Greek Trotskyists greet

cent of a ship's time in port could be eliminated if the 24hour day, 7-day week were adopted.

They note that this has 'social disadvantages' but say that if the economic advantages are important enough, then social ence ames be accepted. few examples shift work are given. Rotterdam has a 41-hour night shift worked between 5.30 p.m. and 3.30 a.m. with a half-hour break. Buenos Aires works four six-hour shifts, which start at 7 a.m. and 1 p.m.

Hamburg is given as having 60 per cent of the men on the day shift, 30 per cent on the late afternoon and 10 per cent on the night shift.

Further aspects of the efficiency Pbses terilude reich, absenteeism, which, says the Report, can be reduced by ending the registration of the regular offender.

A port where full flexibility of working is operated is defined as that where there is no obstacle to shifting men from hatch to hatch, from one ship to another, from ship to shore and from job to job.

The report examines 'unroductive time' which is de ined as time in which docker: are being employed and are being remunerated, during which time no cargo is being loaded or discharged. The imlication of 'unproductive time that during period dockers are not really working at all - this works out at equivalent to standing idle.

Thus, in New Zealand, with work on the overseas ships the claim is made that total unproductive time in 1966 amounted to 56.3 per cent of paid time.

This so-called 'unproductive time' included the following:

Fi. working time other than cargo work, including the time taken in the re.

moval and replacement of hatches, rigging gear, cleaning and preparing holds, shifting and re - stowing cargo, ii. time taken on noncontract work such as mails, luggage, livestock, etc., iii. weather delays, travelling time, smoke periods, time awaiting trucks, breakdown machinery, or shortage of mechanical equipment.

Port managements are especially anxious to pronounce as much of the work as possible 'unproductive' when payment-by-results schemes operate so as to cut extra payments to the minimum. Employers are also reluctant to admit the need for recognized rest periods.

At the most they would prefer system of staggered breaks. The Report comments:

'From the point of view of the ship, there would appear to be every advantage in not having fixed breaks, but to enable the work to carry on, giving the dockers enough to satisty physical needs and to obtain refreshments.

• however, there is the fear that any attempt to regard any period in which the worker is "at ease" as "unproduc- tive" and to be eliminated may well defeat its own object.

will create resentment and the workers concerned aote more likely to protect themselves bj slowing down the pace of work.' WORK STUDY Under this heading the ILO eport says :

"Improvement in the co-ordination of the movement cargo-can oiten result in the application of work study methods to cargo handling.

This has been practised to an increasing degree in many ports.' This heading mainly covers work study, which is the examination of dock layout and the ways men work and time study which times every movement made to the hundredth of a minute.

For example, it examines 'What portion of the time during which it could be used is the hook idle and unloaded?

Are slings or pallets not loaded quickly enough? If so, why?

For how much of the time is the load kept hanging on the hook waiting to be received?.

What prevented quicker clearance under the hook?' Containerization is well under way at Tilbury. Above a container is lifted on to a lorry.

The Report refers to the fact that plans are in operation in Britain to train all new dock supervisors, and between a third and a half of all existing supervisors, in industrial relations, communications, port economics, and work study.

CONDITIONS

The Report makes points about what ought to be. Such and such conditions of working 'should' exist.

As regards safe working and hygiene, employers themselves are not slow to the of liork correct methods working They do not particularly want the hold-ups and inconvenience of accidents but the work and the supervision itself negates the principle.

The ILO quotes a Belgian Labour Inspector's report of 1954:

'From the lave had accident inquiries I have to carry out in the port, I can without the fear of the facts contradicting me, affirm that the great majority of accidents are primarily caused by haste, over-zealousness, and excessive speed in the execution of the work!

strange contrast indeed to the theories of 'unproductive work' and the drive for greater efficiency which always imply that before these methods were introduced dockers did nothing but stand about all day.

Some further comments on safety and hygiene:

blocks are either virtually norexistent, or much too far apart.

Maintenance has to be provided if they are to be kept in clean and decent order."

'The proVISIOn of drinking water is obviously a difficulty yet when work is so strenuou:

t should be provided. In othe areas where piped water is used for other purposes, it is not safe to drink Clear notices, understandable to even distinguish the taps needed the illiterate are to and again Suitable and adequate washin acilitie should be provided for all dockers at places readily accessible to them.' and •:. showers . . should be regarded as absolutely essential where dockers are handling argo liable to expose them t kin contamination, and shoul in such cases, be compulsory ... changing rooms should be provided with lockers fo1 clothes and facilities for dry ing wet clothing...

