East Kilbride, Scotland B.S.R. STRIKERS

BRUTAL police methods are being used against strikers at the BSR factory in East Kilbride. The pickets allege that police work in collaboration with the management, moving in massive reinforcements just as the scabs are DUIUğIa WUINtIS demand C.P. end WHILE Italy was again hit by strikes in all the major industries, important new developments took place on Italy's ruling party, the bad living conditions.

Christian Democrats, is al- This in itself is nothing tactions. rallies in the past few weeks, Now the dominant group, where the local authorities are led by the 'caretaker' Prime Christian Democrats.

Minister Rumor, pe has itself But in Bologna, all local split, throwing already authority is in the hands of makeshift mincrity cabinet in- the Italian Communist Party!

Developments in the work- sands of them without doubt ing class are even more sig- either Communist Party memnificant. bers or voters (the Italian CP A march of 30,000 Bologna claims two million members strikers ended up at the town and won 8.5 million votes in hall in demonstration the 1968 elections) were comagainst the neutral position ing into conflict with • the adopted by the municipal treachery of their own bureaugovernment in the recent cratic leaders.

A POLITICAL CHALLENGE due to leave.

Women told the Workers' Press how the police line up with their backs to the pickets and then lash out with their boots.

One woman said the kneelength boots she was wearing were protection.

The strikers, who have been out for nine weeks, are fighting for union recognition.

MANIARd strikes and • struggles against Rome has seen several such These 30,000 strikers, thougovernment and the employers who stand behind it.

They will not stand back and watch the development of the struggle in Britain and political preparation is necessary against them.

That is why the All Trades Unions Alliance has such an important role; its aim is to build alternative socialist leadership in the unions.

The monopolies in Britain have been helped by the state to prepare attacks on the working class.

British-Leyland announces a £70 million investment programme at the Cowley plant, and immediately before shorttime and redundancy.

£90 million is being invested in containerization in the Merseyside docks alone.

GEC-EE received gifts from the Labour government of £31 million to proceed with their merger and the thousands of sackings which follow.

Now Benn is in charge of the nationalized industries as well as being the government's liaison officer with the monopolies.

The unions, the carworkers, the dockers and the GEC-EE workers are involved in a political struggle against the overall plans of the state, the banks and the monopolies to impose the burden of the crisis on the working class.

Alongside them in the political fight are the miners and all the lower-paid workers battling against the incomes policy.

The emphasis on exports and the government aids to investment all make the state a direct factor in the wages and productivity struggle in The struggle against unemployment can therefore only be won in a fight against the state, which is the instrument ot big business.

The present wave of strikes is an essential preparation for the struggle against unemployment, because these strikes accelerate the unification of the working class.

Most essential is a socialist policy and leadership to direct this strength.

As the Tory Party prepares new attacks, protection for non-unionists and new laws against the unions, what is the role of the union leaders in these strikes ?

Whilst union leaders were negotiating tor a 15s. increase, the dustmen won, by unofficial action, f2 10s.

In the mines, Sir Sidney Ford announced himself 'surprised' by the NCB's granting the full wage claim of 27s. 6d., but the men stayed out on strike and the strike spread.

The resignation of Ford, Daly and the NUM executive has been demanded all over Yorkshire and Derbyshire, and they have lost the confidence of miners everywhere.

The strikes in motors BSR works' manager Mr ohn England is reported to ave said that 'under no circumstances will the company ever recognize a union'.

Clash

On Wednesday, 400 pickets clashed with police outside the factory. As stones were hurled at buses carrying scabs through the gates, police dived into the mass picket and seized a worker. His name and address were taken.

Plain clothes police mingled with women and young girls on the picket and singled out those who, they alleged, were 'violent'.

Names taken

Several names and addresses have been taken.

But, the women say, nothing is said by the employers' press and television about the alleged police brutality.

The 800 workers on strike are as determined as ever to win.

One girl striker said she was employed as a soldering operator and her basic wage was £9 15s.

