Prepare for Tory war on unions

SCOTTISH miners' delegates meeting at Edinburgh yesterday rejected the Coal Board's increased pay offer, but urged the men on unofficial strike in their area to return to normal working. ' They also opposed any delay by their union in achieving parity with miners talking about a minimum rate in areas like Kent and of £20.

Nottinghamshire under the 'Robens seized' on this and National Power Loading said he would consider it if Agreement. we recommended acceptance After this decisive rejection of the offer to the men. to the Robens offer "To get cash to pay • the micers to vote against accept increase Robens asked if the NPLA parity agréement could be postponed for a year until Lawrence Daly in an interview Hona in the ecutes in that al Not disciplined union, area recald not be take sance and, national talks secretary Daly , But this, said Mr Daly, did December 1972—areas not up to parity with Notts and not indicate that the 11 were in favour of area official Kent would be brought half way next year and up to the A tougher Scottish motion full level a year later. asking the NEC to sanction 'In the end we agreed to strikes in areas where miners note this request from the had voted by a simple maiority NCB and undertake to do our for withdrawal labour, best to keep down absenteeattracted only six votes, plus ism and improve output' the support of Mr Daly, who Mr Daly said, however, that has no vote. he expected resolutions at next year's annual conference Da men demanding that parity be paid in full in December 1971 as Yorkshire, Dai Francis originally agreed, and indeed general secretary of the Welsh news from. Scotland Kent and ted Bose trio Burre : yesterday seems to confirm this. strike action.

But as a whole the NEC voted against the resolution decisively showing they could t agree to localized strik German I though I myself was pr pared to support these and maThe thobes offer of 10s in MORE THAN 90 per cent uly tied to output guarantees of the metal-workers in the ower absenteeism and post W German state of Badenponement of parity under the Wuerttemburg have voted NPLA was rejected unani- in favour of. strike action in the car, metal, steel and nously We went back to Roben: iron industries. and someone on our executiv The vote follows emsuddenly asked was he pre ployers' refusal to pay a 15 pared to give 10s now. per cent wage claim from "This was out of the blue. the powerful IG-Metall We had up until then been trade union.

ton Market (See page four the mir do well to ponder swallowed up Rubbing hands and in unemployment, not to mention the impoverishment and material and spiritual degradation of countless workers and their families which this budget is bound to entail.

The cut in income tax for workers, when considered against the prospective in crease in food prices, rents school meals and prescrip ion charges amounts to a gratuitous insult. And et th business tran save big collapse.

The City Editor of The Daily Telegraph', for example, is completely dissatisfied with the size of the Barber axe.

In economic terms yester.

autumn budget is a nondest with the pariad oodies - income tax gobbledtion tax cuter nine-point rise in the Financial Times index The £60 million of Corpora tion tax which companies wil now not be paying in 1970/ etalworkers all-out The 500,000 BadenWuerttemburg workers are the first to vote in favour of a strike.

IG-Metall, however, has said it will call further negotiations before calling a strike.

If the strike goes ahead Top: Marchers shout their slogans as they pass through university town. Above: One of the British-Leyland stewards addresses the council workers' meeting.

WAGE Country 16:10 FOWER

But it is a small drop in the bucket against the background revealed today that the "financial deficit" of commercial and industrial companies was about £900 million the first half of 1970, an increase of £400 million on their financial deficit in the first half of 1969.

This situation will be greatly aggravated vestment grants are abolished.

If the "Telegraph's' warning about the indebtedness of British industry is serious, then the investment position of industry, faced as it is with European and US competition, is beyond redemption.

Mr John Partridge, Confederation of British Industry president, at a luncheon in the N Midlands yesterday described it as 'especially serious' and well below predicted levels.

The predicted level for 1965-1969 was 274 per cent.

The actual rise in the level of manufacturing investment was 8.7 per cent.

In 1969 it was to be 10-15 per cent higher than 1968; in fact it turned out to be niggardly 5} per cent.

According to this spokesman for the monopolies, investment in 1971 will probably decrease.

These figures speak more eloquently than all the Tory propaganda about the real state of the economy and the inevitability of much larger and more swingeing attacks on workers' living standards and employment in the very near future.

The social and economic WORKERS AT Omes electro-forging works in SW London yesterday voted to continue their stubborn The stoppage began after management refused to recognize negotiating rights of the factory convenor and shop stewards' committee for AEF clerical Oxford