The Tory attack is on Miners 1926 Dockers 1970

BY THE ED is solid PORTS were at almost complete standstill yesterday as dockworkers welcomed the delegate conference's strike decision and made preparations for a protracted struggle.

By mid-morning the National Dock Labour Board estimated that about three-quarters of Britain's 46,500 dockers were on strike and 2,000 dockers in N IRELAND came out at midnight last night after clearing cargoes yesterday.

Transport and General Workers' secretary in a statement on said:

Reports show that there has been a full response in all the main ports to the strike call. The feeling of solidarity is outstanding.

'Our members will stand firm until we get a reasonable offer' With only one vote against, TILBURY dockers accepted the report-back from the deleIT IS understood that Royal Navy. personnel have been moved into the Newcastle area to operate unloading equipment on the docks should the Tory government require them to do so.

gate conference, given by T&GWU divisional chairman Harry Battie.

Mr Battie told the meeting that they would be receiving strike pay from 8 a.m. Tuesday and that Jack Jones' explanation to the dock delegates of the strike's deferment had been accepted.

STRONG WORDS 'Mr Jones was taken to task by most of the delegates, he said, and some had been 'very strong in their choice of words'.

Jones had stated that 'if he did wrong, he did it with the best intentions in the world'(!)

After this astonishing statement, Battie told the dockers: government, not fighting this 'We are nothing of what would be involved in the Tories' declaration of a state of emergency.

If the employers are as patriotic as they say they are and as I am, the strike shouldn't last more than a few days,' he announced conhidently.

Dockers were angry at the refusal of the dock manager IN ULSTER and on the docks British imperialism is on the warpath. to allow them permission to use the hall—which is within the dock area- for further metings.

When volunteers were called for to move plywood, shouts of 'Let it rot if we can't use heard can't use the hall' were heard.

An emergency gang is to be formed to move perishable goods in danger of deterioraAll earnings will go towara: he kıdney machıne at Urset Hospital, Tilbury.

In spite of Battie's comments, the dockers realized that a long strike was ahead and that there were many dangers.

A group of T&GWU members told Workers Press:

'The Tories won't sit back while the strike continues.

"They know the whole future of modernization is at stake. The question is how Jones will fight.' Pickets were out after the meeting at the dock's main gates and will be continuing on a rota basis until a mass meting next Thursday.

Pickets at No. 1 gate said: 'We know what the employers are worried about. It's Devlin Phase Two-cheap labour' A STRIKE committee was elected at the small port of NEWCASTLE, after 150 dockers heard a report-back.

The speaker emphasized that Jones had had no right to postpone the strike and this was why the local branch leadership had stopped men going into work on Tuesday morning.

He said that there was great encouragement in the unity BACKING SHEFFIELD AEF No 2 branch has passed the following motion:

"This branch gives full support to the dockers in their struggle for a better standard of living.

'We call on the district committee and on the executive council to give full support both morally and financially to assist them • in their 'We condemn any attempt by the government to use troops to break the strike and enable ships to turn round' on arpath.

The refusal of the employers-backed up by the Tory government and the CBI-to grant a penny on the basic rate of the dockers and the withdrawal of 2,000 troops from Ulster is nothing less than a declaration of war on the whole trade union movement.

It is comparable only to the decision of the mineowners in 1926 to cut the miner's wages and lengthen his hours of work, a decision which led directly to the General Strike. In the same way as koval commission in the mines in 1925 to prepare for 1926, so too today the employers are using the Devlin Plan as a battering ram against the most militant section of the working class: the dockers.

The Socialist Labour League and Workers Press were the not only threat posed by Prime Minister Heath in his speech to the 1922 committee last week when he referred to 'unpleasant measures' and the for 'unity' 'determination' in the Tories' ranks.

Heath's speech had only one • To weaken the trad‹ union movemen with the connivance of the trade union leaders.

• To create as much hardship and misery ring the working class during strike.

• To blame all this on the dock To use the troops and a vicious press campaign to starve the dockers into subnission and use this defeat to foist his hated anti-union anti-immigrant laws on the workers in the autumn and early winter.

The Tories are determined to do this in order to save their reactionary system from going under in the biggest trade war and recession post-war history.

4 defeat for the dockers would be a major set-back for the working class and the trade unions. It would open a nage curt of sackwage-cutting union bashing on a scale unprecedented in the history of the labour moveNo lead The Communist Party leaders refuse to treat this strike as a political issue because to do so would be to conduct a campaign to force the Tories to resign and that is the last thing the Moscow leaders want.

