Clyde sackings explode "development area' myth

HARDLY A DAY goes by but hundreds of Scottish work rationaliz ULSTER goes by but hundreds of thrown out of work thr The latest in a long list of recent announcements is the closure of two factories of the industrial refrigeration division of Prestcold, the BritishLeyland subsidiary, sited in the Maryhill and Hillingdon districts of Glasgow, which will result in 400 redundancies.

The recent national unemployment figures -yet again the worst in 30 years - reveal that the spectre of 1930s-sized dole queues is once again looming over the working-class, particularly in the Scottish region.

Total unemployment there is now nearing the 100,000mark-nearly one-sixth of the national total-and works out at 4.5 per cent of the work force: an increase of almost 1 per cent since August of last year.

In GLASGOW, 25,000more than 5 per cent of all workers—are now unemployed.

Employers waste little time in carrying out their plans. aid of large government handouts and then opened them under Measured-Day Work agreements. This was the real face of 'direction of industry'.

Pare down

As the unemployment figures soar, the Tories hope to impose speed-up and productivity dealing and Glasgow workers have a constant reminder of the inability of trade union leaders to mobilize any fight against these attacks.

Upper Clyde Shipbuilders continues to pare down its labour force, and is now within 1,000 of achieving the 3,100 redundancies announced in March.

Tory government is the government of unemployment.

Older industries are 'now going rapidly to the wall, incense rationalization is taking lace and US capital investec in areas like Scotland is being withdrawn to more lucrative fields elsewhere.

The only answer to the employers is the taking-over of the basic industries without compensation under workers' control. The fight against unemployment therefore retional question but lies at the centre of a politistruggle to force Tories to resign and fight for socialist policies and leadership.

British firms

scramble for Nigerian contracts vouched for by the Confederation of British Industry.

'LOOKING'

A CBI spokesman said earlier this week:

In the last six weeks, people in engineering, construçtion equipment, office equipment, tyre manutacturing and food manufacturing have been involved. At this stage it is mainly looking and negotiating with no big contracts as yet.' The full cost of the Nigerian reconstruction programme is put at around £1,200 million. S Wales miners plan BY A CORRESPONDENT miners, well aware that the Tory government may use their national pay claim as the test case for resisting wage increases in the nationalized industries, are preparing to fight back.

A three-hour private delegate conference held at Porthcawl earlier this week recommended that lodge meetings are held to prepare miners for any strike ballot which may be taken over the current claim: £20 minimum for surface workers, £22 for underground day-wage men and £30 minimum for power-loading teams.

A special leaflet is being prepared and the conference was informed that the S Wales executive have already rejected offer from the National Coal Board to set up a working party to examine the claim.

The Welsh miners are absolutely correct to prepare for battle.

The Tory government have made it plain where they stand on wages and particularly on such a claim in a nationalized industry which-the NCB claims—will increase its national wage bill by up to 33} per cent in a full year.

It is only a fortnight ago All Trades Unions Alliance Conference MINERS Sunday, September Danum Hotel High St DONCASTER FOR FURTHER DETAILS WRITE TO: T. PARSONS, 61 DERWENT DRIVE, FERRY FRYSTON, NR CASTLEFORD, YORKSHIRE.

'Daily Mirror' strike JOURNALISTS on strike at the 'Daily Mirror' met again last night aftér a return-towork call from leaders of the National Union of Journalists.

There was no London edition of the 'Mirror' yesterday after Wednesday's five-hour meeting of the journalists over SiX colleagués who have remained without jobs following the axing of the paper's colour magazine. Secret talks dangel, as Far East deal is CHIEF North Vietnam negotiator at the Paris talks Xuan Thuy has hinted at the possibility of secret meetings with US representative David Bruce.

Thuy has been boycotting the talks since December in protest against Nixon's refusal to appoint a top-level replacement for Cabot Lodge. He was not present at yesterday's regular weekly session, but will attend next week.

The possibility of private discussions about indo China is particularly dangerous, in view of the current series of deals being prepared between the US and the Soviet bureaucrats. Shut-down pits, like the one shown above, disfigure the S Wales landscape with their unemployment threat. that Tory Chancellor Barber stated that, if a nationalized industry 'in the national interest' resisted 'an inflationary demand' and this led to a strike, 'the government would not intervene in an attempt to deter the Board of the nationalized industry from taking this action'.

This, of course, has given the green light to Robens to prepare the maximum resistance to the miners' claim as Workers at Kent's Sovex conveyor and elevator plant at Erith recently won a £3 2s 8d 'no strings' increase through a determined 12-week struggle against a vicious set of management productivity proposals.

The letter below-endorsed by rank-and-file workers in the factory-has been sent to us by three members of the strike committee; organized, respectively, in the Amalgamated Engineers and Foundryworkers, the Transport and General Workers' Union and the Amalgamated Society of Boilermakers. Dear Editor, Sovex workers wish to thank Workers Press for regularly reporting the issues involved during our recent strike and extend to all the readers the same thanks for their support and understanding.

The response we received proves not only the worth of our own organization and solidarity but the value of a workers' paper that broadcasts daily the struggles of workers and unites us all against productivity deals and the anti-working-class activities of the employing class.

Why were we victorious?

What did we defeat?

How did we defeat the employers?

We, the same as Workérs Press, have consistently fought against the idea of bargaining conditions for wages.

If money is the reward for labour under the present sysEast deal The tour of Far Eastern capitals being made by Vice - President Spiro T. Agnew is connected with this.

Agnew is reassuring the US puppets that their interests will not be sacrificed in any Far East deal with Moscow.

Having informed S Korean dictator Park that his army is to be modernized as US forces are withdrawn, Agnew flew from Seoul to Formosa on Wednesday.

Here, his main purpose is reassure Chiang-Kai-shek CUFM when he replies to it in a ted middle of September.

Yet, in the face of the approaching collision between the Tory government and the miners, the union's leadership is preparing to retreat.

The miners must now prepare to do battle with the Tories, but the burning question of alternative leadership to "left' talkers must be resolved. tem, then any incréase in monetary reward is not to be gained from selling conditions to the employer and, in doing, paying our own creases and solving the problems of the capitalists.

We defeated the idea of productivity dealing in an area where the employers are moving out to richer pastures, to areas of greater unemployment where they hope exploitation will be easier.

Their hope is doomed because we gained support from these areas. They underestimate the strength and understanding of workers in or out of work.

With this support, we defeated the treacherous terms of the last national wages agréement in engineering which divided lower-paid workers from others.

The fact that higher wages are earned in the more organprepared that US talks with Peking will not mean a halt in military aid to 'Nationalist China's' Formosa regime.

Agnew will later visit Saigon and Bangkok. Whether he sees Lon Nol in Cambodia is still not certain.

The CIA-installed regime in Phnom Penh is under heavy attack from N Vietnamese, Vietcong and Cambodian guerrilla forces.

A new attack only nine miles from Phnom Penh itself was launched on Tuesday night, and continued yesterday. 'co-operation' BY A FOREIGN REPORTER