Australian LETTER

titled to three days to consider our reply, he said. tered as a newspaper at the Office. Published by Workers , 186a Clapham High Street, CSEU must back DATA 'Strings' behind Rolls assault ENGINEERING employers in several key jumping enthusiastically on the bandwagon lock-out threat against draughtsmen.

A further 3,000 members of the Draughtsmens' and Allied Technicians' Association will be out of work if the union refuses to accept a 7 per cent pay-andproductivity offer by next Monday.

Employers in Scotland, the NE and Midlands have already begun hitting out at their draughtsmen because they feel the 110,000-strong association is fully extended by the Rolls "They obviously feel they're in a position to challenge us all over the country assistant DATA president Mike Coolev told Workers Press yesterday.

past weeks, DATA has been officially supporting 1,000 members locked out by Coventry RollsRoyce for applying sanctions get an improvement in the 7-per-cent offer.

Yesterday 3,000 union members in Bristol, Scotland and Leavesden received individual letters from the company giving them a week's notice that day it there 1s no move t heir pay and attendance wil day acceptance.

Laid plans

brought our at all so tar are 'What's not the kind want to attach to their offer atta Bristoy, level of franta These constitute nhe compan wants working by DATA membersnever previously expected expected to do so - along studied job times.

union national pr altogh vays in the same Direct attack Besides running counter t he union's policy of resistin shift work and manual sections also produelvils offensive.

Support for the dispute has now come from Bristol's Amalgamated Engineering anc Foundryworkers' district committee and from manual workers' shop stewards in Scotland.

defeat for DATA is clearly essential to the crisis-ridden Rolls-Royce combine's speed-up plans..

Production workers' sho stewards at Rolls' Ansti Coventry, factory - who are supporting the locked - out draughtsmen by "blacking' drawings produced during the dispute, have already blocked factory-wide Measured - Da:

Nork proposals scheduled 20 implementation on August But stewards at Coventry's Parkside plant are still onl giving moral support DATA's telerilla - stati tactic has helped manual workers off from latest moves urgently demand that this isolation is ended. Call on Confed DATA's executive has called n the 34 million-strong Con ederation of Shipbuilding an _BYADAVID MAUDE Engineering Unions to convene an emergency meeting to discuss the company's lockout threat.

Both the CSEU executivemeeting in York on Thursday —and the Amalgamated Union strikers suffer setback THE NINE-WEEK strike of 200 maintenance engineers at Ferodo's Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, factory has ended.

Settlement has been reached on a productivity deal which sacrifices two daily tea breaks and accepts other productivity terms.

In return the men - who originally demanded a straight £10 wage rise-will get £8 16s wage increase, bringing their basic rate to £35 8s 3d.

In addition they face the threat of redundancies.

Works director C. S. Clifford announced last week that the strike was obviously bringing with it a long period of lost orders which might never be recovered.

A loss of large orders would mean smaller productions, needing fewer men, he told the 'Buxton Advertiser'.

What sort of scale, or even if any redundancies were needed, would not be clear until the dispute was settled and the cost mounted, he said.

Productivity and speed-up terms accepted at Ferodo can only increase the threat of wide-scale redundancies. Ferodo workers must be on their guard against any management attempt to implement this redundancy threat.

Pre-conference Cabinet THE CABINET met yesterday to continue the government's intensive review of public expenditure prior to tomorrow's opening of the Tory Party conference in Blackpool.

Exactly what 'economies' are to be proposed has not been revealed.

Ministers in charge of spending departments which are not in the Cabinet were also at the meeting. Lucas maintenance men return to work AFTER EIGHT weeks on before the dispute and prostrike, maintenance workers vides for a year's pay in the works engineers standstill.

department of the Lucas and Stewards recommended a CAV factories, Fazakerley return by four votes to near Liverpool, returned to three, and their recomwork at the weekend.

They were on strike for The decision was reached a f5 straight increase, but a few hours before an returned to work on the appeal was to be made to basis of management's offer Lucas transport drivers to made four weeks ago.

This involves a £4 in- extend its effects to bring it crease which incorporates to a speedy and successful rises already agreed on conclusion.

Paper strings LONDON newspaper distribution workers were ending their two-week overtime ban and work-to-rule yesterday following the acceptance of the emloyers' 12g per cent ofter by society ol Graphical and Allied Trades officials.

Previously they had been offered 10 per cent.