At a factory in Kilmarnock, she said, girls were being paid 4a. an hour for similar work. That was why she was on strike, she said.

Scanlon and Jones, after all their 'left' talk, paralyzed.

Jones actually sat with Feather, Hayday and others in a joint committee with the Confederation of British Industries and signed a report announcing an 'agenda for action' to resolve the problems of 'industrial relations'.

This, described by the employers as 'a breakthrough in employer-union co-operation al national level', was done on the week-end of October 18 and 19, when the miners' strike was at its height, the motor industry was over-run by disputes, and low-paid workers bakeries other industries were preparing new strikes.

This attempt at an agreement with the employers follows the failure of the Labour government to impose its legislation and the blastfurnacemen's successful killing at one blow of the TUC's proposals for settling disputes.

The trade union bureaucracy is only carrying forward logically its reactionary policy of the June special TUC conference.

Their answer to government intervention in the unions is not to fight the government, but...to get closer to the employers!

From the union leaders, right and left, the workers can expect only that they will go more surely into the camp of the employers as the struggle builds up.

So it was in 1926, so it is today.

We appeal especially to all members and supporters of the Communist Party in the trade unions.

The presence of Jones' signature on the agreement with the CBI, the lining up of Daly with the right wing of the NUM, following as they do the wage-cutting agreements of McGarvey, the desertion of Paynter, and the record of Scanlon from the engineers' deal in 1968, through the fight on the Ford penalty clauses and the fight against anti-trade union legislation-surely this experience settles the disputed questions of leadership in the unions.

The line of 'left unity' with so-called 'progressive' union bureaucrats has helped these same 'lefts' to carry out their The essential question is to build an independent Marxist leadership.

In 1964, the working class elected a Labour government. In 1966, the majority of that government was greatly increased.

But Wilson and the government have ruthlessly carried out the plans of the bankers and monopolists and betrayed the working class.

Since the seamen's strike of 1966 and especially the dockers' strike of October 1967, the working class has turned away from the Labour Party towards the economic south faced Police hold back BSR pickets as a bus carrying scabs drives in the factory gate. AY'S WHARF Antiinvasion editor in Belgrade trial LEBANON THE MIDDLE - EAST crisis heightened on Thursday after the killing of 25 Palestinian commandos by the Lebanese Army.

A statement broadcast by Beirut (Lebanon) Radio said three frontier posts came under attack on Thursday.

The hirst, at Maasna, was razed by 50 men in military uniforms with Arab headdress.

As this attack was being repulsed, a larger force overran two other posts at Al Ariba and Al Baki'a, taking 20 gendarmes, customs men and MILITARY units were being brought into the Lebanese capital, Beirut, on Thursday to guard against demonstrations in support of the Palestinian Liberation movement.

Police had already dispersed a demonstration of 500 people, mostly palestinians, in the city's Bourg Al-Brajneh quarter that same morning.

In the southern city of Sidon, a fully effective general strike was reported.

From the Jordan capital of Amman came news that Palestinian units stationed in Jordan will declare war against the Lebanese army unless it ceases all military acZORAN GLUSCEVIC, fortnightly journal 'K shortly to stand trial in I on the Soviet occupati John Walls IT IS now one year since John Walls died—on October 20, 1968. John Walls was a Trotskyist for 14 years and a member of the Yorkshire area committee of the Socialist Labour League.

He was a member of the Amalgamated Engineering Union and was for many years convenor of shop stewards at George Mann's (Engineering), Leeds.

He was expelled from the Labour Party in 1959 when The Newsletter (forerunner of Workers Press) and the were proscribed.

John Walls was a consistent fighter against the right wing and the Stalinists in his union and in the Leeds He was also one of the first leading trade unionists to support the Young Socialists, first in • their struggle against the right wing inside the Labour Party and then in their fight against the betrayals of the Wilson government after they broke from the Labour Party in 1964.

