TUC hides behind Heath

THE TUC leaders surrendered abjectly to Tory demands within hours of the announcement of the record trade deficit and the closer approach of deflation.

Instead of a fight to bring down the Tory government, which is what the working class is more and more demanding, the trade union bureaucrats, led by Victor Feather, Jack, Jones, and Hugh Scanlon, agreed instead to help the Tories out of their crisis.

Their decision to continue with a government which Mayor of Pontefract's admission in bribes case 'Backhanders' the order of the A FORMER mayor said yesterday that, as public relations officer for a contracting firm, he gave 'backhanders' to officials and councillors.

In one case, £1,000 was paid out, Maurice Byrne, former Mayor of Pontefract, told Leeds Crown Court.

The 'backhanders' were on behalf of Carlton Contractors Ltd, a London-based firm whose head office was at Epsom, Surrey.

Flaxton Byrne (48), a shopkeeper has pleaded guilty to ten charges of corruption. Sentence has been Picket planned for 'Shrewsbury 24' case A LOBBY of trade unionists from London and the northwest will gather at Shrewsbury, Shropshire, today when 19 bullding workers face conspiracy charges.

A total of 24 bullding workers from North Wales and Merseyside have been charged under the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act of 1875.

Police Initiated the prosecutions after a six-month Investigation of last year's bullding workers' strike.

On March 15 Fares claim puts Labour on the spot MINIMUM fares on many INIMUM fares on many London Underground journeys will go up from 5p to 10p under plans just submitted to the Labour-controlled Greater London Council.

London Transport is asking for bus and underground fares increases which will boost revenue by £15m. It amounts to an all-round increase of 10 per cent on present revenue.

The proposed increases would start in January and another application may be needed later in 1974 to cover the cost of "special measures'.

Under the scheme, 37 per cent of the minimum fares on the Underground will go up from 5p to 10p and 29 per cent of 10p fares will go up to 15p. There will also be an average 15-per-cent increase in season tickets-greater in cases where the discount has become 'completely unrealistic' The bus minimum fare will go up from 3p to 4p, then rise in 2p stages for aduits. Flat tares on Red Arrow buses will stay at 5p.

Tube commuters from outer state controls on wages-while prices and rents rocket sky high-and which is coordinating the onslaught on trade union rights-through speed-up, provocations and the Industrial Relations Act, will sharpen the crisis of leadership within the trade union movement. unions, conflict will come right into the une Conict wl come root into cune summer conterences, particularly he Amalgamated Union of Engineerins Workers next week and the Transport and collaboration General Workers' Union in July. has imposed The demands must now be stepped up day in contracting industry postponed until after the trial of three other men who deny charges of corruption.

Anthony Joseph Flannery (39), director, of Westbrook Close, Horsforth, near Leeds, has denied Il charges of corruption.

Brian Norman Woodcock (47), director of Hobbs Lane, Kirk Ireton, Derbyshire, has denied two charges of corruption and William Starling (44), director, of The Baulk, Staincross, near Barnsley, has denied nine charges.

The offences are alleged to have been committed between 1968 and 1970.

pickets — bullding workers, Liverpool dockers, steelmen from Shotton - converged on the Shropshire town to protest against the show trial of the building workers.

At today's lobby there will be delegations from London trade union branches. The Lambeth Trades Council has voted unanimously to set up a defence fund for the charged A statement by the trades council said: "The trial is a savage new attack on basic democratic rights tought by generations of trade unlonists.' BY OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT London face a shock - their season tickets would in future be charged at 'inner cone' rates.

On the buses, in north, northeast and south London, some 3p and 5p fares which are now 'below scale' would go up to 6p and 8r to bring them into line, say London Transport. There would also be a corresponding rise in some other 'sub-standard" fares at higher levels. But the fares affected are only 1 per cent of all London bus fares.

Suburban flat-rate bus fares would go up from 4p to 5p (from 2p to 3p for a child), monthly bus seasons from £6 to £7, and annual ones from £60 to £70. The child's offpeak fare for journeys up to a mile would be withdrawn.

But the 3p 'any distance' offpeak bus fare continues for children and concessionary permit holders. Go-as-you-please ticket buses unlimited travel on most buses and Underground, are going up -for example: a four-day adult ticket from £2.90 to £3.20, a crisis.

Mr Peter Taylor, QC, prosecuting, has said that Byrne, the three other men and a man named Allen, who had since left the country, formed the management team of the Northern division of Carlton Contractors.

He alleged they had accepted bribes from subcontractors architects and put work their way' in connection with local authority housing contracts in the north of England.

Byrne, cross-examined yesterday by Mr Gilbert Gray, tor Flannery, agreed that he believed 'backhanders' to be the order of the day in the contracting industry.

