Tory government prepares Political conspiracy against working class

SPECULATION by union. urrency swops, shor evalution, et government is the guiding expense accumulating and BOAC managements' more convulsive contradictions. their employees' airports tainly well-founded.

This action comes at a time when the Heath woRking das me rat cabinet hopes to inflict La defeat on the power antons. workers through a court exorable bid him cai of inquiry.

And, as uniuta iciders claim, the government's move into the airports Onlal can be viewed as 'political window dressing' to reinforce the power workers' capitulaccelérated, ation.

As in the power workers' ceeds not Hostility to aara or the Irin Fa Ne HOSTILITY to the £3,000 pay-off which ended the recent seven-week Batchelor's reinstatement strike is boiling in a growing number of Sheffield shop stewards' committees and trade union Content and form of stress. branches.

It is believed that two influential stewards' committees and four union adment true branches had already expressed their opposition to the AEF district committee when it met earlier this the did in France ne Many others will by now have followed suit.

Electrical Trades Union Britain render where Ker well-known debacle the government— this time through the state airlines—hopes to pressure the weakest sections of the union leadership into calling oll the work-to-rule.

The weapon now is not a campaign of press distortion, but direct threats of redundancy and lock-out. leaders that the Tory hand behind the BEA tough stand against work-to-rule is cerwill result in disruptions of services.

Then, he says, there would be no alternative 'but to take steps which may result in certain of BEA's activities being discontinued and the staff engaged on them losing their jobs'.

But the guveranisat's dien. port intervention 1s only the latest of a series it has made in industrial disputes since being elected in June. June.

Weeks after they came to office Nock sarson inquiry in setter dock strike.

With the help of the press, a mood of euphoria and complacency was Illi UNION leaders representing 50,000 airport workers refused to call off their work-to-rule yesterday and hit back at management threats of redundancy if normal working is not resumed.

After a meeting of the 15-man union side of the industry's joint committee unions reaffirmed their rejection of the BEA-BOAC offer of a 4t per cent increase.

It does not even match the projected 7 per cent increase, • Mark Young, secretary of the trade union negotiating side, said after the meeting.

'We are at present making only a token demonstration of the way we feel. The longer it goes on the more dangerous it will become, he added.

created during the inquiry among the dockers over so-called 'new offers'.

Because of this and the willing help of union leaders, dockers accepted a settlement which was complete retreat from their claim for a £20 basic wage.

Dockers in Liverpool and London in fact only got 6d from Pearson.

Heath's next major foray into industrial relations came at the time of the council workers' strike.

Here the government came unstuck. Faced with a determined section of workers who fortunately well understood the political implications of their dispute, 1 to disci step the union would issue advance warning to plants whose fire cover was being withdrawn and they would probably be forced to shut down.

The delegate conference will consider recommendation from the Fire Brigades Massive show of New Year THOUSANDS of workers throughout Britain yesterday began 1971 with a massive demonstration of hostility to the employers and their Tory governWhile Tory leader Heath busied himself in the Isle of Wight inspecting his new yacht, miners, dockworkers and motormen brought key sections of industry to a standstill by refusing to work on New Year's Day.

In BIRMINGHAM, centre of yesterday's W Midlands strike and demonstration against the government's anti-union Bill, British-Leyland workers dismissed management warnings and immobilized the city's main car plants.

The combine's Longbridge plant, employing 10,000 production workers, was silenced from Thursday evening. The management estimated a production loss of 900 vehicles worth about £500,000.

No day shift Workers at BLMC's Castle Bromwich car body factory responded magnificently to the action call. Not one of the 5,000 day-shift workers turned up for work.

Only 2,000 of the 5,000 day shift at Rover's Solihull factory reported and work ceased on the company's 2000 and 3500 models.

Production was affected at the group's component fac tories at. Tyseley, Birmingham when 900 of the 3,200 workers stayed away.

But one factory producing gear boxes was shut down is next Union executive, due to meet five days earlier.

At Thursday's National Joint Council meeting, union leaders again rejected the employers' 54 per cent offer and also turned down a suggestion for a joint working party under the Home Secretary's auspices.

The FBU is asking for the wages of its 27,000 members to be boosted from the present £27. 10s level to the £38 earned by airport firemen, and for a shorter working week.

KILL union meeting. A large overTGWU 5674 BRANCH A section of the 5,000-strong Birmingham demonstration. strength when only 37 of the 450 labour force turned up.

