Back to the 30s in

ANTI-APARTHEID

to break the S African outside the ground. escorted • Pakistan will broadcast to Khan nation afternoon Radio Pakistan said yesterday. The brief announcement.

of nde subjece nave witi com- mand. • The • Indians are surrouncinda for ke to acd withdrawal a the cetain.

Pakistanı vacuated they Pakistan Shuinne fearful of Dese risers rom Kang a guerNiazi wants avoid surrendering his arms.

• SEE PAGE FOUR.

According to Department of Employment figures, 21,212 of production dra on rion production construction accounted for the leap.

The national unemployment figures are released today.

If Birmingham's trend is an indication, as it usually is, of Britain as a whole, then the million mark will be passed. partment of Employment De med that a new study c e mobility of labour is beir drama done ine outraker to cut edumans and to per cent In other words, the smaller Work no the men nut on the dole.

At the same time wages are being kept to 7 per cent norm, just below productivity increases.

It is clear that productivity schemes like Measured-Day Work accepted by union leaders in exchange for paltry increases has meant the dole for thousands more workers.

As the Birmingham figures came through, there was more news to confirm the recession point reached by British capitalism.

Industrial output as a whole has been virtually static throughout 1971 and there has been no overall improvement in recent months, according to the Central Statistical Office yesterday.

The output index for October fell 1.1 _points to 125.5. The index for manufacturing • PAGE FOUR Col 5 What-werthink A dangerous move INO ONE can deny that the official leadership of the trade union and labour movement has treated women workers abominably.

Since 1888, the TUC has been promising to fight for • 'equal pay for work of equal value. In its dying month the Wilson government promised this... by 1975.

Right-wing union chiefs continue to treat the demands of their female members with barely-concealed contempt, while the 'lefts'—as in the 1968 engineering package deal - attempt to tie them to speed-up, jobevaluation and other methods of proving to employers that women are worth exploiting.

It is little wonder that women at Joseph Lucas Ltd's Burnley electricalcomponents factory should feel profound discontent working class behind index To the West of the conurbation, at WOLVERHAMPTON the increase in unemployed since mid-November is a staggering 7.5 per cent!

The number of male workers on the dole increased from 4,725 to 5,1ll. Wólverhampton is based closely on heavy engineering and capita! investment projects.

With the slump in investment reported on Tuesday, these figures are significant indicators for future trends. . At WALSALL the figure 1s up 5.4 per cent from 3,716 to 3,926, a reflection of the continuing depression in the tubemaking and foundry industries.

At COVENTRY, where machine-tool orders are falling i, ancinployment among men has risen 2.4 per cent in one month to a total. of 7,698.

The responsibility for the upward swing in the number of jobless workers has to be laid at the door of the trade union leadership.

ilthe Tory government is clear about the need destroy the right to work. It 5 part ot their perspective aimed at splitting and weakening the working class.

Yet since the Tories came to power 18 months ago, union leaders have stood back and allowed them to double unemployment.

Meeting after meeting has taken place between Tory Ministers and the TUC at which union leaders expressed hopes that the Tories would reflate the economy.

Pressure and protest are the main tools of reformist trade union leaders. • At no time have they attempted to mobilize the working class to force the Tories to resign. When the Tories brought in the Industrial Relations Act to back up unemployment, the reply was the same: protest and pressure.

Now these same 'leaders' are seeking to compromise wage claims aimed at catching up with the cost of living increases.

It was only on Sunday that TUC secretary Victor Feather told the Tories he was calling a conference in February to with this state of affairs.

tion, however, in declaring that their move to form a separate women's union using the Tory Industrial Relations Act is a misguided and dangerous This should be proved by the eagerness with which Robert Carr's Department of Employment has encouraged union secretary Mrs Pat Sturdy's idea of applying to the National Industrial Relations Court for negotiating rights.

Separate negotiating rights . for women Burnley cond do nothing but a • vide Lucas's with a wedge to worsen their pay and conditions — setting a national precedent which would be seized on by every rapacious employer. But even more important, an award of this nature by NIRC would have disastrous consequences for the Benefit to (L to r) Hugh McCann, Martin Meehan and Anthony ('Dutch') Doherty. Below: Doherty shows internees' families The p to be cut?

N IRELAND'S Health and Social Service Ministry is allegedly planning to cut off all social service benefits from internees' dependants.

