the 1936 dictatorship.

One of the most serious cases was that of Communist Party member Argiris Baras (see previous article). Baras was thrown into Avirof prison on June 28, 1969, dying from the tortures he had undergone at the hands of the Third Army Corps in Salonika, led by Maj Kourkoulakos. Baras refused to denounce his Party and in open court reaffirmed his loyalty to it, an denouncing instead his police es and the police state. - Part four and military torturers and the colonels' regime. He also accused the doctors at the 424 military hospital— in particular Lt-Col Vletsos— of being cowardly and inhuman and 'behaving like torturers' He was subsequently in- carcerated in the Korydallos prison where his fellow- prisoners campaigned for medical treatment for him.

Some of the most heroic prisoners in Greece are held at Korydallos. In messages smuggled from the jail they continue to shout their de- of the Papadopoulos fiance regime. One statement from them declares: 'The aim of the junta is to kill us off inside the dun- geons since we refuse to ex- our liberty for change humiliating and dignity- destroying declaration of "law- abidingness" and submit to the fascist regime. 'We denounce with all the power within us this fascist regime which for years has oppressed and tormented an This regime entire people. bases itself exclusively on the support of its foreign patrons and on intensified terror.

'We protest with all our strength against our unjust and illegal detention in the prisons concentration camps of and the dictatorship. We denounce with all our strength the in- human treatment and the des- tructive policies enforced against us by the government.

'Let the slogan "Freedom to the Political Prisoners" re- sound more loudly throughout Greece and throughout the world.' Defiant statements against the junta's courts and jails were also made by members of the Ergatiki Protoporia (Workers' Vanguard). A number of these comrades Left: Dr Stephanos Pandelakis, recently jalled for eight years and tortured by Perissos Security Police. He was told by Lt-Col Favatas, 'Don't Imagine that we care if you go to trial and say we tortured you. We don't give a damn about the Council Europe or Human Rights.' were arrested in 1968 when they were charged, among other things, with distributing a document 'The International Revolutionary Youth Call For Struggle'. A. Liakos, a leader of the 'Workers' Vanguard' together with the Trotskyist students T. Mytaphidis and A. Darberis, was given life imprisonment by the Greek regime for violat- ing Special Law 509/1947.

This was a law passed dur- ing the second civil law in 1947 and aimed at suppress- ing all democratic and socialist ideas. Liakos told the court: "The moving force of history is the class struggle: and the through this working Anarchism social change. (which we are being accused class of) substitutes the struggle with terrorism, a thing that our organization is against. 'We are struggling against the capitalist social system, for building the workers' state organized on the political and of the economic strength working class and for the democracy of the workers' councils. The Trotskyists jailed by face not only the colonels torture but the hatred of the of Stalinists, whom some collaborated with the prison authorities against them.

smuggled out by Letters Trotskyists in the Aegina and Korydallos prisons in January 1971, reveal that Stalinist prisoners had appealed to the jailers to isolate the Trotsky- ists (see Workers Press, January 31, 1973, for a full account). On January 19 this year Workers Press printed the statement of Alexandros Pan- former student agoulis, a jailed for the attempted mur- der of Papadopoulos, Pan- agoulis is kept in a concrete cell, measuring three metres by one-and-a-half metres, at Boyati prison. He has been in this living tomb for four-and- a-half years. • January 20 his brother On was jailed for four- Stathis and-a-half years for planning to help him escape. Stathis was lured from Italy by an agent provocateur. The Greek repressions con- tinue. Leaders of the Greek Communist Party's 'Bureau of the Interior' were hauled be- in January, fore the courts accused of plotting to over- throw the regime by force.

On January 29, a further were jailed for eight people up to 12 years four months under a 1947 anti-sedition law passed during the civil war.

thousands of And now clashing Greek students are with the state police as they demand academic freedom and political liberty. Yet the Stalinists have called for a restoration of the monarchy in Greece 'to form a government of national unity and lead the country back to normal democratic rule'! In Britain the Stalinists have the ultra-Tory appealed to Foreign Secretary Sir Alec Douglas Home to get the gov- 'assert ernment to influence' on the Papadopoulos regime to restore democracy!

Such calls are a betrayal of workers, the heroic Greek peasants and intellectuals who have fought and suffered at the hands of reaction. Only the construction of a revolutionary party in Greece, as part of the International Committee of the Fourth In- colonels' and establish freedom.

CONCLUDED

'The Road From Wigan Ples.

A blography of Les Cannon. By Olga Cannon and J. L. R. Anderson. Gollancz. £3.90.

On his road from wor- king-class Wigan, Les Cannon was, in turn, an electrician, a faithful ser- vant of British Stalinism, a union official, the leader of the most cele- brated anti-communist witch-hunt since the war and the president of the Electrical Trades Union. He died in the bosom of the establishment with a knight- hood This biography by his widow Olga and ex-journalist Anderson tells the story. It is a chronical of Cannon's un- relenting thirst for office.

