Disruption

only but Devey pay-off to Sheffield CP THE SHEFFIELD branch of the Socialist Labour League has issued the following 'Open Letter' to the Sheffield Communist Party on the Devey affair.

Attacking the Workers Pres chelor's Foods paid out £3,000 to the ex-convenor of the plant Terry Devey. The facts behind this are now well known. Devey had been sacked for allegedly using the This is a completely reformis firm's time for a meeting and or development I seven-week strike followed It received considerable financial and moral support from factories in the Sheffield imperials and Stalinisr area. In the end, however, after AEF district George Caborn had called in HAL Those , sacking, Devey agreed to 'resign' his job, took the £3,000, and the strike was tail-end it in every called off.

Thousands of Sheffield trade utte slightest le by the affair, and the unionists are rightly incensed treacherous role played in it more das prily. ahe by the CP.

The local Employers' Federation and the Tory MP This rings hermed again in for Heeley are welcoming the settlement. The Confederation of British Industry is mountwillinose doe Devey has said that the CP for denounced the settlement and announced Devey is no longer a Party member. organizer, Howard Hill, on TV In a letter to his stafi, BEA's new chief executive Henry Marking warns that a continued work-to-rule ity to pay-off members who took a leading part in the strike have confirmed the accuracy of our investigation into the They now believe that both paid-off convenor Terry Devey and AEF district secretary George Caborn must take responsibility for the settlement.

Devey, they say, has become the scapegoat of the Communist Party - both men were CP members at the time of the settlement —because of Caborn's trade union position.

An open letter on December 30 condemned the settlement, said he advised Devey not to take the money, and said that CP members do not do such things.

What is the truth?

First, a settlement was agreed on December 16, which amounted to the employers getting rid of a convenor and defeating a strike by paying out money to him.

Second, the convenor was, at the time, a leading member FIRE - STATION delegates will meet on January 12 to discuss the authorities' refusal to raise their 5z-per-cent pay offer.

Militant firemen are pressing for the present 'emergency calls only' action to be stepped up with an overtime ban and a ban on fighting fires in factories and shops.

If this move is successful,

f the CP, very prominent i organizing the one-day stop pages against anti-union laws on December 8. He has now accepted a settlement in lin with these same laws Third, the AEF negotiato vas George Caborn, anothe leading Party member.

Fourth Pary and thai moponer the mittee cluding Howar ei-ser did the were unable influence Clee to reed a pay om settlement. know this and are stillerbed tru this suppression of the Howard Hill's denunciations leave the following questions unanswered.

Is not the CP responsible for Devey? Is it not responsible for Caborn? Why did not the Party instruct its members, including Caborn, to defeat the settlement?

We ask one thing of Howard Hill: Go on TV again, explain the conduct of George Caborn and how that conduct befits a member of your Explain why your members did not defeat the sell-out proposals. Why is the CP in Sheffield in this shameful position, covering up for political opportunism and endangering factory organizaThis reformist peaceful road to socialism' now encourages the Tories and the employers on the eve of the With Stalinist class-collaboration policies and Stalinist methods, you cannot fight the anti-union laws. This is what comes out of the 'Devey affair', which should be called the 'Ramelson, Gollan, Caborn, Howard Hill affair' because it is the direct result of Stalinism.

Members of the Communist Party, there is no escape from this conclusion. History is catching up with Stalinism.

Is it not time, a last chance, to break decisively?

Stop defending shameful, opportunist practices on the PICKETS OUT in this last process ignores exactly the decisive critical moments, when the new being bursts from the old chrysalis in revolutionary wise.' ('Where is Britain Going' p. 51.)

The 'trite evolutionism' of Geering and the CP reflected in this reformist and conservative conception of development leads them to confine the 'chrysalis' in a protest' corset and prevent it from taking a real political step forward.

They bind the working class firmly to the bureaucracy instead of freeing it from this agency of capital. This is the only meaning of their accusation of 'sectarianism' levelled against the Socialist Labour League and of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, Mr John Cuckney, who condemned 11 as 'totally irresponsible' anc "self-destructive'.

The Mersey portworkers were joined by nearly 3,000 dockers in HULL.

Dock administrativé stafi and crane drivers who turned up for work along the Humber had nothing to do, as workers responded en masse to a stayaway recommendation from their shop stewards.

The anger of the dock chiefs in the northern ports was in