Also agreed was a 30s payment from February 1 next year tied to immediate talks on improving efficiency' and on methods of linking pay to higher productivity. industrial centres are behind Rolls-Royce's of Engineering Workers, comprising DATA, the AEF and the CEU, must lay immediate plans to beat back Rolls' vicious Tory-strengthened attack on jobs, wages and conditions. demand for action Oldham and Ashton-underSpeed-up fight as Tories attack mer drivers, stampers and ancillary crane drivers, slingers, labourers and inspectors are all involved.

The negotiations are at different stages for each section of workers, but all are tied to a productivity points index, based on the relationship of overall manhours worked to overall production and linked with greater flexibility and mobility The management wants a position where workers can only increase wages by accepting further manpower cuts, combined with the ending of 'restrictive practices.

Labourers, crane drivers and slingers have been operating this system for a number of mendation was carried by a shop meeting.

support the dispute and with a high standard of living is vutneadle to many forms of blackmail. It seems natural that he should do rather more than just improvise his means of self-protection.

For all these very urgent reasons, the local authority workers must receive the immediate support of every single trade union and every section of workers.

The Tories are now forcing the pace with a vengeance. They are taking advantage of the betrayals of the trade union leadership since : the General Election.

With the support of workers in other unions the wretchedis underpaid council workers can win their claim.

Legal noose unions months, having accepted it on the recommendation of their stewards, many of them Communist Party members.

In machine shops where in the past 'one labourer to one machine' has always been rule, implementation of this system has brought the ratio nearer one labourer to four machines, under conditions of complete mobility of labour from shop to shop.

Preparation

The stepped-up productivity drive at BSC coincides with Tory preparations to announce their detailed plans for steel denationalization.

The government is believed to be considering a number BSC YESTERDAY laid 3,000 tin-plate workers at the Corporation's Velindre and Llanelli plants in S Wales. 450 maintenance men at the factories walked out two weeks ago against a productivity deal.

Unions involved in the strike were meeting yesterday.

of ways in which this can be done, 'unscrambling' the Corporation - created under the Wilson government - and handing back its most profitable parts to private investors.

Tory programme promises to 'progressively reduce' state ownership of the steel industry. Tory businessmen with Sydney, Sept. 30—Despite the fact that the attempt to inject a law-and-order issue into the recent anti-Vietnam War Moratorium burst over the electorate in a local by-élection with all the force of a wet paper bag, the government has not given up trying to use the anti-war movement to stir up reaction.

This time the props used were a Vietcong flag and the Labour opposition leader Mr Gough Whitlam's statement that young conscripts who object to the Vietnam war should register, but refuse to serve. (The Australian Labour Party is officially opposed to conscription.)

Although • the Labour Party claims a majority of votes in Australia it is effectively barred from office by a coalition of the Liberal (Tory) and Country Parties.

A Federal Senate (Upper House) election is in the offItalian unions sell out on reforms ITALIAN trade unions have agreed 'in principle' with the government on reforms of health services and urban housing.

Trade union representatives are to collaborate with government officials and the Interministerial Committee for Economic Planning (CIPE) in drafting laws to provide a non-contributory health • service and cheap housing, built with private capital for the next three years and then public money. and Municipal Workers' Union and the National Union of Public Employees warned delegates that pumping stations would have to be strongly picketed.

It was here the first troops would be sent and here that the GLC was making its most desperate effort to maintain service with 'scab' labour.

NUPE's Ron Keating said that many other unions and unionists were watching their "This is not a fight for the council workers alone, it is • political night tor the whole of the trade union movement against the policies of this Tory government, he ended to more cheers and applause.

The men hope for well 1,000 on their 10 a.m. march from Tower Hill to County Hall, where they will demonstrate in favour of their claim for a 55s rise.

So far the employers have offered 35s.

BSC From our industrial correspondent itchy palms are growing impatient to have this plan put into eftect.

Alternatives under consideration are believed to include selling half the corporation's share on the stock exchange and hiving off profitable sections, leaving the rest nationalized.

The second course seems the more likely, as it will be more profitable for investors.

Full ahead

Plans are likely to be announced this week at the Tory conferencè in Blackpool.

Meanwhile the BSC is going full ahead with its productivity plans to make the industry as attractive as possible to private capitalists.

Steel workers like those at BSC's Sheffield factory must resist these Tory plans by fighting against all attempts to bring in productivity and speed-up.

The Board already has Tory government backing in holding down wages and executives have announced that the labour force is to be slashed by 100,000 in the next four It comes as no surprise to read in "Steel News' that Finance Managing Director Wilfrid Molyneux considers the Corporation must increase efficiency by means of flexibility and reduction of manpower through increased ing and the ruling coalition is determined to whip up anti-Labour feeling over the protest issue.