Though the treatment is ex- tremely favourable to Cannon, the book leaves an unpleasant impression of the man. In the biographies of the great trade union leaders- men like James Larkin, Ben Tillett-the personality min- gles with the great working- class struggles of the day; the the victories, sacrifices, the defeats and above all the de- termination of the working class to push forward. In "The Road From Wigan Pier' we learn absolutely no- thing of the electricians, their battles or conditions. In the 321 pages they get only one paragraph and then only by way of proving Cannon's greatness as a trade union leader. Once we leave Wigan, where Cannon grew up as the son of a blacklisted miner, the is restricted to action the bureaucratic corridors of the ETU and the nightmarish manoeuvres of Cannon, first Party with the Communist faction, then against it.

This is perhaps a fitting backdrop because it is appa- rent from the biography that Cannon's primary concern was to make his influence felt.

He died an extreme-right winger, an advocate of 'crea- tive' incomes policy and the principle of the Industrial Re- lations Act. Some might marvel at his conversion from Stalinism. But it is not surprising. Cannon was never a Marxist, though his widow claims he Order from 186a Claph remained a Marxist to his death. He joined the CP just after the Moscow Trials where Stalin 'legally' murdered most of the Bolshevik old guard.

The Party trained him dur- ing the period of the Popular Front when the Stalinists were embracing everything leftwards from 'progressive' Tories.

The first measure of Can- non's allegiance came after the Stalin-Hitler pact. The Party was ordered to denounce the war as imperialist after years of patriotic clamour for hos- tilities to start against Ger- many. For Cannon, then working on Tyneside, the 'new line' was too unpopular for him to stomach. He abandoned Party work. But he was back in Hitler invaded 1941 when Russia and the Stalinists brought out the Union Jack once more. Cannon, we learn, switched back into Party work avidly and without question- ing the earlier 'line'. He read the war reports and became one of the army of Stalinists who drove up pro- ductivity and broke strikes as part of the 'fight for Britain'.

At heart he was a patriot, the 'Marxism' of the Communist Party had left this prejudice unscathed. We read: 'Les was also deeply rooted in the working-class body of English life and the atavistic feelings that have animated the common people of Eng- land from Agincourt (or, in- deed, from the revolt Queen Boadicea) onwards were deep within him.' But it came to pass that Cannon broke ranks for the extreme right. The 20th Con- gress speech by Khrushchev, which substantiated many the of Trotsky's accusations over shook the Stalin purges, Cannon. He was also starting to question whether the way forward in the trade unions lay in the Communist Party.

In 1956 he resigned over these issues (not over the in- vasion of Hungary by Soviet troops as many think). Frank Foulkes: deprived of ETU presidency in 1961. But it is important to note that Cannon's keen interest in ballot-rigging came only after the Stalinist-dominated ETU executive sacked him as an ETU education officer. Where is Britain Going? Paperback 37Łp • Problems of the British Revolution Paperback 35p ' Lessons of October Paperback 60p In Defence of the October Revolution Pamphlet 15p Marxism and the Trade Unions Pamphlet 25p Death Agony of Capitalism and i the Tasks of the Fourth International ¡ Pamphiet 10p Postage: 10p per book, 5p per pamphlet.

Order from: NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS 186a Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UG From Stalinism to Corporatis George Brown with Les Cannon at the It was after this trauma, when Cannon had to go back to work, the allegations of fraudulent practices began. Cannon's campaign had little affect until it was uti- lized by the Tory Press as the point in an anti-com- centre munist witch-hunt. On the suggestion of Sir Trevor Evans, (knighted in 1967 by Harold Wilson's Labour gov- ernment) the industrial cor- respondent of the 'Daily Ex- , Cannon called a Press press', conference alleging undemo- cratic practices by the ETU leadership at the 1958

• TUC.

The campaign ended in the High Court in 1961, when CP member Frank Haxell was de.

prived of his seat as general secretary and Frank Foulkes the presidency after com- ballot-rigging over were upheld. But one major question is not answered in the biography.

Cannon had been instrumental in spreading Stalinist influence in the union. He was a mem- ber of the Party's ETU Advi- sory Committee which worked out the Stalinist policy line on the ETU and the details of all their campaigns. He also sat for some years on the ETU executive. Did he then know anything about ballot-rigging before 1956? It was apparently going on before that date as one in- Guess who's seeking a parlia- mentary career? Eric Morley, the boss of Mecca. His com- pany is responsible for the Miss World contest. Morley narrowly missed selection as Tory candidate for Dulwich, south east London. He was defeated by Kevin Laffan, chairman of the Pres- sure for Economic and Social Toryism (PEST) group. Morley's One of lesser- is Merrie known ventures England, a plan to take Coal Board land in the north and a Disney Land - style create castle for tourists. His partner in this as yet unfulfilled deal is Judah Binstock, formerly of the Victoria Sporting Club.

Workers Press, rporatism - on at the Department of Economic Affairs in 11 vestigation by the extreme right-wing Labour MP Wood- row Wyatt (who helped finance some of Cannon's anti-commu- nist activities) proved. He found in 1955 that the Blackpool branch which voted overwhelmingly in favour of the Stalinist Haxell returned more ballot papers than mem- bers! At that time Cannon was still high in ETU and Party circles. He either knew noth- ing or chose to say nothing.

