Tube strike ends No sell' in talks on

C.I.R. threat at I.-H. of the old nostrum.

Strikes, of course, are the 'disease' they want to prevent.

Thursday's meeting of the have one trump card in their favour. committ Mend Heap drive for MeasuredMAR 17 1971 INSTITUTION TO NIXON THE STRIKE at London Transport's Acton. maintenance depot is to end on Monday following talks at the Department of Employment and still from union and COMMUNIST PARTY members in Sidcup have swung fa bolindotke campaig ta stop Wilson's January, visit. to Washington with a letter demanding its cancellation. By our Industrial reporter The three-month dispute had cut the underground's Northern Line service by a quarter and drastically reduced the number of lifts and escalators in action.

London Transport has now agreed that vacancies 'mechanical craftsmen' will be filled by engineers and not by 'making semi - skilled craftsmen.

The Board's unilateral move to this form of flexibility of labour was the initial cause of the strike.

New deal But although the settlement removes the immediate issue at stake-restoring an agreement which the LTB broke 15 months ago-the strike committee has agreed to immediate talks with management to frame a new deal.

Strike committee chairman Laurie Miller claimed after the Department of Employment and Productivity (DEP) talks that the strike had been victorious.

But the victory seems likely to be short-lived.

** National Union ví Railwaymen (NUR)—the noncraft union at the depot—has insisted that if the talks do not result in agreement by February 7 the issue should be referred to the DEP court of enquiry.

Discussions

The NUR leadership has all along demanded that the terms of the railway pay-andefficiency deal be applied at the Acton depot.

Despite Miller's statement Briefly DEP INTERVENES: The week-old unofficial strike by London's 1,800 lightermen had by yesterday forced more than 22 ships to lie idle.

The Department of Employment and Productivity continued its efforts to end the strike by arranging a meeting between the men's union and the company involved, Beagle Shipping.

The dispute was caused by Beagle's move to employ nonregistered dock labour on four self-propelled barges.

The union-the watermen, Lightermen, Tugmen and Bargemen's—has lost a quarthrough severance in the bert ter of its year and says that it has found considerable support from dockers facing similar problems to the lightermen.

POSEIDON SPECULATION: the Poseidon nickerisine company continued yesterday as share prices rose again to reach £60.

Although the firm's chairman said at the annual meet. ing in Australia that it was not yet possible to give the size of the operation, when it would start or the size of the newly-found nickel ore resources, demand for the shares continued apace.

The discovery of major nickel fields Western Australia has caused Poseidon share prices to multiply tenfold in the last two and a half months-one of the sharpest-ever rises.

ARRESTS IN INDONESIA: The anti-communist military dictatorship in Indonesia has arrested several senior army officers on charges of plotting In restore the figmen Patai dent Sukaro.

The officers, ranking from Colonel to Major-General, included Major-General Mursid, a former Indonesian ambassador to the Philippines, and once deputy chief of the army.

Mursid is accused of having secret links with Sukarno.

MUSICIANS TO STRIKE : The musicians' union is instructing its 33,000 members to strike if they are asked to work with soloists who are non-members.

The union began its möve last night by telling the English Chamber Orchestra not to play in a radio conthat there are no 'strings' attached to the deal, the Acton men now find themselves faced with a new round of discussions in which the LTB clearly hope to win back the disputed promotion procedure.

There can be no compromise with the LTB on productivity terms.

The strength and determination of the Acton strike, which has received widespread support from other engineering workers in the London area, must not be frittered away in the negotiations.

On Guard London Transport passes into the control of the Tory Greater London Council on January 1, and the GLC has already made clear its determination to make the service pay by attacking conditions on the tube.

The Acton workers must be back-door suard against any attempts to degrade their condtions.