T.U.C. chief back-pedals on strike 1926 danger looms at Brighton

SPEAKING at yesterday, gener went out of his prisoned tiere. strike weapon. ois the sanct ye He cringingly pleaded attitude with the Tory politicians that the days lost in inand crews. dustrial disputes in Britain were less than those lost in Zionist cheer leaders do the capitalist countries of ot end thei western Europe. Before Meis from the Nai lemo Feather contrasted this to the 118 million work into the democratic days lost each year in Britain through unemploycamrhine tude Needless to say, he never once mentioned the capitalist United States. system in which strikes, unemployment and wars are very id leading this anti-Semiti ampaign were the Zionist much part of its normal functioning. deliberately sought to What he set out to do was to elevate the TUC onto some kind of oasis of class neutrope to the USA, instea rality so beloved by Fabians and reformists.

Why should the trade union movement be ashamed of the strike weapon?

Historical experience shows imperialism that it is the only real weapon which the unions have been for a rector able to use in the fight against the employers.

Take away the right to this strateni was successfu strike, as every Tory wants, and you really have no basis for trade unions.

Hone fascists the lews wer Mr Feather would like us to believe that strikes are now to be used Isralism agains. bad for the unions, but history the Arab people. proves otherwise. The ion seople fight First strikes Those like Leila Khale In the period following the corers wis anti imperialist French Revolution of 1789, British workers for the first Conditional support of every time combined together from La number of industries to socialist. organize their strike activity.

The capitalist government of Whilst we do ant condone which the day replied with Combination Laws outlawing * the shoulder the trade unions.

For 24 years, from 1800Et rid emperial sh 1824, these laws were brutally applied against the unions.

Finally, when they were re• the Britis pealed, far from the unions party hemselves losing ground because they had fought to defend the right to seria. 8 for action against those to strike, they in fact expanded by leaps and bounds. Tsaid yesterda Star' editorial Pilkington goods' LEAVES THE FOLLOWING resolution was passed at the T&GWU 1/712 branch Westland Helicopters, in Hayes, Middx, recently: batle could end in disaste • This T&GWU branch deplores the sacking of 600 militant workers at Pilkington St Helens for going determined hitakerent i on strike.

In defence of the right to strike we call on our members to black all Pilkington goods and call on the No 1 regional committee and from there the national committee of the ering on board. Top T&GWU to do this also.

We support the conference on October 3 at which the Pilkington strike committee will be represented, called by the ATUA in order to get these workers reinstated and to put the lessons of their case be- ) fore the trade union movement. Two delogates are to attend the conference from the General Dayan, scourge of the branch.

dor would agree with erchy ALL TRADES UNIONS ALLIANCE * penit is wil to deter men CONFERENCE salesmen i to or The Pilkington struggle and the right to strike Defeat the proposed Tory anti-union laws!

Messrs seas the Pastian Saturday October Guchias.

The Socialist Labour League and den ounced reachery i Khaled anal that Starts 8 p.m. redentials and visitors cards 5s each from Cr Secretary; W. Hunter, 58 Leighton View, Liverpoo from captivity. are release BY THE EDITOR the Trades Union al secretary Ir Vict ay to play di wn the More lip-service to anti-Tory Tuesday WAS IT lack of time which prevented seven out of the eight trade union leaders who spoke in this morning's TUC debate on industrial relations advancing any ideas at all about how to fight the Tory government's plans for anti-union legislation ?

If so-and engineers! President Hugh Scanlon certainly created the impression he was being cut short just as he got to the real meat — they are leaving it perilously late.

As Victor Feather's halfhour introductory report revealed, Heath's cabinet is to circulate a consultative docuBritish Steel profits up THE British Steel Corporation, which is seeking a 5 per cent increase in prices, made pre-tax profit of €10.2 million in the six months ended March, 1970, compared with a pre-tax loss of £21.9 million the year ended September, 1969.

The Corporation, in its annual report published yesterday, warns that the benefit of former price rises is being 'whittled away' by rapid cost increases.

Home prices were increased by 17 per cent last November and by 10 per cent in January this year.

St George's Hall, Lime St LIVERPOOL 2.30 p.m. -6 p.m.

Congress or Feather role of the fight DAVID MAUDE In Brighton ment on its plans at the end of this month.

And the TUC general secretary's own 'hope ... that the document will not look anything like the Tory Party proposal in a pamphlét called "Fair deal-at work"' is the complete opposite . of preparation for struggle.

Dangers But if the speeches ocher Government Oficess, (Local Brooks (bank Employees), Seabrook (Shopworkers), Buck (Sheet Metalworkers) and Doughty (Draughtsmen) really reflect the full strength of the union leaders' thinking, dangers facing trade unionists past. are intense.