The usual hysterical note has been thrown in by the government and its supporters.

The Labour Party, according to Country Party Leader and Deputy Prime Minister Mr John McEwen, is determined to bring an end to parliamentary democracy and replace it with an authority established by disruption — hence the street demonstrations supported by the ALP, according to Mr McEwen.

But once again the government's attempts at scaring the silent majority, supposedly on its side, could well backfire.

The Vietcong flag came on to the scene when it was featured in a photograph behind Mr Whitlam seen addressing a meeting.

The picture was tabled in Federal parliament. This, said On this basis the Catholic (CISL) and Social Democratic (UIL) unions have renounced all strike action for reforms— despite the fact that no agreement has been obtained on the pressing questions of transport, education, agriculture, taxation and price control - all included in the original demands.

VALUELESS

In any case, as the last six years of centre-left coalition governments show, promises, agreements and even draft laws for reforms are valueless.

The basis this betrayal was laid months when CISL and UIL chiefs took the lead in calling off the general strike reforms planned for July 7 when the previous centre-left government, under Rumor, resigned in open political blackmail the previous day.

The stated policy of CGIL-the main, Stalinist-led trade union—is still for action on the outstanding demands. But the reactionary core of their line is the pursuit of 'unity" with their fellow CISL and UIL bureaucrats.

The Stalinists followed them in calling of the july 7 strike and will certainly use their betrayal now as an excuse for retreat by the CGIL.

STIFFENING

The sell-out on the reforms will mean a stiffening of the struggle on wages and conditions at shop-floor level.

Workers struggling to keep up with inflating prices face the manoeuvres union officials, who refuse to back the struggle to enforce the agreements made during the mass strikes last winter, and accelerating repression of militants in the factories.

At Verbania, in N Italy, a strong force of riot police and armoured vehicles arrived last week to 'ensure public order' The 2,000 workers of the main factory there, the Rhodiatoce textile plant, have been on strike for almost a month to enforce the national contract signed in March.

In face of this provocation they decided overwhelmingly to reject the proposal of the 'left' Christian Democratic Under-Secretary of Labour, Toros, to go back to work and start negotiations.

Toros' intervention was at the invitation of local union Socialists make their

BIZAIR MAMI

PAR AVION AUS hader speakin is behe tab an speaking beneath an énemy flag.

The picture it seems was taken by a staff member the Australian News and Information Bureau, a body whose job it is to give trade and migration publicity for Australia overseas.

But it appears that during a demonstration in Canberra, caméramen, on Prime Minister John Gorton's orders, had been busy taking pictures of protesters - ıncludıng Mr Whitlam.

Mr Gorton's use of the ANIB to take what are obviously contrived pictures has created considerable wrath and possibly destroyed any adantage-if one was gained -from Mr Whitlam's conscription statement.

But even more sinister are the claims levelled at him by the Labour leader that the picture presented to the world had also been/ doctored and trimmed.

The ALP is certainly in opposition to the Australian involvement in Vietnam (in the long run that might be where the votes are), but proVietcong and pro-communist -never.

WHILE the capitalist government is stıll continuing its law-ana-order fight its strong-arm aly trom tne demonstration, tne police torce, is also continuing its good work. • Members ot the public, and even some witnesses who arrived at Sydney's Court of retty sessions to near charges arısıng out of the Moratorium marcn, tound police barring them trom entry. Inside the courthouse every | seat usually occupied by itıgants and attorneys, and all seats in the pubuc gallery were occupied by This action has resulted in a barrister seking a contempt ot court order against two police inspectors responsible tor the action.

Even if most of the newspapers and all the right-wing politicians have nothing but invectives to level at those who protest against the Vietnam war, the people of that country have not overlooked the ettort being made.

Radio Hanoi this week broadcast a 'sincere thanks' from trade unionists to those who organized the anti-war demonstrations throughout The official N Vietnamese Radio said in the broadcast, oni red atin n rade Federation Unions has warmly acclaimed the action.

It also protested against the 'savage repressions and mass arrests of demonstrators ....

In a separate broadcast the radio said : ( 'The current anti-war movement in Australia is providing practical support for the Vietnamese people's anti-US fight for national salvation . .

WEATHER General situation: depression over North Scotland will move slowly east. All districts will have a windy, showery day.

The showers will be more frequent in the west and north and will become heavy and prolonged at times over Scotland, N Ireland and N England, with perhaps some sleet or snow over the Scottish mountains.

The showers over the Midlands and E England will be lighter and less frequent. It will become cold in the north, rather cold in the south.

Help the Young