Behind the anti-union laws

for a major economic crisis THE TORIES' anti-union Bill makes inevitable a massive confrontation between the employers' government and the working class. protest, but for defeating the government and bringing it down. 5,000 carworkers, and the government's refusal to give inancial assistance to the Mersey docks, are part of the same Tory last Thursday makes clear that This is no matter for BY CLIFF SLAUGHTER bodies are likely to be forced out of business, or at least go underground, by Mr Carr's British-Leyland's sacking of views, the Presenting Telegraph', with goverament all the .cold and sneering brutality of the British ruling Slass. explains: what The publication a l measures are actually coptemplated for the coming period: "Should they, [wildcats'] persist in defying: court orders against inciting or prolonging strikes, they could in the long run be Why are the Tories so committed to prison for furiously stoking the fires of contempt of court, under an all-out clash with the the law as it stands. labour movement? It is But there is no reason, because behind their attacks looms the rapidly deepening NATO & Warsaw To survive in this crisis Pact seek deal trade un ATEMENTS issued by NATO and Warsay ir conferences earlier this week both stress eement on Berlin as the first step towards mea invested 500 wilkers. nd sacking 30,000 The NATO communiqué, issued at the end of its two-day conference in Brussels yesterday, said that it 'affirmed the readiness ... as soon as the talks on Berlin have reached a satisfactory conclusion . . . to enter into multi-lateral contacts with al governments to explore when it would be possible to convene a conference, or a series of conferences, on security and co-operation in Europe'.

The debate has therefore shifted from if' to 'when' — a highly significant developReply The NATO document was partly a reply to the Warsaw Pact communiqué released the previous day after its meeting in E Berlin.

The statement declared that all E European states were ready to improve their relations with the West.

NATO regards Soviet concessions over W Berlin as a test of its 'good faith' in proposing a European Security conference.

Hence the Kremlin's pressure on the Ulbricht leadership to ease its firm stand against a change in W Berlin's status which technically is politically separate from W Germany.

Role

Following reports of differences between E Germany and other Warsaw Pact members at its Berlin conference Pravda' yesterday published a declaration by the seven Pact powers emphasizing the role of E Germany in creating a sound European peace.

• See European Review, page 3. • Pact powers after the need to reach European 'collective TUC policy slammed BY A WORKERS PRESS CORRESPONDENT PRINT union chief Richard Briginshaw's restatement of TUC General Council policy òn the Industrial Relations Bill met with a cool reception from about 50 union officials at a Congress school yesterday.

'Our members are screaming out for leadership from the top, said one. If the TUC says "act", then they will act. If it doesn't they Other delegates spoke of the reactionary, stick-in-themud attitude' of the TUC accused the General counce of conniving with the Tories to get the Bill through.

DOCK employers' proposals for a Devlin Phase Two speedup deal were rejected yesterday by the executive of the port committee.

Tight discipline in Pilkington scheme A STRATEGY or replacing disciplinary clauses • union incentive bonus schemes branches are expected to with a form of Measured- approve by next Tuesday. Day Work is outlined in It seems as if they're two joint union-management proposing to fall in line with reports under discussion in any anti-union laws that are the Pilkington glass combine. going to take place, even The pay plan, which is before they're passed', comthe result of four months' mented sacked Pilkington's work by five company men rank-and-file leader Gerry and five representatives of Caughey yesterday. the General and Municipal • More details on the Workers' Union, would be deal in Monday's Workers sliced — if accepted - by Press. scheme or MDW blackmail Work was not accepted.

This was after stewards from the Austin-Morris car complex at Cowley, near Oxford, had met management to hear how the group's manpower reductions would affect the Cowley works.

"They told us that the closures and cuts planned would not mean redundancies at Cowley if we accepted Measured-Day Work on the new ADO 28 model, Tom White, a shop steward in the engine assembly plant told the THREAT "They kept on emphasizing this. It is clear that the management is using the threat of redundancies as a big stick to destroy piecework and introduce a massive speed-up on the new model, he added.

In a strongly-worded state5,000 jobs could go BRITISH-LEYLAND'S ruthless pronts drive yesterday threatened to 'streamline' 5,000 jobs out of existence from the combine's AustinMorris division.

About 850 management, junior staff and indirect workers from various factories will be given notice from January 1 if the plan goes through.

The rest of the unemployment package, which has been rejected by union officials at national level, would be phased over 1971.