Later, however, he joined ex-Stalinist, with another Frank Chapple, and used his knowledge of Party tactics to rout his old allies and ban CP members from holding office in the union. It is a murky story. Cannon joined with the most extreme right-wing forces in the trade union and labour movement to carry out his task. The biography mentions, Wyatt, Walter Padley, Victor Feather and John Freeman as Cannon's particular friends. He came to be the most dedicated advocate of co-operation with capitalism, higher productivity and the principles of corpora- tism. The biography reproduces the fulsome tributes to Cannon from many employers, includ- ing R. D. Roberts, chief nego- tiator of the Centra! Electri- city Generating Board. This is hardly surprising when one What is the sanity in recent sentences for 'mugging'? Paul Storey (16) of Birmingham got 20 years for it. Last week Stanley Clark (17) admitted into a shop with a toy going pistol and hitting the 80-year- old storekeeper on the head.

In Manchester Crown Court week Judge Basil Gerrard last said: 'This is one of the worst cases I've had to deal with in a long time.' And he gave Clarke three years in jail.

The moral of the story seems to be that it's 17 years' lighter to do mugging in Man- chester than in Birmingham.

Mrs Doris Garner is something of a fighter. She hates the house she lives in at Pendle- ton, Manchester, but she re- fuses to be pushed into an- • she also other one which doesn't like. rs Press, Friday April 6, 1973 PAGE 9 fairs in 1966. reads some of Cannon's openly corporatist views reproduced in the book. For example he wrote: 'It is our contention that the ten- sions created by these difficul- ties are both healthy and crea- tive shades of the Industrial Society. A balance must be kept between employers and employees. If this balance is lost it will, in the first in- stance, clearly be against the interests of whichever party is placed at a disadvantage. In the long run, however, it could easily be destructive to both parties.' The logic of this passage is somewhat obscure-but the is clear enough: message 'Workers must never be allowed to get the upper hand.'

Cannon came to this posi- tion because, above all, he re- presented the opportunist cur- rent within the British work- ing class. On this careerism and bureaucracy feeds. This was not altered at all by Sta- linism—itself a corrupt and corrosive force. This first biography is syco- phantic and of little merit. But it stands as a warning to work- ers and trade unionists who essential question ignore the of combating all bourgeois ideology with a struggle for Marxist theory within the re- one volutionary movement.

At present she lives in Pri- ory Street. She has lived there for 17 years. The walls in the two bedrooms are covered in fungus. The fungus is so bad that sheets on the bed are made permanently damp. 'It's get- ting worse and worse,' she says. In September last year her died of bronchitis. husband They had been trying for seven years to get out. Now Mr Garner is refusing to pay the rent unless she is moved. The council offered to put her in Thorncourt, Pendleton, but that was a very long way from the shops; it would have made life even more difficult for Mrs Garner. I understand that Mrs Garner has agreed to be moved to multi-story accom- modation, • said a Council spokesman, "and her SO chances of a transfer in the near future are better.'

PAGE 10 Workers Press, Friday April 6, 1973 All Trades Unions Alliance meetings

CAMBERLEY,

Surrey,

HARROW:

Friday, Tuesday April 10, 8 April 6, 8 p.m. Peter's Hall Harrow St p.m. Labour Hall (committee room), Frimley.

Wealdstone. 'The TUC must call a General Strike'

MIDDLETON:

6, HACKNEY: Wednesday April 11 Middleton Gardens. 'Assheton near Parlour Room, p.m. Centra Hall, opp. Town Hall, Mare Street.

'The TUC must LEWISHAM: Monday April 9, 8 call General Strike to make the Tories resign' Deptford Engineers Club, p.m. Cross Road New New (opp. CROYDON: Thursday April 12, Cross Tube). 'Build Councils of 8 p.m. Ruskin House Coombe Tories Action. Force the to Road, Croydon. 'The fight against Resign'. Stalinism'. WANDSWORTH: Monday Aprii 9, Thursday

FULHAM:

April 12, 8 'Kings Arms', High Street, 8 p.m. Broad- 'The Swan', Fulham p.m. SW18.

'TUC

must call a General 'Forward to the Revolution- Strike'. way. ary Party'.

WATFORD:

Monday April 9;

BERMONDSEY:

Thursday Aprll Trade Union Hall, Watford D.m. 12, 8 p.m. 'Havelock Arms' Bala- Watford Station. The Road. nr Street, off Southwark Park clava fight against Stalinism'.

Road. 'Build Councils of Action. Make the Tories Resign'.

CAMDEN:

Tuesday April 10, 'Prince Albert', Wharfedale p.m. WILLESDEN: Thursday April 12, Road, Kings X. 'The TUC must 8 p.m. Labour and Trades Hall, call a General Strike' Road NW10. 'Tory "Law High Order" - Preparation for and CLAPHAM: Tuesday April 10, 8 dictatorship'. p.m. Small Hall, Clapham Manor HOLLOWAY: Thursday April 12, Clapham Manor Street,

TUC

SW4. must call 8 p.m. Co-op Hall, Seven Sisters 'Forward to the Revolution- General Strike to make the Tories Road. resign'. ary Party'. Do you get WORKERS PRESS out a subscription now? £20.28 for 12 months (312 issues) £10.14 for 6 months (156 issues) £5.07 for 3 months (78 issues) If you want to take Workers Press twice a week the rates are: £1.56 for 3 months (24 issues) £6.24 for 12 months (96 issues) Fill in the form below NOW and send to : Circulation Dept., Workers Press, 186a Clapham High St., London SW4 7UG. I would like to take out a subscription to Workers Press.

