Beware of official backing GKN workers face Tory crunch

W harr thinli The political strike THE RETURN to work of the construction Burmah Oil, Ellesmere Port, and Carrington, Manchester, after heroic struggle against the employers and the police shows once again the dangers OI Stalinist opportunism.

This is the second defeat in 12 months TOT noorLan section of workers fighting against productivity deals the oll rennery construction The first was at Grangemouth in 969. when bollermaker! were isolated and then defeated as a result of an acceptance of a flexibility and mobility agreement by other unions on the refinery stre.

without and an ending of the blacklist, the strikers, on the avice of their convenol and the union officials, have now agreed to go back on the terms of the employer. These are 13s-an-hour with additional 2s 10d -anhour for 'co-operation' 'normal working' which blacklist includes acceptance ton he the principie oi union con• trol over employment T&GWU retreat UNION LEADERS' talk strategy' will be tester steeled opposition this sectors of industry. of 'an offensive wages I against governmentweek in at least four Local government workers, provincial busmen and miners—whose pay claims all reach a crucial stage in the next few days—have already been warned that they will face hard-line resistance.

In the private sector, however, the first response to last Thursday night's 'stand firm against wages' call from Tory Employment and Productivity Minister Robert Carr has come from the management of Shropshire's G KN-Sankey plant.

Shop stewards representing the sprawling car-component factory's 5,000 workers—-who yesterday entered their sixth week on strikemeet tomorrow to discuss Friday's breakdown in negotiations on their courageous claim for a 'strings Pay increase without 4s 3d - an - hour, across - the -Many of them will be hoping that when they report to the strikers' next mass meeting in three days' time they will have won support from at least some national executives of the five unions involved.

Managing director Tom Honess spoke for every employer in Britain last Friday night — and his message has now been repeated in indiviuual letters io eaco sinker- dunl latesan annh when he insisted that his productivity-based £2 to £7 6s offer is 'certainly as far as the company can go without destroying our chances in Many workers point out, however, that with standing time, such an offer would amount to 15s for some of them.

GKN-Sankey chairman H. S. Killick went one better than Honess in a letter to The Economist' , reproduced in that restigious ruling-class weekly's current issue.

unofficial wage struggles, in recent years. Killick tells : "The Economist' Ar k *°81 AS K wer* SYOT KVANIS SLAVES and massing on border' -claim Beirut, Monday — Palestinian guerrillas claimed today Israel was massing troops and armour along the Jordan river as a prelude for a US-backed invasion to wipe out the guerrilla movément in Jordan.

Baghdad Radio broadcast a statement from the Central Committee of the Palestine resistance movement, the overall guerrilla leadership, claiming the troop build-up began soon after last week's hi-jacking of three airliners to Jordan. BY A FOREIGN REPORTER Tel Aviv Nablus central prison yesterday.

Guards reported that they refused to eat their morning meal.

Altogether about 450 Arabs were arrested in the Meir government's • series of 'reprisal' raids. leadany are related to the the commando group which carried out the recent series of hi-jackingsthe Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

According to a report in