NAZI-LIKE JAILS IN VIETNAM

ment proposal which would have given increases of 11-18 per cent, consolidating special payments for working with certain chemicals.

The strikers — now in the third week of their disputehave been promised support from the International Confederation of Chemical and General Workers' Unions.

WEATHER London area, SE and central southern England, E and W Midlands: Sunny spells at first. Cloudy later, with outbreaks of thundery • rain or thunderstorms. Wind variable or southerly, light or moderate. Hot. Max. 26C (79F).

Channel Islands, SW England: Rather cloudy, but some sunny intervals at first. Some coastal fog patches. Outbreaks of thundery rain or thunderstorms. Wind S to SE, light or moderate increasing fresh at times later. Very warm. Max. 24C (75F) but cooler on coasts.

Dockers' 'sheet anchor threatened 'IF THE government is going to strengthen the National Ports Council as they've said they would, they've got to labour,' said Council chairman Sir Arthur Kirby in introducing its delayed annual réport yesterday.

As a first step towards abolishing the National Dock Labour Board, the 'sheetanchor' - his words — of dockers' rights for many years, and making each port authority 'master in its own house', Kirby suggested NPC representation on the Board. YET ANOTHER illustration of the nature of the S Vietnam US puppet regime is given in the horrifying report from the prison island of Con Son, 140 miles from Saigon. 500 men and women are shut up here in tiny stone cages, starved and beaten.

Mid-East Dealing with a section of the report bemoaning the lack of a 'general breakthrough towards higher and increasing productivity which could be achieved given whole-hearted co-operation in the adoption of work study, Kirby stressed that labour problems in general cargo handling —'a tricky area' — were the main obstacle to plans for quicker, turn-rounds of ships.

'Action will be called for,' said the report, 'on three fronts: alongside a vigorous and sustained drive to improve efficiency and reduce costs, port prices will have to kept continuously under review on a realistic basis.' Members of the Council, which has been enthusiastically pressing dockers for productivity concessions involving work study and similar schemes, include Iransport and General Workers' Union general secretary Jack Jones and General and Municipal Workers' Union general secretary Lord Cooper.

James and Cooper-together with T&GWU docks officers Timothy O'Leary and Peter Shea-also sit on NPC standing research and training committees.

Besides abolition of the NDLB, Kirby and NºC director general Morris Gifford yesterday also came out for elimination of the present split-between the Ministry of Technology and the Department of Employment and Producivity-in ministerial control over the docks.

S Vietnam's largést civilian rison, Con son, was visited recently by two US Congress. men, part of a House Select Committee fact-finding tour.

They were accompanied by Don Luce, a journalist working for the World Council of Churches Ecuménical Press Service.

Nearly 10,000 prisoners are held on the island in camps. As the visit was about to end, Luce pointed out a small door. The prison warden refused to allow the visitors to open the oor, but a guard opened i rom the insid "Tiger cages' Through the door, «tiger Americans found the cages, each less than 5 feet by 9 feet, and housing thrée These men were hungry and thirsty, and Luce says that they showed 'obvious signs of having been beaten? bucket of white contained a diseases were widespread, bott amongst the men and the 25( women prisoners in another building.

Luce reports the defian ttitude of the prisoners o Con Som.

Some of them shouted at the visitors:

'No, no, we will not salute the flag representing. the things that the government has done to us.' Indictment This account is not just an indictment of the reactionary Saigon regime.

As much as the My Lai and They suggested individual mployers should be bought ut by port authorities to giv more centralized control over way of doing tin; said kity, at not, in my view the best reports publication, the NºC views on nationalization were low 'a matter of history anc f only academic interest' MEET ALL TRADES MEETINGS UTHAI COVENTR CITArs, Smithford he tom sovernmen a can died DAGENHAM: Thursday July 9, 8 inford. Fight back now! Force the Tories to resign!'.

'Withdraw troops from Ulster! Force the Tories to resign'.

SE LONDON: Sunday July. 12, 3 p.m. Kerfield Tavern, Grove lane, Camberwell Green, SE5. 'Anti-union laws and the Tory government'.

CROYDON: Thursday July 16, 8 p.m. Ruskin House, Coombe Rd.

•Fight back now! Force the Tories to resign!'.

officials THE MANAGEMENT at Standard Telephones' Submarine Cables subsidiaries at Erith and Greenwich have, after four weeks of strike at both plants, agreed to meet union officials this Friday.

This was announced at a mass meeting of the Greenwich workers yesterday.

The strike began over the proposed sacking of 280 workers from the two factories in Erith and Greenwich.

While union officials were hoping for an early return to work, the danger of 'another round of redundancy' was raised at yesterday's meeting by convenor Bill Wraight who claimed that the employers were 'still keeping quiet over future of the two factories after present contracts expired later in the year.