The politics behind the 'picket-busters'

strike and bi siege engine official Anti-working class statements by driver and middle-man BIG is the professional - breaking organization in by Chrysler's to try through the pickets of the Stoke, Coventry, plant? And how much backing does it have?

Piecing information together from local sources and the limited news in the capitalist Press, which has clearly been instructed to play the issue down, a picture emerges of a politically-planned operation of long standing with support in high places.

The organizer of the Coventry raid vas Tony Bilton, described as an exparatrooper. He is also variously described as a haulage contractor and an advertising agent.

He agreed to pay five men f500 each to cut their way through a fence into the Stoke plant before dawr last Monday and drive out the gates past pickets with engine loads prepared by the company. The deal was finalized at Bob's Cafe on the A45 outside Coventry.

Serious allegations have been made against these midnight raiders; injuring one worker, John Docherty, inside Stoke by assaulting him with an iron bar when he discovered them preparing : to drive out of the plant; hurling bricks and bottles at the pickets as the trucks raced out of the gates; and crushing a security guard at the Dunstable plant when they delivered the engines.

But much more important is the politics behind this raid.

John Walker (37), of Toynbee Street, Stepney, one of the drivers, has revealed:

'I was all lined up to do a job for him [Bilton] during the coal miners' strike last year.

'That didn't come off. But he got in touch with me again during the container dispute.

'I didn't actually • do run then, but I was willing.

'He came through again at the end of last week. I went up to Coventry to have a look with him and he told me the firm wanted to get eight loaded containers out.' John Walker added:

'He's a funny fellow. He puts on the accent of the people he is talking to. He talked to us in Cockney, and to the blokes up there in Brummie. And once I a commando raid or a bank job, heard him talk northern.

I really don't want to know CHRYSLER UNITED KINGDOM 'art of the picket line at who he is because 1 want more jobs like this.

Bilton himself told the 'Sunday Mirror had offers of money, big money, from indust ry. I have four more raids on my books. Two of them are con nected with the car industry.' Bilton mingled with the strikers at Saturday's mass meeting which voted to return to work.

The 'Guardian' reported that the police have interviewed the man 'employed by Chrysler to organize the picket - breaking operation'-Tony Bilton.

His name was supplied by the company. He was described as a haulage broker in Chesterfield.

But the 'Guardian' added:

'The main haulage contractors in the Chesterfield area said last night that they had not known that any such broker was operating locally. He could not, they saze, run a business of any great But Chryslers knew about this mysterious well enough. The whole operation was planned in great detail, and, most significantly, the police were involved in helping to carry it out.

The 'Sunday Times' reported:

*The company does not dispute that it engaged a "contractor" •.. The early hours of Monday morning were selected because there was no nightshift working at Stoke at that time.

'Strict orders were given that the police should be present.' It continued:

'In the event, something went wrong. Sub-sub-contractors entering through a hole in the carpark fence, guided by white painted oil drums in the style of were rumbled by pickets.' Pickets said that at the sound the Stoke plant. of a car horn at about 2 a.m., the barrier of No. 5 gate was raised and a military-style convoy of three articulated lorries, led by a white Avenger car (made at Chrysler's strike-hit Ryton plant) swept out of the plant at about 40 m.p.h.

The 'Daily Mail' reported that John Walker and his brother David then . . . 'went back to collect a load of van engines this time with a police escort.

The lorries had originally driven with their lights off, except for the lead lorry, in convoy to the Stoke plant from the Blue Boar service area on the MI where they rendezvoused.

David Walker, according to the 'Mail' ... admitted he was anxious to get into the [Dunstable] plant before the day shift arrived, and in doing so took his load too close to the gate-house, crushing the duty security guard, Mr Terry WalkerSpiers.

• Yesterday the brothers, went to see the injured guard at the Luton and Dunstable hospital. Mr Walker-Spiers was not very impressed by their apologies.

"They were the worst drivers I have seen at the plant," he said.' The 'Guardian' reported:

'Mr Walker-Spiers, who has worked for Chrysler for four years, said that the Walker brothers were not the sort of haulage firm he would have expected his employers to get involved with.

'He said that John Walker had told him that a Chrysler man had been with the lorry convoy, drat this main dad showar, and where the engines were, and then driven with them to Dunstable ' There would seem to be considerable circumstantial evidence for an inquiry into the role of the police in this affair to see if they have not been condoning driving without lights on the highway and a number of other incidents.

It is not difficult to imagine what an uproar there would have been, and how quickly the police would have acted in arresting been essed the same tactics had the other way about —by picketing workers against a company.

The responsibility of Chryslers in these legally-dubious actions also seems worthy of inquiry.

Harold Walker, Labour spokesman for employment, has called for 'some kind of inquest' into the appalling behaviour OII those professional strike-busters'.

But the only real answer to the organized violence of the ruling class is mass political action by the working class.

This was clearly no isolated incident, but part of a whole political strategy for use against the trade union movement, particularly the event General Strike.

Before bringing in the picketbusters, Chryslers had been takine onotoeradas the linet police files are full on pictures of active trade unionists.

A SPY Photographer took snaps demonstrators latest Shrewsbury building workers' trial.

Bilton told the 'Daily Mirror':

'I've done it before and I'll do it again willingly. I refuse to stand by and let militi ints and agitators bring this cor intry to its knees. I know of at least 16 professional agitators in the Chrysler plant.

I'm British and proud of it and I won't stand by and watch strikes like this strangle the country' Bilton, of Staveley, near Chesterfield , described himself as an 'advertising agent' and a 'professional strike breaker'. He added: patriot. can say 'You I'm a true John Walker told the 'Mail':

I believe that every man should be given a free hand within the law and no man hould prevent another mai rom working.

I've done wrong when I was a young man but I've pa d • the 'Normally, we're fighting for a bit of the crust, but if there are any more jobs like this going, then I'm your man.

I'm pleased we done it. These strikers are ruining the country and it's time people stood up to them.

'My brother and myself are trying to make a living. But what happens? You get to the docks or to a factory with a GET YOUR BOOKS. PERIODICALS AND 10:03:190 CHRYSLER MONEY The trucks that never made it. These trailers, which were driven through picket lines at the Stoke engine plant, coventry, later overturned in a field, spilling out their 'black' contents. load you've brought 200 miles and a picket line expects you to turn round and go away.

It's not us that's breaking the law, it's them. I know the law about picketing. It says they can give information. But it doesn't say they can throw bottles at you, prevent you getting through, and smash up your motor. 'Too right I'm against them.' These extremist right-wing attitudes are aimed directly at the organizational solidarity of the working class which is its only defence against the onslaught on basic democratic rights being conducted by the Tory government and the employers.

The working class must consciously prepare to defend itself against more and more frequent examples of this kind of extremist political attack.

NEWSPAPERS FROM THE PAPERBACKS CENTRE 28-CHARLOȚITE STREET LONDON, WIF Open • Neoradiay to StatradEiny

PAGE Tuesday m ST I3.21