The ones he had given varied 'from repairs to a motorcar, to up to £1,000'.

•Was that quite Mr Gray.

'On a number of occasions, but not on my own behalf,' said Byrne.

'This was always agreed to by the management of Carlton Northern and confirmed by the board at Epsom, which included the whole of the directors, including the managing director of Trafalgar House.

'No money was paid out unless the chief financial officer for Trafalgar House, Mr Parker, authorized it.

green light for this was given at Epsom, and Flannery 00Г seven-day ticket from £3.80 to seven-day ticket from £3.80 £4.20.

Examples of the proposed cuts in fare-stage distances: the 5p minimum underground fare would cover a mile's journey instead of 1.3 in the inner zone; a 25p fare would cover 10.5 miles instead of 12 in the inner zone.

On buses, however, a 12p offpeak maximum fare would apply for suburban journeys of seven to 11 miles, which would normally cost 14p to 18p.

London Transport's shock fare demands come only nine months after fares were last increased in September 1972.

It puts the new Labour council completely on the spot. In the election campaign Sir Reginald Goodwin, the Labour leader, promised to 'stabilize' the soaring price of fares.

One method being discussed by the Labourites is to increase the rates!

Goodwin said yesterday: 'London Transport's application to increase fares will be scrutinized closely in the light of our election pledge.

The new GLC is firmly committed to encouraging people back on to ublic transport by adopting a ow fares policy' in trade and money markets. The £209m instability of the capitalist system itself, to break off the Downing Street talks and mobilize the united strength of the labour and trade union movements to force the Tories to resign and Labour to bring in socialist policies to solve the economic The TUC must not be allowed to hide behind Tory bogus explanations of why the capitalist economy is falling apart from uncontrollable inflation and chaos trade deficit is a reflection of the inherent would Epsom.

Local councillors or were involped.

Earlier, Byrne agreed that he knew Mr John Poulson and met him several times. He also knew that the Open System Building company was the brain-child of Mr Poulson.

A firm called Haslam Milan was the licensed contractor for Open System Building in Yorkshire and Haslam's public relaOCIALIST LABOUR EAGUE LECTURES Liverpool Sunday June 17 Marxism and the study Sunday June 24 Trade Unions and politica struggle in Britain Sunday July 8 hartism, yesterday and •Sunday July 15 The Revolutionary Party and the British working class Stanley Halls Upper Parliament Stree SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE LECTURES Barnsley Given by Gerry Healy National Secretary Socialist Labour League Sunday June 17 materialist conception Sunday June 24 Dialectical Materialism— larxist theory of knowled Sunday July 8 Theory and Practise Marxism Sunday July Role of the evolutionary Party The Red Lion Worsborough Near Barnsley 7.30 p.m. which must be ended if the disastrous consequences of deflation and massive unemployment are to be avoided.

The TUC's acceptance of the Tory Chancellor's explanation inflation ('There is a distinction between internal causes and external causes') is a betrayal of the working class to further wage controls and unending price rises.

Inflation is a deliberate capitalist weapon to help the Tory employers defeat working class internationally. The burdens of inflation are then borne by the working class. Ihe only way to end inflation is to end cipitalism.

tions work was done by Dan Smith. 'I had a PRO arrangement with Dan Smith, not Haslam Milan,' said Byrne.

He denied that by doing that work there was a conflict of interests with his work for Carlton Contractors.

The Judge said: 'What is being put is that in accepting money from Dan Smith there was a conflict?' Byrne said: 'I don't think there was.' THE CASE CONTINUES SOCIALIST LABOUI LEAGUE LECTURE!

Manchester given by Peter Jeffries Sunday June 17 Marxism and the study Sunday June 24 Trade Unions and politi struggle in Britain Sunday July 8 ¡hartism, yesterday and Sunday July 15 The Revolutionary Party and the British working class Black Lion 3lackfriars St/Chapel Si near Salford Bus Station 7.30 p.m.

SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE Lectures given by Cliff Slaughte (SLL Central Committee)

The Socialist Revolution in Britain: 1. Political tasks facing the British working class. Marxism and the revolutionary role of the working class. Lessons of the history of the working class in Britain. 2. The roots of capitalist crisis: Marxism and the contradictions of capitalism.

Britain and the world crisis. 3. The state and revolution. Britain: The tia te revolution Britain. tor CAmO. cratic rights today means preparing for working-class power.

Basic reading:

Perspectives for transforming the SLL into Marxist Analysis of the Crisis.

Problems Revolution (Trotsky). British Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International, Communist Manifesto.

Sunday June 17,24, July 8 Stockingfarn 1 Community Centre, Str ockingfarm 7.30

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