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Name. Address. THE MILITARY and poli- tical position of the Cam- bodian puppet regime under dictator Lon Nol is rapidly worsening and his American backers are talking in terms of a 'Berlin-style' airlift to save him. Despite continuous bombing by the United States Air Force the liberation forces have suc- ceeded in cutting off the Lon Nol capital, Phnom Penh where a 'state of national dan- ger' was proclaimed on Wed- nesday. The new decree suspends civil liberties for up to six months and allows the military courts to impose the death penalty with- out right of appeal. Cabinet minister Hem Keth Sana, announcing the new de- cree, said it was made necessary by 'the recrudescence of subver-

TODAY'S TV

BBC 1

12.25 Holi hynt. 12.55 News. 1.00 Pebble Mill at one. 1.30 Chigley. 1.45 Look, stranger. 2.25 Racing from Ascot. 4.00 Slip and slap. 4.10 Play school. 4.35 Jackanory. 4.50 Deputy dawg. 5.00 Crackerjack 73. 5.40 Sir Prancelot. 5.45 News. Weather.

6.00 NATIONWIDE.

6.40 FILM: 'Winchester 73 Tom Tryon, John Saxon, Dan Dur- yea. Western.

8.15 THE GOOD OLD DAYS.

9.00 NEWS. Weather. 9.25 THE REGIMENT. Riot.

10.15 DIMBLEBY TALK-IN. 11.00

NEWS.

11.05 FILM: "Tarzan, the Ape Man'.

Johnny Weissmuller, Maureen O'Sullivan. Original Tarzan story. 12.40 Weather. •

ITV

9.30 Charlie Brown. 9.55 Riptide. 10.45 Hook up. 11.15 Britannia. 12.00 Cartoons. 12.05 Hickory house. 12.25 Happy house. 12.40 First report. 1.00 Time was. 1.30 Crown court. 2.00 General hospital. 2.30 Good after- noon. 3.00 Junkin. 3.25 Marcus Welby Md. 4.20 Lassie. 4.50 Magpie.

5.20 Arnie. 5.50 News.

6.00 TODAY. 6.35 CROSSROADS.

7.00 THE SKY'S THE LIMIT.

7.30 FBI. The Widow.

8.30 WHO DO YOU DO?

9.00 JUSTICE. For Those in Peril.

10.00 NEWS. 10.30 POLICE FIVE.

10.40 FILM: 'Britannia Mews'. Dana Andrews, Maureen O'Hara. A rich girl marries an art teacher against her father's wishes.

12.10 THE EXILED.

12.15 JASON KING. Flamingoes Only Fly on Tuesdays.

BBC 2

11.00-11.25 Play school. 5.25 Open University.

7.05 LOOKING TO EUROPE. A

Child's Guide? 7.30 NEWS SUMMARY. Weather.

7.35 GARDENERS' WORLD.

8.00 MONEY AT WORK.

9.00 FILM:

"Closely Observed Trains'. Directed by Czech director Jiri Menzel.

10.35 FILM NIGHT.

11.05 NEWS EXTRA. Weather.

sive and military activities on the part of the Republic's ene- mies, gravely menacing its insti- national independence tutions, and territorial integrity'.

This is certainly understated: apart from certain strategic roads and a few towns the regime con- trols nothing outside the capital and the bulk of Cambodia is in the hands of Sihanouk's sup- porters. There have been wholesale arrests in the capital-university students and professors arrested anti-government demon- after strations in March, dissident elements in the Royal Family and even the dictator's astrolo- gers, who predicted his over- throw. The National Assembly session was preceded by a night of heavy US bombardments which shook the capital as B52 bomb- attacked ers targets on Mekong River east of Phnom Penh. MD BBC 2'% World Chama precents Jir! Trains' set in Nazt-occupled Czechoslov

REGIONAL TV

CHANNEL: 1.15 News. 1.30 London.

Yoga. 2.55 2.30 Film: The Farmer Takes a Wife'. 4.25 Flintstones.

4.50 London. 5.20 Junkin. 5.50 London. 6.00 News. 6.10 Report. 6.35 London.

8.30 Comediars Fury. 12.00 9.00 London. News, 10.05 •Young Film: weather.

WESTWARD.

As Channel except: 10.10 Octopus hunt. 10.30 Nahanni. 10.50 Dr bun. 12.40 London. 12.57 News.

London. 6.00 Diary. 6.25 Sport.

10.32 News. 12.00 Faith for life.

SOUTHERN: 10.00

Twizzle. 10.15 Dr Simon Locke. 11.20 Yoga. 10.40 London. 12.00 News. 12.05 London. 2.30 Women only. 3.00 Gourmet.