St Helens glassworkers' This is clearly shown leader, Gerry Caughey, after too in the reference to observing the full debate from visitors' gallery, com- Britain. mented bitterly: After listing the UK as It's all lip service - when one of the countries where the chips do a deal, are down they will 'inflationary pressures' intensified last year, the report talks about the possi Agreement bility IMF mu In the debate on the AEF's 'hands off collective bargain- heard that the Labour goy ing' resolution, which was carried without opposition, back smashed ernment's efforts to hol wnloons to use against the Boom finished The real situation is tha the era of inflationary boon finished long ago - at the was dealse in 196.

beusehemant valuation and the franc devaluation But the restoration of the period of rapid expansion was impossible.

The US recession of 1970 — hardly mentioned by the despite repeater an ue Bankin the a New York Scanion busined our esteda report opposing such opti only Boilermakers' president mistic forecasts Dan McGarvey so much as US investment has been mentioned last year's June 18 she explored upsurge in agreement with Labour's Harold Wilson to stop strikes: onsumer spending has no 'We're on to a hiding for laterialize nothing,' he warned.

'Croydon and the "pro- Not explained gramme for action" were talks Is about stopping the agreed under certain conditions • • • not explain sow this is to 'If those are tampered with then status quo prevails and be done without precipitatit's everyone to the barricades.' Of course, Feather, at the ng a major crash end of his speech warned that The world economy is ir government attempts to bring a period the the law into industrial problems would tragically scar 'the pares it trade wer willingness of the unions to engage in the job of getting things sorted out by agree- class. ment with employers'. This is the situation as inu Niaonhe Co-operation But this in the context of a Meanwhile, the crash speech which must be delayed as long as • Defended TUC co-operation possible.

with any government in any The various proposals for fair and honest attempt to the international financial get the economy onto an even keel'. report mucl Called for increased pro- space, are deciding where the blow CBI LEADERS MEET HEATH LEADERS of the Crn- ways industrial relations federation of Briti nher, papre mamhor, has already Industry - President John. suggested to the government Partridge (left above) and Director General W. O. Campbell Adamson_ (right) —met Tory premier Edward Heath yesterday to discuss industrial relations and cost inflation.

This is the first meeting between CBI representatives and Heath. The Confederation is now concluding its own policy study on industrial relations which will probably be made known at the end of this month.

Their working party under the chairmanship of Mr Len Neal, British Railthat anti-union laws should be introduced in two parts.

The first stage would set up a Registrar of Trade Unions binding trade unionists, on pain of expulsion, to certain procedural regulations regarding strikes; and a second stage providing for legalized contracts of employment.

Partridge has already expressed the hope that, with sufficient union cooperation on the first stage, legalized contracts may not be necessary.

Chilean workers? return plea BY A WORKERS PRESS CORRESPONDENT Sankey workers yesterday endorsed the decision of their shop stewards committee and overwhelmingly rejected the return-to-work formula • agreed by union national officials and employers.

Only about a fifth of the strikers turned up at the Wellington, Shropshire, meeting called by national officials of the five unions involved in the five-week-old dispute.

AEF national officer Bob Wright once again gave the history of the negotiations in an effort to persuade workers the impossibility straight across-the-board increase without strings.

This followed his earlier statement that 'we cannot have the concept that members decide where and when to hold meetings. Union officials must be able to report when they can.

"Clear'

General and Municipal national officer Ken Baker, however, said that he was now after consulting with his members and seeing the feeling of the mass meetings, that the formula was unacceptable.

'So a message must now go out to the DEP or someone Lad contraits will Love to 1o done,' he said.

Shouts of 'make it official' came from the floor of the meeting and many workers applauded, taking Baker's statement to mean that the unions would belatedly be supporting them.

Baker then indicated that his conversation was not quite complete.

He explained that there were stages of procedure that the workers should have gone through before taking strike action, and the union could not go outside procedure.

So as to clear away any 'confusion' , he added:

'We now have to consider the situation in relation to

ductivity and output as 'the only way in the long run in which we can improve our living standards'. • Praised union-employer attempts to introduce flexible and rational wages structures in industry. • Insisted that UDI actions by groups of workers would have to be firmly sat on by individual unions.

And Scanlon, while correctly warning that the Tory plans were 'the most serious threat to the rights of organized had further than emphasizing labour for half a century, thạt the mere passing of his union's resolution was not enough and that a 'strike against one trade union is a strike against all of us'.

Pickets

Congress delegates were lobbied this morning by a delegation of sacked glassworkers from Pilkington's St Helen's factories and by Shell-Burmah Oil construction workers • from sites on the Merseyside.