Birmingham's Lucas factories were also hit with battery production at a standstill and little output of starters and dynamos.

Walked out

Lucas men, who reported for work at the main factory in Great King St, later walked out to join the demonstration.

Production at Ford Dunlop was maintained, 9,000-strong labour force were absent.

Many of the city's firms were hit as thousands of transport drivers joined the strike. The British Road Services parcel depot was halted, and in SMETHWICK, Birmid Qualcast foundry employing 300 workers was brought to a standstill.

British-Leyland car factories in OXFORD and SWINDON were also affected.

In Oxford more than 1,000 men were off at two car-body plants and 500 stayed away at the Swindon body factory.

Pits stop

Thousands of miners in S WALES started the New Year with a well-earned extra day off work. National Coal Board spokesmen said that the position was 'worse' than last year and production was severely curtailed.

In several pits, coal-face teams were amalgamated and many faces went unworked.

Some S • Wales employers, anticipating the stay-away action, had proclaimed yesterday an official day off.

There was no morning shift at Ford's Swansea plant.

Several firms on MERSEYSIDE, hard-hit last January 1, also put an official seal on the day-off.

These included Ford's Halewood plants and Vauxhall's Ellesmere Port factory.

But the biggest blow to the employers was the compléte shut-down of the Mersey docks. Only 306 dockers reported for work and 73 ships lay deserted along the waterfront.

his action provoked al ttack from the new chairmai

clearly on the • way he Scamp inquiry awarde - substantial wage increase In this case the political intervention of the govern. ment encouraged a group of workers to stand firm and keep a close check on their own leadership. The result was a defeat for the government.

Heath did not make any of the same mistakes in the power workers' disputé. right-wing union leaders like Here the key role Frank Chapple, leader the electricians' union, was quickly estimated.

All the scurrilous propa ganda, all the phoney scare and the state of emergency were aimed at smashing any resistance the union leaders had.

The rout was complete. On the first day national emergency the go. slow was called off almost without condition.

These are three major general Tory policy, that of examples what trying defeat every section of workers to create widespread demoralization as a basis for their trump card-the anti-union laws.

It cannot be stressec often enough, that at thi time all strikes are political because they. involve the security of the Tory government and its plans to smash the unions through the Industrial Relations Bill.

What is new is the more refined and devious methods this government employs to carry its strategy to a successful conclusion.

'Independent' courts of inquiry, back-stairs pressure, crude threats of unemployment and, of course, that subtle liaison with the union bureaucracy.

Withdraw

To counter these activities all trade unionists must withdraw from government committees, particularly inquiries into wage claims - this means that Jim Mortimer, former DATA official, can make a start by removing himself from the power workers' inquest.

In the longer term there can be only one way to prevent the working class suffering a major defeat.

That is mass strike action to force the Tories to resign and replace them with a Labour administration pledged first to restore the damage done by the Tories and then institute a full socialist programme.

forward in preparation for the next advance. This, I believe, is what the Communist Party and the "Morning Star" try to do? Now we can see why Mr Geering wants to start from the 'real' and 'present' situation of the working class. Mr Geering cannot-dare not —look at the past situation of the working class because if he did so he would be forced to admit that the CP has either been far over to the right of the working class, as in the days of the Popular Front and the wartime collaboration with Churchill, or so far over to the left, as in the days of 'social fascism', that opened the doors to Hitler in Germany in 1933. The history of Stalinism is the history of treachery to the working class!

hat is the 'real situation' ?

consists not only of the present relationship of forces between the capitalist and working class and the past political development of the working class, but, above all, of the very real relation which exists between the working class and its traditional reformist leadership. Significantly, Mr Geering does not refer to this anywhere. To do so would be to embarrass his Stalinist friends since the Communist Party deliberately refuses to demand that the TUC call a General Strike to force the Tories to resign.

Furthermore neither Geering nor the 'Star' raise the prospect of a Labour government with socialist policies being ; returned in 1971.

All his talk of 'one step at a timé' is a shameless and unprincipled evasion of what kind of advance is required by the present political situation and of the necessity to prepare for a revolutionary leap in the coming period.

As Trotsky remarked of Geering's political and theoretical ancestor MacDonald : 'MacDonald is against revolution, but in favour of organic evolution; he applies to society a badly digested biological conception. For him, evolution, as the sum accumulated political changes, is comparable to living organisms, the transformation of a chrysalis into a butterily, and so on, while