3.25 4.25 Saint. 4.20 Weekend. Pebbles and bamm bamm. 4.50 London. 5.20 Cartoon. 5.25 Crossroads. 5.50 Lon- 6.00 Day by Scene SE. don. day. Limit. AsS Momilan and wite. 2.00 7.05 Sky's crusts. London. 10.35 Film: "The Bachelor Party'. 12.25 News. 12.35 Weather. Guideline. HARLECH: 9.55 Sesame stree Slender 10.55 Hoppity. 11.20 London. 2.30 Women span. 3.00 London. 3.25 Danger man.

only. 4.25 Rainbow cos:25 Crossroads: 4.50 London. 5.20 Chuckleheads. 5.50 London. 6.01 Report West. 6.15 Report Wales. 6.30 Doctor in charge.

7.00 Film: "The Fox'. 9.00 London. 10.30 Comedians. 11.00 Friday people.

11.30 UFO.

12.30 Weather.

HTV

Cymru/Wales as above except: 4.25-4.50 Stesion 6.01-6.15 cantamil. Y dydd. 10.30 Sports arena. 11.00 Lion and the dragon. 11.45 Too long a winter. 12.45 Weather. HTV West as above except: 6.15-6.30 Report West. ANGLIA: 9.40 North country.

10.00 Sullivan. 10.10 Gilbert News. 12.05 Women. Dyke. 3.00 London. 3.30 Dick 4.20 News. 4.25 Merrie melodies 450 Londos 5:20 Merrie melodies. 5.50 London. 6.00 About nana 6035 7.30 About Anglia. London. Hawaii five-o. 8.30 Who do? do you 10.30 Probe. 11.00 9.00 London. Film: 'Fingers at the Window. 12.30 Epilogue. ATV MIDLANDS: 10.50 Bridge for 11.15 Documentary• 12.00 beginners. London. 3.30 Jason Guide 1.20 Forest rangers.

12.05 4.50 Lon- King. 5.20 Flintstones. 5.50 London. don. 6.00 Today. 6.35 7.30 Co- London. five-o. 8.00 Hawaii 9.00 medians. London. 10.30 Frankie Howerd in 'The Times' comments that the bombing has 'simply doubled and tripled the number of refu- gees, adding their despair to the discontent of an already war- weary country. Judging by the warnings now going out over Phnom Penh Radio to soldiers who desert, the ground troops may no longer be much of a barrier to a communist advance'.

The liberation forces have closed the Mekong to shipping and the regular convoy of imported food, fuel and military supplies is now nine days overdue. Petrol is under strict rationing and there are only three days' stocks left for private motorists.

There is fighting not only on the Mekong supply route, but main also on the city's other lifeline to the outside world, the road to the coast. The imposition of a state of national danger is a final des- perate measure aimed at keeping the dictatorship in power.

nts Jir! Menzel's 'Closely Observed zechoslovakla. Ulster. 11.00 Film: "The Haunting'.

Weather. ULSTER: 11.15 London. 1.29 News.

1.30 London. 2.00 Women. 2.30 Car- toon. 2.40 Romper room. 3.00 Lon- don. 3.25 Randall and Hopkirk. 4.23 News. 4.25 Rainbow country. 4.50 London. 5.20 General hospital. 5.50 London. 6.00 Reports. London. 10.30 6.35 London. 7.30 Pathfinders. 8.30 Name of the game. 11.50 Look up.

YORKSHIRE:

9.40 Ed sten simon 10.05 Sullivan. 10.55 Dr Gilbert and macke 4.25 3.30. 11.20 London- 150 London. Danger Flintstones. man. 5.20 Me and alendar mess London. 6.00 Calendar. London. 7.30 Who do end do? 8.00 Hawaii five-o. 9.00 London. 10.30 Film: "The Miracle Worker'. 12.25 Weather.

GRANADA: 9.30 Enchanted house. 9.45 Gilbert and Sullivan.

10.30 Gal- 10.55 Spiderman. Timing Bond 325 London. House of 11.20 3.30 Danger 4.25 tree ure 4.50 London. man. Joe 90. 5.15 Dick Van Dyke: 5.50 London. 6.00 News. 6.20 Sky's the limit. 6.50 Film: Last of the Renegades'. 8.30 Comedians. 9.00 London. 10.30 Kick off. 10.55 Film: "Tea For Two'. 12.45 Spyforce.

TYNE TEES: 9.30 Larger than life. 9.40 Grasshopper island. vass 9.55 Ele- phant boy. 10.20 Dick Dyke. 10.45 North country. 11.10 London. 2.30 News. 2.31 Yoga. 3.00 London. 3.30 Danger man. 4.25 Woobinda. 4.50 bandon 5.45 5.20 Pebbles and bamm bamm. Cartoon. 5.50 London. 6.00 Today. 6.35 London. 7.30 Who do you do? 8.00 Hawaii five-o. 9.00 London. Cade'. 12.35 "The 10.30 Film: Sins of Rachel News. 12.40 Lectern.

