'Strikes over the closed shop, Vietnam and pickets not privileged' —Powell

THE REAL Tory programme for the trade unions was spelt out clearly on Tuesday night when Enoch Powell spoke to a large gathering of his admirers at Dudley Town Hall.

With the enraptured audience hanging on his every word, the right-wing MP for Wolverhampton SW proclaimed:

'he trade union is reature of the law. It is privileged body. We believe this privilege has restricted.

'Trade union law has to be reformed. Nobody supports nore strongly than I do the Tory proposals to modernize the trade unions. This necessity is absolute.' How was this to be done? 'Strikes in support of the closed shop ... strikes over the war in Vietnam . strikes which prevent those qualified to undertake a job rom doing so [i.e. picketting) •• Should not be privileged.' Cooling off Where a particularly important dispute is involved, the employers should be able to go to court and obtain a delay — 'the so-called coolingoff period'.

Finally, industrial agreements agreed by both sides of industry should be legally binding.

Tumultuous applause greeted this statement of Tory intent from both platform and floor, with a similar response for Powell's proposal to cut public expenditure — i.e. social services, housing, etc — as the sure-fire cure for the 'wages-prices spiral'.

Expounding at length his own peculiar mixture of black magic and prehistoric economic theory, Powell completely dominated the Dudley meeting and an earlier engagement at Stourbridge, nominally called to boost the local Tory candidate Don Williams.

He covered familiar ground it all to market forces and 'supply and demand'-policies which would result in the collapse of the pound and massive unemployment - and stated that a balance of payments surplus had been 'inevitable' after the 1967 • PAGE FOUR