Trade unions glass strikers

King out to help Cornfeld FOUR THOUSAND st workers yesterday gave 1 pronged attack launchec weekend.

With an overwhelming vote to continue their five-week-old strike until Pilkington's improve their rejected £3 pay offer they: DEFIED the company's threat of redundancies and lay-offs. SCOTCHED the witch-hunt scare stories retailed by the national-press.

THREW OUT their union's offer of £12 a striker if they returned to work and SPIKED THE GUNS of Mrs Castle's court of inquiry.

Only about 30 men voted in favour of a return to work.

Strike committee chairman Jerry Caughey asked those attending the meeting to hold • any Maoist badges or books they might be carrying, but none were forthcoming.

'RED HERRING' He described a claim that such articles were circulating in the own as or edi cim;

siege AUGUSTA (Georgia) police opened fire again on Tuesday night, injuring a 16-year-old Negro youth.

1,000 National Guardsmen are now patrolling this battletorn city where six Negro workers were shot during demonstrations against the mysterious death of a Negro youth in an Augusta prison cell.

Mayor Beckum's appeal to Negro leaders for co-operation in restoring 'law and order' in Augusta was turned down.

They demanded that all Negroes arrested since the clashes began should be released and granted an amnesty. Georgia's Governor Maddox, the racialist who distributed pickaxe handles to his supporters for use against militant Negroes, has mounted a Cambodian-style invasion of Augusta.

Convoy

His National Guard 'task force',-1,850 strong - roared into Augusta in a convoy of armoured personnel carriers equipped with machine-guns.

Augusta has been placed under curfew. 400 state are driving aroung policemen troopers and 130 with shotguns pointing out of their car windows.

Governor Maddox gave clear instructions to his troops:

'Blow whatever they're [the city's Negroes] in off its foundations until peace is restored in Augusta.' 'Conspiracy' He told his National Guard that the Negro demonstrations are 'part of the conspiracy that has been planned and well organized to help bring this country to its knees.' In the language of Agnew, Nixon and Westmoreland, Maddox explained how he intended to bring the Negro workers of Augusta 'to their knees':

'We've got the equipment. We've got the guns. We've got the personnel. We've got the trucks. We've got whatever is necessary to be sure we restore peace in that area' Already the Negro quarter iking St Helens glassheir answer to the fouragainst them since the shop stewards loyal to the General and Municipal Workers' Union leadership, yesterday continued their search for evidence to back it up.

However, hard evidence is apparently in such short supply that newspaper reports sparked by their original allegations are now being used as 'proof.

Perhaps this circular process could be the final solution to the Tories' difficulties in building up a witch-hunt!

Far more serious is Pilkington's attempt to drive through a split in the strike with the threat of closure and warnings that workers could be sacked if they contract out of the G&MWU.

SUPPORT

No trade unionist in the Merseyside and S Lancashire area can allow this kind of employer to go unanswered.

Maximum moral and financial support for the Pilkington strikers must now be strengthened with decisions in every factory in the area to act immediately if any moves are made to carry out either threat.

New TU "reform' threat TORY leader Edward Heath yesterday reathrmed his pledge 'to introduce the reform of industrial relations as a matter of the utmost urge had The Labour government resolutely set their face against any measures to deal with the problem of 'wild-cat' strikes, he said.

Trade BRITISH trade with the rest of the world showed an £1l million deficit last month— the second in nine months.

Exports, according to the Board of Trade, went up f7 million to a record £679 million, but imports rose by £20 million to a new peak of £750 million. The April deficit contrasted with March's f4 million surplus.

The imports increase reflects the rise in wage rates since the government was forced to abandon its incomes policy. Lenin Centenar! 1970 THE YEAR OF LENN & TROTSKY..: LENINISM second of two London lectures to mark the 100th anniversary of Lenin's birth

CAMBODIA

Navy blocks coast NIXON'S Cambódian war spread yesterday to the Gulf of Thailand, where US naval patrols have just begun.

Denying that this new move was in fact a blockade, US military sources claimed that naval operations off the Cambodian coast are only a logical extension of the invasion that began on May 1.

It was reported from the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh-at present under pro-US rule-that forces are still in action at the strategic Mekong ferry town of Kompong Cham.

Fighting close to Phnom Penh was also reported in areas to the North and South. Pulled out It was l announced from Saigon that the Third BrigDivision had already anten already been pulled out of Cambodia, where it had been operating in the 'Parrot's Beak' area since May 1.

Its alleged mission-to discover and destroy the SO-called head office of the NLF -has met with almost total failure.

Nobody must be put off their guard by this report of a partial withdrawal.

The Third Brigade has been pulled out simply because there are no more peasants to terrorize and kill and no more villages left to 'search and destroy.

Announcement Nixon s invasion of Cambodia was heralded by his an nouncement that 150,000 US troops were to leave Vietnam over the next year.

We must treat his new claim that all US troops will leave Cambodia by June 30 with the scepticism it deserves. If anything, the war has been intensified, with US-backed naval sorties up the Mekong River and now the blockade of the Cambodian coast around the port of Sihanoukville.

deficit The continued strength and militancy of the working class continues to undermine the employers' plans for. "stabilizing' the economy at the workers' expense.

Initial reaction on the London Stock Exchange was 'disappointing', according to reports.

Sterling dropped three points against the dollar and share prices - already depressed by the continued slide on Wall St-fell further.

Sh 114 Monday, May 18, 7.30 p.m. • Lenin and the coming English Revolution' Lecture given by HEALY, national secretary of the Sociallst Labour League BEAVER HALL arlick Hill, London, E.C.4 Mansion House tube stat Admission two shillings YE REMOR

sealed off. Roadblocks have been set ip at key points in the rest of Augusta, and the streets are constantly patrolled by armed policemen and soldiers.

Augusta is in effect an occupied city.

Deeper

Although the immediate cause of the Negro demonstrations was the death of a youth held by Augusta police he real root of the unrest goes much deeper.

Unemployment already very high amongst Negroes in the city - has been rising steadily in recent months as Nixon's anti - inflationary policies begin to bite.

Federal aid has been cut right back again, hitting hardest at the working-class Negroes in the South.

Augusta is only one of cities where the Negro workers are wear and the wall street crisis.

only help to ALL TRADES UNIONS ALLIANCE MEETINGS