SCOTTISH: 10.00

° London? • answer. easy 10.45 11.15 12.00 batman. 12.05 London. It takes a 2.30 Date- Gustavus. 3.30 line. 3.00 London. thief. _4.20 Nanny and the professor. 5.25 Crossroads. 5.50 4.50 London. London. 6.00 Today. 6.30 Who do 8.30 Come- yOu 9.00 London. Friday dians. 11.00 Late call. 11.05 Film: night. •A Cold Wind in August'. GRAMPIAN: 11.20 London. 12.00 News. 12.05 London. 2.00 Dick Van 2.30 London. 3.25 Let's face Dyke. it. 3.55 Woobinda. 4.25 Merrie melo- dies. 4.50 London. 5.20 General hos- 5.50 London. 6.00 News. 6.10 pital. Grampian week From 6.35 London. 7.00 Quentin'. Film: 'Escape San 8.30 Comedians. 9.00 London. 10.30 Job look. 10.35 Film: 'Bunny Lake is Missing'. 12.35 Meditation.

Brown quits Courtaulds in 'slave labour' row

BY ALEX MIT‹

LORD GEORGE-BROWN, the of the Labour Party, has been Courtauld's because of a disagr man, Lora Kearton, over the workers in South Africa. The £400m textile group has hold lic where workers are paid starvatior George Brown. • twisting the • night away aboard the QE2 on her maiden voyage. THE TUC bureaucrats are stepping up their efforts to save capitalism on behalf of the British ruling class.

Their latest document, 'Prices and Incomes: The Case for the Unions, invites the working class to make new sacrifices so thousand families that the few that own Britain can continue to live in their Mayfair night- club and country house week- end style. The TUC admits that the is to Tories' 'plain intention make working people relatively worse off than they are now in comparison with their landlords, the people who own shops and property, the company they work for or those who live off income from stocks and shares'. But then, several pages later, it calls on the same government to put things right. This is the real voice of the

TUC

bureaucracy. The anti- Tory invective is just for show to keep the workers happy.

"The way to get things mov- ing', says the pamphlet, is for the government to 'act quickly'.

And this is being asked of a Tory government which during the two years ten months it has been in office, has added still further to the inflationary spiral by deliberate anarchic policies.

The TUC further roquests 'a new approach in which the gov- ernment can act directly on checking imports without caus- ing drastic side effects else- where'. Import quotas would give us the time we need to alter the British industry so that we can become more competitive. Import quotas mean a na- tionalistic trade war against other countries in which the only people who really suffer are the working classes of these countries. The capitalist crisis will work itself out through trade war and slump leading to a shooting war with massive suffering for the working classes ONLY if the international working class lets it happen. The TUC are advocating pre- cisely this solution to the econo- mic problems—a capitalist solution.

X MITCHELL

as been forced to resign from a disagreement with the chair- ver the condition of African has holdings in the racialist repub- starvation wages. When articles about the and conditions wages on Courtauld's farms were pub- lished executives to investigate.

A report on Courtauld's timber farms by the University of Natal found 'appalling conditions' of dirt and ill- squalor, poverty, health at the Beaumont Wattle Estate. Five members of the university found conditions at Beaumont were 'disgraceful and wages far below subsistence level. 'The houses were filthy, the lavatories were infested with rat droppings, maggots and there was no furniture or beds in the houses, and the compound itself was a sea of mud. 'No sick pay, maternity leave, paid holidays or rations, were provided by the company to most of the workers who earned to the wages com- —according mission-as little as £10 a month.

MALNUTRITION

'According to the workers, their staple diet consisted meal porridge and pumpkin leaves. ..: the direct result of this poor diet was that many of the children on the farm had "pot bellies, thin arms, glazed eyes-the traditional signs of malnutrition"! It is understood that Brown, the company's productivity direc- tor, on a £5,000 a year retainer, visited the South African hold- ings recently. He reported to the company that, despite minor reservations, 'for Courtauld's' conditions employees were favourable.

former Foreign Brown, a Secretary and official of the Transport and General Workers' Union, apparently dis- was pleased with the revelations in 'The Guardian'. exchanges the During in House of Lords on March 22 he said that a number of British companies were operating stand- far higher than might be ards otherwise obtained if they were not there. Finally he asked Lady Tweeds- muir, Minister of State at the Foreign Office: 'Would the Minister say to Mr Alastair Hetherington, editor of "The Guardian" that he has done no service to anyone by the articles he has written?'

replied: The Tory Minister 'No'.

SOCIALIST LABOUR

LEAGUE PUBLIC

MEETINGS

Transform the SLL into the Revolutionary Party

TUESDAY, APRIL 10

8.30 p.m. Mona Hotel James Street Liverpool 1 Lecture: The economic crisis of world capitalism Manchester

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11

8 p.m. Angel pub, Chapel Street.

African workers transported to work f The clash betwen Kearton and Brown came when the two reported that The executives Guardian' article was substantially correct. This was despite the fact that Brown had paid at least two visits to the apartheid state at the expense of the company to examine conditions there.