A few remarks in the Rea hide or same of the real conditions of dockers throughout the world : that many lockers have to eat meals the ring with them in the hold of ships or in 'sheltering in railway the Middle East. dockers mav re. ceive one free meal a day, not EV BEHIND THE BBC television strike lies considerable uncertainty. This uncertainty will endanger future struggles unless important issues are faced in time.

Two major unions are involved, the Association of Broadcasting Staff (ABS) and the Association of Cinematograph, Television and Allied Technicians (ACTT).

ABS, which rejected a 4 per cent pay offer accepted by NAKTE and the ETU, represents between 6,000 and 8,000 BBC workers in various jobs in both radio and television. This is approximately one-third of all BBC employees.

ABS also has some members in commercial television, but is specially strong there amongst the crucial section of workers who run the transmitters and relay stations.

ABS is officially recognised by the BBC and for many years its leadership has been very close to management. At one period up to about the mid-1950s this closeness came naturally from a predominantly middle-class membership, or at very least a membership almost completey suffused with middle-class ideas about their status and role.

Gradually, however, the workers in the industry have changed.

Whole new layers of technicians had to be recruited for the studios, the film departments, the recording suites. Even the producers and directors, traditionally the bulwark of safe respectability, began to change.

Working-class people pulled out of their class and pushed through the educational system came more and more into the industry as it expanded. But contradictorily the reconditioning process of education didn't just produce docile technicians.

These changes, in conjunction with the pressures for more and more productivity and from the rapidly rising cost of living, have led to a crisis within the ABS.

This crisis reached a crucial stage earlier this year when the membership passed a vote of no confidence in the then general secretary Mr Leslie Littlewood.

This action resulted from a wide feeling that the leadership was not pursuing the interests of the membership with sufficient militancy and it TIR simplest facilities. Said to be very short of funds the ABS is far from being in touch with its members.

One large section of workers, for example, does not even have easy access to an ABS notice board. There is also little sign of the necessary concerted action which could bring out ITV members in support.

The other major union involved in the stoppage, the ACTI, has something over 2,000 members in the BBC, but despite years of negotiations and a recommendation in its favour by the Pilkington Committee it is still not recognised by the BBC.

Representing the majority of workers in commercial television and the film industry, ACTT has won • many important manning and pay victories for its members over the years.

The BBC has always known that once ACTT got a foothold inside, conditions of work and rates of pay would come under very close scrutiny and strong attack from workers previously tied to the more compliant ABS.

Even now it is attempting to buy off ABS members by threatening to include backdated 4 per cent rise in monthly pay cheques anyway. A cynical act which workers will know how to deal with.

And the BBC's determination to keep out the ACTI has resulted in some most ungentlemanly acts. Denied all facilities, ACTT shop stewards once left copies of the union journal in the BBC club.

These were removed and, it is strongly rumoured, burnt. They certainly disappeared without a trace.

Worse future

of the International Committee of the 4th International, extends its warmest greetings to you on the tremendous achievement of publishing the first daily Trotskyist paper at the end of a 5-year period of betrayal by the Wilson clique, is not only a great gain for the British working class and the struggle to build the revolutionary party in Britain; it is, first and foremost, a great victory for the international working class. It could not have been possible without the ceaseless conscious struggle for Marxism in the international workers' movement, carried out by the forces of the IC with the Socialist Labour League and "The Newsletter' in the forefront, against all the sell-outs of Stalinism, social-democracy and their revisionist hangers-on. In its turn, the WORKERS' PRESS will undoubtedly bring a new qualitative gain to 6.45, 7.05, 7.30, Dear Comrades, The Workers' Internationalist League, Greek section in the world. The timely appearance of the WORKERS' PRESS, this struggle.

BEHIND THE This includes laboratory workers and others crucial for the normal running of television.

The merger proceedings will probably be strengthened • but are still reckoned to be at least a year and probably 18 months from completion. If ABS is successful in this dispute, it could also have the opposite effect by deluding members with a show of militancy.

The most important dangers facing television workers in the present and coming struggles are similar to those met by workers in other industries.

Firstly, divisions in their own ranks, both within unions, between unions and between members and the 9.15 a.m.-12.23 p.m., For Schools and Colleges. 1.0, Bob Yn Dri. 1.30, Watch With Mother. 1.351.45, News and Weather. 2.52.35, For Schools and Colleges. 3.45, Malcolm Muggeridge Asks The Question Why. 4.20, Play School. 4.40, Jackanory. 4.55, Wacky Races and Space Kidettes. 5.15, Monster Music Mash. 5.44, Babar. 5:50, National News and Weather. 6.00, London -Nationwide: news, features, opinions.

