Troops threat still hangs over dockers' strike

Wlaw think FIRSTLY, the rank-and-file dockers, , 'Blue' and mined to fight for and win POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT 'White' alike, are deterthe £20 minimum, even if £2 5s turned quarters, Transport and General Workers' national docks officer Tim O'Leary work in central London, Hull, Bradford and Amsterdam.

British Belting and Asbestos, which owns Sovex, claims not to have made a profit on its Erith operawas 'not unhopeful that some suggestion might be made to avert a strike. mistin, But I am not optiWhile the unions had no set programme, he said, 'we will do our damnedest to avert a strike. We do not want a strike.

We are not that big that we will not accept help if offered.

As he left the DEP O'Leary 'If arbitration is set up by the government through the TUC, we wouldn't refuse to go, but we would reserve position, as we always do, ou Asked if this could mean calling off the strike he said: 'Only the conference can decide that'.

O'Leary said that they had been supplying the DEP with all the facts up to date and might, following separate talks with the employers, be asked to come back later in the night or today:

'That is of course, if there is any bridge possible between the two points of view?

NO NEGOTIATIONS Employers' chairman George Tonge ruled out the possibility of negotiations taking place at yesterday's talks. 'It's matter of reporting, he said.

The port employers' chairman claimed yesterday still to be hopeful that the unions would accept some form of arbitration before Tuesday.

Answering questions in the Commons earlier, employment and productivity minister Robert Carr made clear that the docks were to be the proving ground for the government's anti-union policies.

It is the duty of evéryone in this country to emphasize that unless we do relate total increases -in earnings to national production, there is no future increase in prosperity for his country of a scale which we could otherwise have' ALL TRADES UNIONS ALLIANCE National Docks conference Central Hall, SHan, kenshaw St. 'Scrap Devlin Phase Twol Fight the Tories! For a £20 basic wage nationalization under workers' control'.

Credentials and further details can be obtained from L.

Cavanagh, 5, Gamlin St, Birkenhead.

BY A WORKERS EIRE premier Jack Lynch is thought likely to be planning a nationwide television and radio broadcast on Sunday night, eve of the Orange Order parades in Belfast.

The Order's insistence on continuing with the parades and the non-intervention of Stormont and Westminster have fuelled fears that an anti-Catholic pogrom is planned for July 13. • British troop strength has een stepped up in order tr llow the parades to proceed Lynch's Fianna Fail party is the Eire counterpart of the Ulster Unionist government, and leans just as heavily on the partition of Ireland, despite verbal adherence to the idea of a united Ireland.

His broadcast will be primarily designed to calm opinion at home, where he faces growing opposition.

His external Affairs minister Dr Patrick Hillery visited Belfast this week as Lynch's fake antiUnionist campaign.

Challenge

Yesterday, however, leading Unionist Chichester - Clark, Westminster MP and brother of the N Ireland premier, challenged Hillery to make a gesture' for a 'peaceful and harmonious climate in the province'.

If the Orange Order abandoned their parade on July 13, Chichester-Clark said, Eire government should drop their opposition to partition and recognize the six counties as part of Britain.

The Ulster Tories clearly want to use the threat of anti-catholic pogroms to black nail Lynch and tighten their grip mahe sid counties.

man and two youths, aged 17 and 18, were yesterday sent to prison for six months by Belfast magistrates for throwing stones at police and soldiers during rioting a fortnight ago.

71 charged A total of 71 people were due to appear in the special Belfast court yesterday on charges arising from last week's fighting. More than 50 are charged with possessing explosives.

British soldiers acting on a tip-off found a rifle and large amounts of ammunition at two houses in Belfast suburbs yesterday.

tions last year.

Its productivity proposals, which the stewards simply refused to discuss, included elimination of tea-breaks; upgrading of mates to do skilled men's work; mates to be allowed to carry out 'repetitive' long runs in place of skilled men; platers and fitters on outside work to be interchangeable; introduction of a 'merit pay' system and reduction of the ratio of mates to skilled Also included was a proposal to cut out the company's contribution sick-pay scheme.

The company said it was prepared to 'chip in' 15s in order to facilitate discussions on its proposals and, on the eve strike, made a tentative offer of a further 15s in return for the cutting-out of one tea-break.

Not for sale 'Our position right from the start,' says convenor Smith, 'was that the company's financial situation was its own concern and that none of the rights and conditions we'd fought for for many years were for sale.

We just refused to discuss their plans with them' After four - and - a - half weeks of strike, the company offered a further 5s chip-in'-making fl in all - and implied that there was more money in the kitty if the stewards would only discuss their productivity scheme.

from mollifying the strikards, this erased some union officials.

The company had wanted to absorb into its offer three-year domestic agreement for an 8s rise each December, concluded in 1969.