When he first visited South Africa in May 1971 he told the Press at Heathrow: 'My wife and I will take some A NUMBER of Latin American countries are expected to back a bid by Peru to readmit Cuba to the Organization of Ameri- can States, from which it was expelled in 1962. Castro's regime has won re- spectability in the eyes of an increasing number of govern- ments in the area who are no longer operating the diplomatic and economic boycott imposed on Cuba under United States pressure in 1964. The Argentine President-elect Hector Campora, is pledged to re-establish relations with Cuba in the wake of Peru, Mexico,

SOCIALIST LABOUR

LEAGUE MEETING

Build the revolutionary party Join the Socialist Labour League Defend basic democratic rights Make the Tories resign

TUESDAY APRIL 10

7.30 p.m. Caedraw School Caedraw Merthyr Tydfil Speaker: G. Healy (SLL national secretary) Rosis ofide. Published aper Workere Post Office. Printed Newsdesk: 01-720 2000. 01-622 7029. Workers Press, to work from squalld camps in tractor-drawn v time seeing the place. We haven't been there before. We intend having rather a pleasant time.' While in the Wilson Cabinet, Brown led the campaign to re- sume the sale of arms to South Africa. This plan was scuttled when news of it leaked to the Press and there was an outcry from the trade unions and Labour constituencies. Six weeks after leaving the Chile and the West Indian coun-: tries. The OAS General Assembly is meeting in Washington and US influence will be used to main- tain the boycott. A number of governments are restive at US dominance, but can do little more than utter a few verbal protests. They depend upon Washington for arms and military support against social revolution and are no more than the guarantors for the predatory activities of the big US corporations which con- trol the economic life of Latin America.

SLL LECTURE

SERIES

The revolutionary party and the history of the British working class Caedraw School Merthyr Tydfil 7 p.m. Sundays April 8 and 22 Lectures given by Peter Jeffries The Unions and the working class in Britain. The Revolutionary Past of the British working class-and Its future. The Transformation of the SLL into a Revolutionary Party.

READING

Trotsky, Where is Britain Going? Problems of the British Revolution. Perspectives for Transforming the SLL into a Revolutionary Party. Marxist Analysis of the Crisis.

ts Press, Friday April 6, 1973

PAGE 11

or-drawn wagon. government, Brown accepted the Courtauld's directorship.

He told Pressmen: 'I bet the people I know in • Belper [his constituency] don't think I'm selling out to capitalism.'

Brown was hopelessly wrong.

At the General Election in 1970 he was resoundingly thrashed by a Tory. It was reported yesterday that following his abrupt departure from Courtauld's, Brown was 'somewhere in Scotland'. 01-622 7029 01-720 2000

SLL LECTURE

SERIES

The Socialist Revolution in Britain Middleton (nr Manchester) Hollins Social Centre Tintern Road, Hollins Estate 7.30 p.m. Monday April 9 and 16 Lectures given by Cliff Slaughter (SLL Central Committee) Soclailst The In Revolution Britain: 3. The state and revolution.

Reformism and revolution in Britain. The fight for democra- tic rights today means prepar- ing for working-class power.

Basic reading: Perspectives for transforming the SLL into a revolutionary party. Marxist Analysis of the Crisis.

Problems of the British Revo- lution (Trotsky). Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth Inter- national, Communist Manifesto.

Fate of Ford pay strike decided today Student leaders want to take SATURDAY AND SUNDAY, APRIL 14 & 15, WINTER GARDENS, BLACKPOOL PAGE 12 Workers Press, Friday April

APRIL FUND

NOW £113.21

LET'S PRESS

AHEAD

IT IS beginning to grow. Let's see if we can push our figure up by Saturday, which marks the ond of our first week. Keep up a steady pace and we could raise a record amount. As the reformist and so-called 'left' trade union leaders buckle under the Torles" offensive 'and prepare to accept Phases Two and Three, It is vital that an revolutionary. leader- alternative ship is built. alone, strug- Workers Press, gles to provide this leadership every day. As hospital workers, miners, gasmen, teachers face even greater attacks on their liv- Ing standards, more and more they feel the inadequacies of their union leadership for this fight. Our paper is therefore decisive today to show the way forward.

Don't sit back in any way there fore for our monthly Fund. Let's forge ahead never before. as Post all your donations to: Workers Press April Appeal Fund 186a Clapham High Street London SW4 7UG THE POST OFFICE Engineering Union has agreed to take one hour off in the TUC's May Day protest. The union's national executive has instructed its 285 branches to take part in a one-hour stop- page and has asked branches to make their own arrangements for implementing this decision.

A spokesman said the union had also agreed to make a dona- tion of £5,000 to Labour Party funds. believes that in the long 'It term the best way to change the present unfair economic policies is to work for the return of a Labour government,' the spokes.

man said. The union has 120,000 mem- bers, mostly employed on main- taining and installing the tele- phone network. THE CONSCIOUS retreat from leadership by the new Stalinist-led NUS executive produced a marathon eight- hour debate here yesterday on Tory education plans from which polities was all but ex- cluded. A resolution on the gov- ernment's White Paper education limited itself to 'condemning, opposing and challenging' the proposals for massive cuts and savings in the system. Conference approved the union's own counter-plan for the improvement and expansion of all aspects of education. The executive pledged to cam- White Paper paign against the and to enlist the widest possible force the govern- support to -

SATURDAY AND

day April 6, 1973 John Garnelt (left) of the Industrial Society looks on proudly as his grandchildren (right) wave Union Jacks at the Queen Mother.