At a time when most adult trade unionists still had faith in the Wilson leadership, John's support meant a great deal to the Young Socialists.

He was a regular seller and campaigner on behalf The Newsletter and played his part in making the first Trotskyist daily paper possible.

We are very sorry that John Walls did not live to see this paper.

It will carry to success the work to which he devoted 14 years of his life. RENAULT STRIKESBAROMETER OF THURSDAY'S strike at Boulogne-Billancourt (see p. one story), despite the activities of the Stalinists, is a clear indication of the new surge of militancy in the French working class.

For the last six weeks there have been a series oi small-scale strikes in various parts of France, all of them giving an indication of a new turn in the class struggle.

Stoppages have hit the Renault plants at Flins, Cleon and Sandouville, in the heat while at Le treatment department have been out since October 14.

attack posts security officials prisoner.

Later the same day, it was announced in Damascus that the raids had been carried out by Al Fatah, the Arab guerrilla organization.

Released

Al Fatah said the kidnapped Lebanese officials would be released:

"The Palestinian revolution will never be a party to any struggle against the Lebanese people. When we captured some of our brothers in the person of Lebanese security men it was intended to prove army armv tion against Palestinian commandos.

The statement was issued by the Action Group for the Liberation of palestine, a breakaway organization from Al Fatah.

In an attempt to avoid further clashes, Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi tried to arrange a meeting between the Lebanese government and njizevne Novine, is belgrade for his attacks in of Czechoslovakia.

On the eve of Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko's visit to Yugoslavia, Gluscevic published a photograph of Soviet officers in Prague with the following caption :

"Tomorrow, perhaps, the same faces will appear in your country under the guise of peaceful tourists. So be watchful, careful and cunning if need be.' The Kremlin responded by threatening to cancel Gromyko's visit unless instant action was taken against The Yugoslav government banned the sale of the offending journal, began an inquiry into the affair and called upon editor Gluscevic to resign.

HARMED

REPUTATION He was later charged with harming the reputation of a friendly country, the penalty for which ranges from three months to three years imprisonment.

To his credit, Gluscevic has refused to retract a single word that he wrote, and in the last number of the journal before his enforced resignation, he refuted the charge that he was advocating an 'anti-Yugoslav' policy :

'By this logic, everything anti-Soviet [i.e. opposing Soviet policy] becomes automatically anti-socialist, anticommunist, anti-Yugoslav.' FORCED SUCCESSORS In 1948, Tito stood up to Stalin and forced his successors to recognize their responsibility for the deterioration of Yugoslav-Soviet relaions.

Today he obviously values his friendship with Stalin's heirs higher than international solidarity with the. Czech working class.

B.S.A. PRO Workers' Press reporter PROFITS of BSA, the motor cycle firm, slumped £846,000 for the first half of year compared with £3,330,000 over the same period last year.

The Renault management at Le Mans has now declared a lock-out, a step that could very quickly provoke a bitter reaction from the workers throughout the combine.

Joint action

The present struggle in 'barometer the traditional the French working class, can now serve frontier to the ruling authorities in Lebanon that the Palestinian revolution is able to hit back against force' Unlike the present rulers of Lebanon, Al Fatah rightly sees Zionism as the main enemy of the Arab peoples, though in its statement the guerrilla organization made it clear that no more stabs in the back would be tolerated:

Warning 'As such measures were only warning to the Lebanese authorities, so the release of the 24 kidnapped brothers constitutes full evidence of the revolution's ability to take any measures it considers appropriate for self-defence until victory is achieved.' inst Libya at the present, but Libya at the might do SO in the near might do SO future.

It is obvious that the Lebanese government is on the verge of tremendous crisis.

If the strike spread, it could well be brought down in the next few days or weeks. to bring millions of French workers into joint action with the struggles of their fellow workers in Italy and Britain The strike movement today is international.

It demands international leadership.

Registered with the GPO. newspaper. Published by Workers Press, 186a Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4.