MASS UNEMPLOYMENT is now emerg. ing alongside the Tory anti-union plans as a major threat to the trade unions. This

danger is underlined by the latest official unemployment figures, which stand at 628,271, the highest for any September since before the war.

Unemployedjump region.

boosts Will grow.

strike-call employed.

AS A new wave of redundancies hits the North East Gateshead trade council has backed the one-day strike against unemployment calle by S Shields trades counci swollen queues to the million mark. workers at Thorn Industries who have announced a 15 lave ema because of re- cut-back their demand and fierce to victimize militants. foreign competition.

• total of 92 Thorn men 1 Cent and Sunderland will b sacked today. They will share the fate of a further 800 the ranks of the unemployed. North East workers at New investment in inPalmers shipyard, Hebburn, dustry is virtually at a on the Tyne, which will shut standstill as stock market down completely today. price-falls take their toll.

Commenting on the redun- Above all, the Tories are dancies, vice-president of the to build up Sunderland Trades Council, Mr E Ennew told the Workers Press that a resolution sup- tion halt wage rises, porting the Shields call and wield the big stick over worsen conditions would be raised at next Tuesday's Sunderland trades council meeting.

other side of the emResolution troducing anti-union laws.

I think we should support It is intimately bound up the S Shields resolution for a with the ruling-class counFIGURES released today show a rise in the number of men and women out, of work in the North East during September. over the previous month. Men without work in September numbered 45,211 compared with the August total of 44,271, the figures for women were 6,856 and 6,821 respectively. Total unemployment in September fell to per cent (male rate 6.5) but this reflected the considerable numbers wumbut lobs in chugust leavers general strike. Something ha to be done before winter. 3,407 ment must be taken up a Speaking, for _boilermakers in S Shields, Fred Mowat, local union branch secretary, on seport, be much fore said: Out of every 1,000 workers 27 are now on the dole, and the inexorable trend is upward.

Since the summer began, unemployment has grown in every In Scotland, there are 8,600 more unemployed workers than there were two months ago, while in the Merseyside area an additional 7,000 workers are on the dole.

And as the Tory plans mature these figures •These re - minimum *figures — underest mating very greatly the true otal of ur Not only do they exclude many thousands for one reason or alien eister one ut they also take no account of the growin numbers of workers refused unemploymen The figurés conceal a much higher number of unemployed, which may already be close All over the unemployed workers are finding it increasingly hard to draw dole as the Tories tighten up the regulations and use the labour exchanges Factory closures-like the Palmer's, Hebburn, shipyard shutdown today-have combined with peed-up productivity and Measured-Day Work in the factories to swel FIREMEN FIREMEN in several are: to lay plans for next v Unemployment is the calls-only' action over pay strategy for inTeachers add support for ATUA conference SW LONDON teachers become the first of their profession to back the campaign for the reinstatement of the sacked Pilkington's glass workers virtualle at St Helens.

The Wandsworth branch of the National Union of Teachers have voted to send a delegate to the All Trades Unions Alliance Pilkington's conference on October 3.

Their lead should be followed by teachers in all that areas of Britain as part of their fight against Tory education cuts and anticomprehensive legislation.

ALL TRADES UNIONS ALLIANCE

every factory and trade union branch in the country.

This is the only way to unite employed and unemployed workers and the only serious right any worker is accorded under capitalism.

No reliance can be placed in the trade union and Labour leadership to undertake such a struggle.

In the first few months of the Tory government— on the docks, at Pilkington's and at GKN-Sankey, to give only the most outstanding examples - these people have retreated steadily from any fight against the government.

They are continuing to press ahead with schemes Work speed-up, which now constitute an enormous threat to the jobs of the workers involved.

This situation gives the utmost urgency to the fight for a socialist programme and policies to meet the growing unemployment threat.

The call from the Socialist Labour League Central Committee published in for action against the Tory government is of key importance in this fight.

The SLL Central Committee calls upon the TUC to support the call for a one-day strike against unemployment issued by S Shields and Kirkby Trades Councils, and to make this a national strike action.

Only by mobilizing in industrial action against the government and the employers can workers defend their right to work.

Trade unionists must support this call whether or not the TUC decides to back it up.

The working class is not prepared to go back to the conditions of the hungry 1930s.

In industry after industry workers are fighting for higher wages in tenacious conflicts with their employers and collaborationist union leaders.

With a socialist leadership fighting for a revolutionary programme the Tories can and will be defeated and forced to resign.

This means a fight against the existing leadership in the trade unions and labour treachery have opened movement whose policies of and class-collaboration the door to Toryism.

They must be replaced by a new socialist leadership.

SUBSCRIBE NOW Name Adress PILKINGTON WALK-OUT 200 WORKERS employed by Cubitts on building • new tanks walked out of the Pilkington works at Cowley Hill, St Helens yesterday.

They struck work in protest against a foreman doing a labourer's job.

FIRE EXPERTS PROBE GAS BLAZE Fire experts yesterday began investigating the cause of the explosions at a Mitcham, Surrey gas store which showered houses within a halfmile circle with red-hot metal fragments.

The fire early yesterday morning sent blazing canisters of gas hundreds of feet in the air to land up to a mile away. force the Tories to resign.'