The trade union leaders, like Feather and Jones, have shown no intention whatever of fighting the government or the employers.

Feather called the employers' provocative and insulting ofer courageous decision' and the TUC has welcomed McLeod's economic policies.

They have absolutely no answer to the adverse consequences of the strike on employment and living standards. They have neither contingency nor long-term they used the Royal No pickets necessary on Merseyside LITTLE moved on Liverpool's seven miles of docks yesterday.

No pickets and no appeals from stewards were necessary to maintain the standstill on the deserted wharves.

Giving the lie to Mersey Docks and Harbour Board director - general Robert Edwards' Wednesday claim that 'the majority of our Merseyside dockers do not want to strike', members of both the 'White' Transport and General Workers and the 'Blue' National Amalgamated Stevedores and Dockers just stayed at home.

Outside the normally bustling Gladstone docks, at the north end of the port, startwork time came and went with only two visible signs of activity.

While a few staff workers drifted in, transport drivers hitched up and made off with several container - trailers moved outside the dock gates on Wednesday evening in a bid to beat the strike.

Dockers had begun walking out when news of their delegates' official strike call filtered through during midafternoon on Wednesday.

By 5 p.m. most work had stopped.

And Merseyside's 11,000 portworkers are clearly in • no Above: T&GWU delegate Ernie Rice speaks to Royal group dockers yesterday.

Below: Some of the container traffic outside the Gladstone dock, Liverpool. It was driven there in a vain attempt to beat the strike deadline. hurry to return to work.

Transport and General Workers' stewards-close on 100 of them - met at their union's Liverpool headquarters on Wednesday night to finalize their strike plans.

Their first moves will be announced at a Stadium mass meeting on Saturday morning.

Delegates will report back there from Wednesday's delegate conference while stewards will explain their unanimous rejection of the Liverpool employers' plans for implementation of Devlin Phase Two.

M&B st CHEMICAL workers at May and Baker's, Dagenham, agreed yesterday to accept a 16 per cent wage increase and to return to work on Monday.

A substantial minority voted to continue the strike, against a recommendation from the Chemical Workers' Union.

These included some women who said that the new offer was less than their grade would have received on last week's offer.

The three-week strike for a 20 per cent increase was the first all-out stoppage in the factory for ten years.

Convenor 'Eddie' Edwards critical of

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I would like to subscribe to Workers Press for plans to prevent the Tories and the press from making the dockers into a scapegoat for their devilish attacks.

Their policies, or lack of them, facilitate the witch-hunts and government strikebreaking efforts.

If defeat is to be averted, if victory is to be ensured, then the whole labour movement must be mobilized around socialist policies which will attack Toryism at its roots; in industry, banking, land and in the colonies.

This means nationalization of capitalist economy without drawal Control drawal of British troops from compensation and under workers' and the withUlster and all overseas térritories.

The dockers' struggle is inseparable from that of Ulster workers against Unionism and kers press by Manchester dockers yesterday to their delegates' vote for the amendment to the strike resolution.

PETROL PRICE UP

Esso, Shell-Mex and BP all announced a t a gallon price rise from midnight last night.

WORK TO RULE ENDS BEA and BOAC engineering and maintainance stewards agreed to end work-to-rule and overtime ban pending further negotiations over holiday claim.

SOTON FORD BACK

Tradesmen at Ford's Southampton factory returned to work after a mass meeting yesterday morning.

They walked out Wednesday lunchtime in support of two suspended welders.

Registered as a newspaper at the Post Omce. Published by. Workers Press, 186a Clapham High Street, to Chap demonstrated between the big and small ports.

IN HULL, pickets were out at all dock gates after welcoming the strike decision.

Dockers expressed their anger at a local television programme which gave the impression that their Wednesday meeting opposed the strike and had been forced to come out by power-hungry shop 'There won't be anybody trying to cross the picket line today, said one of the pickets.

'This will make the six-week strike look like chickenfeed.' week's NUM conference al Union of Mineworkers ed that 'agitators are at work in our midst'.

These agitators, it appears, are 'trying to undermine the status of NUM officials'. They are 'distributing leaflets and calling unofficial meetings'. alarmed at the growin soy militancy in the mines revealed by Wales resolution passed the conference, calling for strike action for a f22 minimum wage down the pit.

There is no doubt that