(Pickets from the Ellesmere Port Burmah Oil site were recently arrested by police and fined by a Chester court.)

£UBECnI Name.

Adress.

LATINEWS SIHANOUK ATTACKS USSR's ASIA POLICY In a broadcast from Peking yesterday, Norodom Sihanouk of the exiled Cambodian government denounced Soviet policy in Asia. Only the Chinese government, he said, was the true ally of those Asian peoples fighting against imperialism. The Sihanouk government is not recognized by either the Soviet Union or its Warsaw Pact allies.

STAND AGAINST WAGES After the meeting with Heath yesterday CBI President Partridge said that private employers would parallel the firm stand the government intended to take against wage demands in the public sector.

'We recently discussed the whole question of industrial Strikes durantee to the will succeed in restarting the talks, suspended by the Israelis. because of the movement of missiles on Full subscription Two editions £10 a year OR (For any two days (Posted daily) you select.

£2 10s for three £1 for three months months 24 a year Post to: CIrculation Organızer, Workers Press, 186a Clapham High Street, London, SW4. (Tel: 07-720-2000)

I would like to subscribe to Workers Press for From the Grand Consolidated National Union of 1832 to the Chartist Movement of the 1840s, we have continuous experience of the expansion of trade unionism.

Even when the employers were sufficiently strong to split and defeat the Chartist Movement in 1848, trade unionism still continued to expand.

The foundation of the TUC itself in 1868 as the first general trade union body is proof of this.

Again, in the early part of this century when a strike wave hit the employing class where it hurt, they once again replied with a judgement against the Taff Vale railway strike of 1901.

Not weakened But far from weakening the trade union movement, it led to the formation of the Labour Party in 1906. Later on, BE NOW élations,' he said. 'We in the CBI are firmly behind the government intention to introduce some legalized framework in industrial relations in which some voluntary action by the unions could work' BRITAIN'S balance of payments in the second quarter showed a surplus on current account of f53 million, seasonally adjusted, the Treasury announced yesterday.

However, there was a dencit on visible trade of £86 million. ormation of the hirst Labour government of 1924 which it built up 1926.

It is not strikes which weaken the trade union move. ment, but right-wing leaders was colination erent and retreat again on strikes.

These leaders constitute the greatest source of disruption in the working-class movement today.

They disarm the working class as to the real dangers which this Tory government constitutes.

reatner imple that movement forced by the employers into 'they will united trade union movement, a determined trade union movement, they will find a TUC which in 100 years has seen 30 governments come and go, and which will see yet another 30 vanish from the scene.' These are the abstract the Tory attacplan to meet meanderings someone no gan the to m employers and the government would inevitably ollie the form of a General Strike.

Power posed And pose fo the problen power or enduring another defeat such as 1926. paring another 192er is preTrue enougi the strike eapon by itself cannot solv the problems of the working lass-for this they must build a revolutionary party with a programme of demands which will lead them to the taking of power.

The Tory, government is today preparing to attack the working class organized trade unions.

By doing so they are pre political act against which working the Suez Canal.

US Secretary of State William Rogers is expected to meet the foreign ministers of the Soviet Union, Israel, Egypt and Jordan when they attend the United Nations General Assembly next week.

Mrs Golda Meir is also attending the session and arriving early for talks with Nixon.

The interview with Moshe Dayan, Israeli Defence Minister, broadcast at the week-end may throw some light on the Zionist attitude.

Asked whether he had expected the high degree of intervention Soviet Union in Egypt, Dayan said:

I do not think it is true that the Soviet Union stands shoulder to shoulder with the Egyptians in their fight with 4S...

'If they wanted to put their full weight or even considerable weight behind the Egyptians, there would be much fiercer intervention.' The Zionists seem to be using the issue of cease-fire violations to pressurize not only the US, but the Russians as well.

Dayan realizes — whatever his propaganda statements that Moscow is seeking a settlement which would guarantee the existence of Israel, and that the Stalinists would fight to keep the Palestine liberation struggle under control.

The struggle of the Palestine guerrillas in Jordan is rapidly becoming a fight for the life of the movement. Fresh fighting is reported from Amman with units of the Jordan army.

Rejecting the "request' of King Hussein to place their 20,000 troops under his ON THE eve of the summit conference of Foreign Ministers which has just opened in the Zambian capital of Lusaka, a statement from Zambian Prime Minister Kaunda made clear the treacherous role played by 'neutral' nationalist leaders in the struggle against imperialism.

Speaking last week at the close of the Organization of African Unity meeting in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Kaunda declared that Africa