Z Cars.

Tomorrow's World.

Professional Boxing: The Heavyweight Championship of Great Britain, Jack Bodelly, Carl Gizzl.

Tuesday At Eight: Theatre Date, The Crunch.

The Main News and Weather.

The Colour Line: a film about the dilemma of South Africans neither white nor black.

Who's Killing The Car? 24 Hours Including The Moon Men.

Viewpoint: Don Salvador de Madariage. 11.35, Weatherman. 10.00-10.30 (Rowbridge, Brighton)

The Party's Over: review of the Party Conferences. the daily paper leadership. It is vital to fight out the principled differences involved and to get a broad unity around these principles. their onds interests. These aut often heightened because many technicians work closely with individual producers and directors and feel a divided loyalty between their own proper class interest and their desire not to wreck programmes in which they are deeply involved.

The only resolution of this particular split is for producers and directors (often members of the same unions) to understand where their own interest lies.

Notions of creative freedom and individual liberty are nonsensical in the present system.

The price for such illusions is very high. In return for some choice of project and pace, within very carefully defined limits, and for being able to work without an overseer, they give themselves completely, 'and not through fear but through conscientiousness.

As a result, these peoplebrain workers like doctors, lawyers, writers • • • television producers - don't want to see and cannot see that their professional frockcoat is nothing but a prisonuniform of better cut than ordinary' (Trotsky:

" The Intelligentsia and Socialism'.)

They must understand that the present crisis is not limited to television. It is the crisis of the whole of world capitalism expressing itself in their industry as in others.

Programme makers, broadcasters and technicians will face important tests • in the Northern Ireland: 6.0-6.45 p.m., Scene Around Six: Northern The WORKERS' PRESS is a living inspiration and source of confidence for us in our own struggles for a fortnightly 'Ora Tis Allaghis' as a first step towards forging a powerful communist press-indispensable to the fight to build the revolutionary party in Greece.

In this period of the deepening crisis of imperialism the achievement of the SLL and the YS demonstrates clearly that only the forces of Trotskyism can face the enormous class battles ahead, confident of the triumph of the world proletarian revolution under the Trotskyist banner! LONG LIVE THE WORKERS' PRESS! LONG LIVE THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL! Fraternally yours, Thanasis Lanaras, on behalf of the Central Committee League of Greece. coming period. They should not forget the roles played by their Czech and French counterparts.

They too will have to take sides. The man who tries to walk in the middle of the road is run over from both directions.

Finally, the greatest danger of all. No television workers should think that mere economic struggles can bring real changes.

Both union leaderships are reformist, one slightly more so than the other.

More militant The ACTT is undoubtedly more militant than the ABS, but that is not saying a great deal. Its conduct of the strike in commercial television last year was described by one steward as 'a mess' and the attitude of its leadership to the recent upheavals London Weekend Television (LWT) was totally inadequate.

It was only the strength of the LWT shop which prevented a head office motion dismissing the dispute as a managerial dog-fight. It failed completely to appreciate the depth of the crisis and its meaning for the future of workers in • industry.

As well as a number of oldguard Stalinists, it contains a liberal-radical group who were responsible for the ACTT's resolution to this year's TUC.

It called for 'those authorities responsible for the management and government of broadcasting services to enable employees, through their trade unions, to participate in the policy decision of those authorities' of the Workers' Internationalist uch reformist requests to arucipation are lethal to th real, revolutionary, interests of the working class. They create only confusion.

The present dispute is only a warm-up to what is round the corner.

Although effective, Saturday's stoppage did not require all members to show solidarity since many were not at work that day anyway. The test of united strength is still to come.

It is clear from Mr Rhys' letter to 'The Times' (October 8) and the reply by the director-general of the BBC (October 9) that this battle is really being fought against the economic and incomes policy of the Labour government. The latter provides a barricade, albeit weak : and much breached, for the BBC to shelter behind. And besieged it is.

But to take on governments requires real organization !

Since its conference no one can now have any • illusions about the Tories' intentions for anti - union legislation. There's no help to be got there. What does that leave to workers in struggle ?

The only serious possibility is to join the struggle for revolutionary consciousness; to join the struggle to build the mass revolutionary party.

Join the struggle to overthrow this system that can only prolong its own decay at the expense of other people whose labour creates all its wealth. To join the All Trades Unions Alliance and to work with the Socialist Labour League.

Programme to Note: "The Colour Line', BBC-1, Tuesday October 14, 9.10 p.m.