CORPORATISM

received the companies would result as well Royal Assent yesterday when as greater satisfaction from a the Queen Mother opened the job well done. More of Indus- than 100 waited new headquarters the guests trial Society, off Pall Mall.

in little rooms above the building The Oueen Mother unveiled a Her for up hours for Royal Highness walk glass plaque at the Peter Runge to past House and said that if men and them and nod. women could be more personally They included Derek Gladwin Municipal of involved in what they are doing, the General and Workers' efficient profitable Union. more and

FROM IAN YEATS IN EXETER

ment' to decisions. The Stalinists and their sup- reverce ite The tone of the campaign was plainly intend to try porters to that it would solve student problems by talks set by the remark to round authorities and the prove impossible get with local the Tory government by mouth- government. ing revolutionary slogans'.

An amendment narrowly ap- proved on Wednesday night Stalinist speakers pushed the giving the executive power to line that students must unite to Tories with- with the negotiate Tory force the government to approval out prior education expand and hantaranno was a significant reversal of pre- trated all their fire on the tech- vious policy. nical inadequacies of the system.

Of equal significance, an emer- The near-apolitical mood gene- resolution call- gency executive rated by these tactics went so ing for the grants protest to be floor speaker who far that stepped up stipulated that while called for a ban on politics and strikes should rents continue. loudest politicians received the if should not do there they so applause of the day. was the i prospect of legal action The hallmark of the campaign being taken by university White Paper, college authorities. on the union colleges have grants Since several autonomy and on emer- already initiated legal action, to ged unmistakably yesterday as and others negotiation. recover rent arrears

¿ AND SUNDAY, APRIL 14 & 15, WINTER GARDENS, BLA

BY DAVID I

UNION LEADERS will today Ford pay struggle after a se Though reflecting all the cor union chiefs and their 'left' a these have overwhelmingly 1 $2.40 offer. Last night it was the turn of assembly and transmission plants about Ford's latest version of the ' The church was also on hand and the Reverend Simon Phipps, Bishop of Horsham, blessed the building and the work that the Industrial Society does 'in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. With God, the royal family, and the G&MWU on their side, the Industrial Society can't go far wrong. are expected to follow suit, if it is approved, the executive's call would amount to calling off that aspect of the campaign. In the resolution and through- yesterday's debate out new emphasis was laid on action by individual unions to win their claims. The perspective of indefinite simultaneous union-wide action against the Tories to win better free student unions education, and higher grants by forcing them out of office was ignored.

CORRECTION:

In Thursday's Workers Press it was stated that an IS amendment for condemning the executive their handling of the autonomy campaign was carried. In fact, it narrowly defeated by was 313,639 votes to 259,431. Pro- poser IS member Mike Hill did, however, win election as a mem- ber of the executive committee.

FOR DETAILS

TELEPHONE

01-622 7029

S, BLACKPOOL

Y DAVID MAUDE

ill today decide the fate of the er a series of mass meetings.

the confusion created by the 'left' and Stalinist hangers-on, ningly rejected the company's turn of the Halewood, Liverpool, n plants to make up their minds 1 of the Tories' Phase Two formula.

On Wednesday, Halewood's body stamping plant voted at a chaotic mass meeting to accept the offer. But workers stressed yesterday that the real issue at the meeting was disillusionment with the kind of leadership they have been getting so far. In Dagenham, body-plant workers backed up the decision of Tuesday's 20,000-strong, whole- site meeting to reject the offer by voting two to one to reject.

Most departments are calling for a work to rule and overtime ban to be maintained and moves for ballot, massively a secret boosted by the capitalist Press, are said to be 'encouraged by the management. Leyland trucks back WORKERS at British-Leyland's turn to work on Monday. Men at factories in Leyland and Chorley have been on strike since Tuesday morning. After a 50-50 vote on a show of hands at a mass meeting, works convenor Mr Len Brindle exercised his vote in favour of the return. But the meeting was unani- mously in favour of postponing the return until Monday-as • a protest. The men were told that the "dug Leyland management had their heels in' and were insisting that all the 8,500 men should re- turn, including engine assembly workers involved in a sectional wages claim. Mr Brindle said negotlations would continue and he stipulated a time limit of two weeks for them to reach common ground on a new wage deal. When challenged about a secret-ballot petition they were organizing, a group of engine- plant workers claimed to have management permission. Slogans calling for a secret ballot are said to have been written on a wall by a super- VISOr. One engine-test worker calling for a secret ballot, Peter Bradiey, has been gıven big publicity by the media. But his claim that 2,000 to 3,000 men could not get in to which in- Tuesday's meeting, cidentally was conducted under the aegis of the Ford manage- ment, are described 'utter as rubbish' by eye-witnesses.

Calls were expected to be made at last night's Halewood meetings for the union leaders playing with the forc to stop workers' claim and lead a real • laws. fight against the Tory pay