Glass men must reject phoney ballot

RANK-AND-FILE leaders of the six-week old Pilkington glass strike have called an emergency mass meeting before the start of this morning's secret ballot to place the issues before the members.

•We've always adopted the policy that the mass of workers must decide, one strike committee member told the Workers Press as loudspeaker cars announcing the meeting toured St Helens yesterday lunchtime.

'The ballot must be put to them first.

Disinterest and even plain hostility to the ballot from many of the strikers picketing the town's six Pilkington plants during the last two days have gone alongside the strike committee's apparent confidence that it will go in favour of continuing.

It's like winning a cup final 6-0 and coming away Rolls - Royce body plant workers march through Willesden yesterday morning. Lenin Centenary 1970 THEYEAR LENN & TROISK LENPUISM The second of two London lectures to mark the 100th anniversary of Lenin's birth without the cup', commented one member at the committee's headquarters yesterday morning.

We've had six mass meetings and they've all been solidly in favour of going on.' The issues before today's meeting were explained by committee members and ickets, angered by the com. any's claim-based on stories in several of yesterday's Fleet Street papers - that a wage clerk's error in calculating 200 men's bonus pay was used as an excuse to start the dispute.

'18 years I've been fighting or a decent pay structure here, said one committee member. They've got away with this kind of thing for a long time' PATTERN 'These aren't "mistakes" said another. 'It's part of the whole pattern.

'Muti were promised 23 on a tank repair job and came this was reported to branch committee long before the strike.' Strike committee secretary Bill Cowley confirmed that the error had been known at least a week before the strike began.

'If anything,' said another strike leader, it was the last straw that broke the camel's back.' Less than a mile away, a striker from Pilkington's Ravenhead works gestured to. wards the fountain set in the middle of lush flower beds and commented:

"The fact is they're prepared to spend more on this-and new offices - thàn on us. don't think we should go back till that is changed.' Journalists strike ployed by Albyed by jour atomsonowned Newcastle Evening Chronicle and Journal Co. walked out on strike yesterday.

They want pay parity with their counterparts in Edinburgh.

• OGAT SOR

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