500 still out against deal on

THE STRIKE by 500 Transport and General Workers' Union (T&GWU) members at British Titan products, Billingham, has been made official by the union.

At a mass meeting in Stockton last week, the men decided that a return to work would take place only if the seven men sacked ten days ago under a new productivity scheme were reinstated. decision hearine management the union's By our industral reporter made a statement stating 'that it was astonished to hear the union had officially condoned their members' action in walking off the site in defiance of existing agreements ... and there would appear to be little point in entering into agreements with them in the future'.

The men claim • that + the productivity scheme was on a month's trial ending on October 27 and that they walked off the site when the management put scabs on the sacked men's jobs.

Encouraged by their decision the men continue to man the picket line to persuade incoming lorries to turn back.

The firm's goods have been blacked by Middlesborough dockers.

Now that the strike is official, however, we should give this warning.

The feeling amongst the men and some of the stewards is that this is the end of productivity deals.

The Workers Press and the Socialist Labour League join with the Portuguese students in Britain in condemning the persecution of Inacio Palma, and demand that he, along with all other opponents of the fascist regimes of Spain and Portugal, be released at once.

Demonstration

A demonstration calling for Palma's release will be held by the Portuguese Students' Committee Sunday, November 30, at 2.30 p.m., assembling at Hyde Park Corner, London.

In the nearby ICI plants, however, the very same T&GWU officials who gave official recognition to the Titan strike are bending over backwards to bring the new work-study agreement.

Earlier this year a token one-day T&GWU strike was Called at the Billingham ICI factories to speed up the implementation of the new agreement.

Principled opposition The issue here is of principled opposition to productivity deals.

No matter what the size of the wage increase being offered in return for concessions, the future conditions of a life-time in the chemical factories is being bargained away.

As unemployment develops as a result of government deflationary policies and all wage increases are related to productivity under the Prices and Incomes Act, the way is being opened for a rapid deterioration of working conditions, redundancy and wage-cutting among chemical Registered as a newspaper at the Post Office. Published by Workers Press, 186a Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4.