Two Leyland' plants-Coventry's Quinton Rd body factory and the Adderly Park West commercial-vehicle site in Birmingham - would close next year.

Worst hit if the company's plan is implemented will be Birmingham, where over 3,000 face the sack.

In area meetings with management, local union officials and shop stewards were told that 700 workers must be put out of their jobs at Swindon, 600 at Oxford and 350 at Coventry.

Here is the urgent case for nationalization under workers' control in a nutshell.

Central to the 'fifth phase of the group's integration programme', as . Austin - Morris director George Turnbull stresesd yesterday, is the introduction of Measured-Day Work on to the ADO 28 model at the Cowley assembly plant in Oxford. redundancies ment issued by Cowley management, closures are threatened if changes are not made at the Austin-Morris plant.

Cowley, says the two-page statement, "has contributed more than its share to the loss of production through disputes and has not been making enough motor cars to justify its continued existence.

CHANGE

'Radical change is needed to put this right, it adds.

The management proposes a drastic run-down of departments employing 'indirect' labour and this, plus the British-Leyland workers leaving an Oxford meeting yesterday morning which heard stewards report on MDW talks. claim phasing out of four old car models, could mean up to 1,000 redundancies in the Oxford Austin-Morris division.

Management says, however, that these workers could be absorbed in production if the ADO 28 proceeds under MDW.

LESS WORKERS 'But we can't see this,' said Tom White. 'Under MeasuredDay Work we will need less production workers not more. LEYLAND'S SACK PLAN Place No. Plants hit Birmingham 3,350 Five Swindon 700 One Oxford 600 One Coventry 336 Two #IIII 'Really, this statement is the lowest form of scare tactics employed by one of the biggest in this country.

'But we will not fall for their threats.' For British-Leyland, Cowley is the key plant on which its drive for profitability depends.

It is here that they hope to begin production on the ADO 28 under Measured-Day Work as a start to abolishing piece work rates throughout the group.

• TIMED The latest announcements are timed a week before the report back to men at Cowley on the Measured-Day Work talks between top management and unions at York next Friday.

From there, union officials will put the outcome of the discussions to a mass meeting of Cowley workers on Sunday and his and Appeal Fund starts at £74 13s 6d aH our neaders to berinkine campaign early as we will need to raise the bulk of the fund before Xmas.

With the latest Tory proposals aimed at destroying the trade unions, the role of the more than ever before.

We are confident, from the tremendous response you give us on each occasion, we can raise the fund in time. We certainly, will not let you down in this bitter struggle against this government.

Please give as generously as you can towards our December fund. Post all your donations to:

Appeal Fund, 186a Clapham High Street, London, SW4.

PUBLI LECTU in the government's view, why they should have to go to jail unless they deliberof themselves, make martyrs ately want to This means, in plain English: militants will go to jail, and will be witch-hunted and condemned as self-appointed martyrs.

Dictatorship

The new laws are the first step along the road to open capitalist dictatorship akin to the corporate state of Mussolini and Hitler's Nazi regime.

The working class will not permit the capitalists to take this road out of the crisis.

But to defeat their plans it is necessary to conduct a ruthless struggle to force the union leaders to mobilize the trade unions for a general strike to bring them down.

The TUC right-wing's and the Labour leaders' treachery is that they collaborate with the class enemy in these steps to dictatorship. The more they crawl, the more the Tories press ahead.

It is because of the depth of the crisis, and the historic changes which are really signiby the anti-union laws, that the role of Stalinism is now so sinister and dangerous.

The Stalinists distort the struggle against the anti-union laws into a mere protest to 'change the government's mind'.

They obstruct the demand that the union leaders forced to fight, and cover up for these leaders.

They create the fatal illusion that there could somehow be a Tory government today which carried on without such anti-union laws.

Here we have the traditional counter-revolutionary role of Stalinism.

At the decisive and critical masses come forward into struggle to take on the class enemy, the Stalinists combine with the trade union bureaucracy to cut the movement down to the size of a protest, restrict it to the 'parliamentary road', and enable the ruling class to return to 'normal'.

But under this 'normality' the ruling class makes rapid strides to the right.

The task is politically to unite the working class in its unions to resist and defeat the Tory government, the first step to working-class power.

There is no other way.

We call upon all trade unionists to attend the annual conference of the All Trades Unions Alliance on December 19, and make the fight for the Charter of Basic Rights the centre of the campaign to make the union leaders mobilize a general strike.

This is the way to build the indispensable alternative revolutionary leadership.