Meanwhile VickersArmstrong's nearby Crayford plant, the management —fearing a similar explosion —ignored the 1968 package deal and conceded a £2 10s 'no strings' rise with the shop stewards there.

Determined

Hence the Sovex offer.

But with official AEF backing, growing financial support from other factories, the shelving of the company's productivity proposals and such a demonstration of employing-class solidarity at Vickers'deterSover strikers are mined to stay out and win.

There is absolutely no reason why they should not. SUBSCRIBE NOW INCORPORATINC THE TWEETE* • TUB!

On eventer conference Full subscription Two editions {10 a year (For any two daye months {t a year Post to: Circulation Workers Clapham High Slater, OndoW: 07-7202089 I would like to subscribe to Workers Press for Name Address tt/dagt FREE DEBATE CALL Rumanian president Nicolae Ceausescu yesterday called for a free debate in the world communist movement to update Marxism-Leninism and bring it into line with new political, social and economic trends, according to a report from Vienna.

His plea follows the signing in Bucharest earlier this week of a five-year "friendship' treaty between Rumania and the USSR which embodied a number of concessions to the Rumanian Communist Party's 'national communist' line and differed in important respects from the Soviet-Czech treaty signed earlier this year. problems.

Given correct political leadership, and learning from the French experience, the British workers will not only defeat the Tories but also put an end to the system which breeds Toryism.

As the trade union and Labour leaders go to the right, the masses are in flux, basically because of the grave economic crisis and the change in the political situation for which it is responsible.

It is only in such circumstances that major developments in working-class consciousness can take place.

Correct and audacious tactics in the building of revolutionary leadership, to win the confidence of the working class, are now the essential questions for Marxists.

It is essential for the revolutionary party to penetrate, influence, win, and learn from every layer of the working class drawn into struggle, particularly the youth.

This is the key to a development of Marxism.

The objective tendency of the movement and experience of the masses is undoubtedly to the left, against that of the Labour trade union leaders.

But a state of flux in the consciousness of the masses does not mean an inevitable development to the left in consciousness.

That is precisely the responsibility of Marxists, of the There has to be a successful struggle to defeat the ID FACE TUESDAY TO SATURDAY • .

rare wis o OR rou select Ly-June 1968 invincibility 1 a new and len in Britain ving to wait with similar By Cliff ughter radical phrasemongering and 'trade union' consciousness which obstruct the growth of revolutionary politics and theory.

It is not enough simply to repeat that there is a deepening crisis, it is urgent to act, and that we must intensify our activity.

Proceeding from the objective relationship of class forces, including our own strength and weaknesses, we must fight for a development of Marxism out of our penetration of the changes taking place in the workers' moveOrientation in this fight is the first prerequisite.

To. bring home to the working class the lessons of six years of Wilson's government is vital, but it depends in the first place on clarity among Marxists about the historical meaning of these six They show the final bankruptcy, even in terms ruling-class needs, of reformism and of Stalinism.

This bankruptcy was known general before, and the understanding of it guided our political work. But the concrete political situation produced by this bankruptcy is a development of this objective reality.

We must understand our own work as part of this reality of the struggle of opposites at a new level.

Social democracy has done its most direct service to the monopolies precisely by handing power back to big business in its greatest crisis, in order urgently to hit back at the working class.

But the contradiction within the reformist party and trade unions has matured.

• Reformism was necessary as a mechanism of capitalist rule because of the power of the working class. Under conditions where that strength could not be smashed, it has actually consolidated.

Working-class - power

posed by this situation. There is no way out of the economic crisis except this.

But here is the contradicThis is vitally necessary, for one particular reason: the young workers, thrown right into struggle by the crisis, will be provoked into premature struggles against the employers and the forces of the state, and they will tend to grow impatient with the slow development of the workers' movement as a whole.

Our own work among the youth, especially with the these struggles, to discipline, train and steel a youth leadership on the basis of Marxist theory.

This is the most important part of our responsibility to prevent the trade union leaders from dissipating and destroying working-class combativity in this period.

What are the correct slogans and tactics to break down the obstacles placed in the way of the working class in the solution of its revolutionary tasks? In other words, how can the domination of the trade union bureaucracy and the Labour leaders be As the trade union leaders make haste to collaborate with the Tories and Wilson promises parliamentary support for government policies in the 'national interest, the revolutionary vanguard starts engineering from the readiness of dockend others to fight.

The working class has not been broken, and it can defeat the Tories' plans.

The wages struggles can be won, but more and more under conditions where the winning of strikes makes more urgent a political advance and revolutionary leadership.

If the attack of the working class continues and grows stronger, as it can, then the real line of the Tories can be forced out.

BUS DISPUTES TYNESIDE • passenger transport authority executive has threatened 1,200 busmen in the Newcastle area that if they do not work Sunday overtime thé authority will day,