Double book-keeping in 'Comment'

covers up Standard's set-back 'SO FAR from being divided', claims an in the Communist Party's 'Comment' this 'the workers of Standard-Triumph on return are strengthened' Most Standard-Triumph workers who have seen this article are contemptuous of both this and other claims made in it.

Which might at first sight seem surprising.

The article was written by factory's Amalgamated Engineers and Foundryworkers convenor, Mr Bill Moore.

'Comment, whose circulation was claimed at thé Communist Party's recent Congress to be 6,500, is not widely amongst StandardTriumph workers.

It has, needless to say, not been Moore or anyone else in the Communist Party who issue, Workers Press supporters.

This is entirely in keeping with our reporting of events at the factory before, during and after the recent 11-week strike.

I see the Workers Press made some belittling remarks on the return to work. But who do they represent?' Moore says.

'We try to satisfy our members-not the onlookers.' EXAMINE RECORD Let us examine the record behind both this statement and Moore's other claims.

This should help to clarify what the Trotskyist Workers Press represents as against the Stalinist 'Comment.

Two days before the strike was ended, the Workers Press (November 8) reported what were believed to be the terms on which the strike committee would recommend a return.

Alonside this were printed comments from a number of workers who were critical of the inactivity of the rest of the combine and feared that the terms might 'turn out to be a "fix""

One made the point that:

If we go back without winning it will be very hard Stop Wilson's visit to Nixon Labour MP urticle their

Ritual criticism So Grant contented himself with a few ritual left-sounding 'criticisms' of "Tribune' and Newens.

They were more right-wing than Attlee had been in the 1930s and were preparing a 'trap' for the working class.

However, Grant retained a 'great admiration' for them and for Hugh Scanlon and Jack Jones in the unions.

I have a great admiration for Scanlon and Jones but they will inevitably betray in a period of crisis', he said.

Newens became very indignant when the "Tribune' group was accused of being 'on their bellies to Wilson'.

This was not true, he said.

Why, the "Tribune' group GREET SHEFFIELD Sunday December 21, 7.30 p.m.

Industries Exhibition Centre Carver Street (behind City Hall)

KE BANDA (Editor of Workers' P A TORRANCE (National Secretar Young Socialists) to get the men out again if negotiations the management refuse what we want.

'We only win if they pay us.?

On November 12 we reported that workers were 'highly suspicious of the fivepoint plan for ending the strike put forward by the strike committee' This was backed up by comments from workers who thought the strike was 'a sellout ... 11 weeks wasted ... we don't really know what we're getting'.

ANSWER?

These were not "belittling remarks' dreamed up by 'onlookers' from the Workers Press, but the comments of Standard-Triumph workers— many of them named-themselves.

What is Moore's answer to them?

The strike began, as Moore himself has to point out, over demands for lay-off pay and revisions in the bonus scheme, but ended with a simple 9d.an-hour increase in pay.

Hardly unqualified victory, in any trade unionist's book.

Instead of seriously analysing the reasons for this setback, Moore covers it over with two completely vague and deliberately meaningless phrases:

It has put the question of lay-offs and payment for them right to the forefront of demands the industry must tackle.

'While parity with the Midlands was not part of our claim as such, it has put this in the live arena of negotiations.' The bonus question gets completely lost, except for a promise — in which few workers who have spoken to the Workers Press have any confidence — that 'negotiations continue on a • revised bonus structure which will yield more money. There will be more, 30s. doesn't finish it .30s. even without strings may not seem much for 1l weeks on striker but we admits pathetically, OUT