Civil Rights MP Ivan Cooper said he had this information on "impeccable He said that the reason the Ministry planned to put forward this action was that the dependants of internees were receiving money from various funds set by organizations for the relief of financial distress among internees' dependants.

He added: 'The Ministry of course, knows perfectly well that those funds are not large and cannot be equated against the benefits the Ministry proposes to withhold ruthlessly?

One internee's wife told me that she has already had her travel allowance limited, making it almost impossible for her to travel to visit her husband in Long Kesh. trade union movement as a whole.

The Burnley women should tell Mrs Sturdy to something positive with the papers the D of t gave her in London on Tuesday night: Burn them!

WE CANNOT let this issue pass without a brief comment on the role of Lord Cooper's General and Municipal Workers' Union, which intends to register under the Act and is the majority union at Burnley. Its right-wing policies have obvious had a lot to do with the disillusionment and even cynicism of many of Mrs Sturdy's members with the official movement. But now it seeks to make the situation worse.

When the Women's Industrial Union wrote to Cooper asking for discussions, he replied that they should first disband so as not to threaten his organization's registered status • Three escapees from the Crumiin Rd jall in Belfast at their Dublin press conference on Tuesday.

leg wounds he claims were Inflicted while he was in the jall. from cigarette berns wası termile and I cord even smell nary skiinambranim New terms to end Plessey occupation PLESSEY combine shop stewards' committee will meet today to hear the company's terms for ending the workers' occupation of their Alexandria plant in the Vale of Leven, Scotland.

Leaders of the Alexandria men, Eddie McLafferty and Jack Green, plus local union officer, Ian Mckee, will report on an offer by Plessey's and the Lyons property group to find a buyer or buyers for the Alexandria factory.

The proposals, which are being discussed by the occupying workers, include: A PLEDGE to leave all machinery in the plant tor AL -up to two years.

A PROMISE to keep workers informed of all developments.

AN OFFICE for the Alexandria convenor Eddie McLafferty and other stewards.

But in return the men must. end their 15-week occupation of the factory.

Eddie McLafferty said yesterday that the men TALKS on the engineering pay claim broke down after two and a half hours yesterday following the employers' complete refusal to increase their offer of a £1.50 increase on basic rates.

Union leaders will meet early in the | New Year— probably January 9—to consider possible industrial action.

But chief negotiator Hugh Scanlon would not be drawn on what form this might take or when it might take place.

Meanwhile the union chiefs, who represent 2.8 million workers in the engineering industry,_ have broken off with the Engineering Employers' Federation on all subjects, including disputes procedure in the industry.

This means that talks on procedure at the Department of Employment scheduled for next Monday will not take place. would not be rushed into decision.

'We want further safeguards before we can accept any terms for ending the occupation, he said.

He added that before making any decision on the terms other stewards in the group had to be consulted.

"The men have backed our fight by blacking any machinery that Plessey's wanted to move from Alexandria. We will consult them before making any move, he said.

The management closed the Alexandria plant on September 3. Only very sented to meet "ines the men parantiv have thar ann. лєссииу шаУс cum" who occupied the factory on the day of its closure.

Together with the Lyons group, Plessey's is now prepared to promote an industrial estate on the Alexandria site.

But the workers must end their occupation, hand over the keys and allow the removal of stocks and work in progress.

Yesterday's meeting resulted in *absolute stalemate' • said Scanlon afterwards.

The employers would not even talk about the unions' claim for new basic rates of £20 for unskilled and £25 for skilled men.

'We reminded them that even today, with family incomes supplements, a man with two children could receive £20. To talk about remaining at £15 basic or the f16 and a few shillings, as suggested by them, is ridiculous,' said Scanlon.

Discussion about other aspects of the claim, including ademand for a 35-hour week, 'did not get the ground', Scanlon said.

He conceded however that the union were 'mindful of the economic climate and mindful of the whole opposition and lack of sympathy of the government. But this would not deter the unions. he claimed. 1l and 16.

It happened because the army has been told to ruthlessly crack down on even the smallest hint of opposition to Tory law and order in Ulster.

It happened because naked violence is all crisis-ridder capitalism has left to offer the working class.

Yesterday at Coalisland anand crowds troops and burned olicles in retaliation for the shooting.

their now familar contradic.

fence into football over a carrying a gun. of mhe sime of whom wee Said to have escaped in a car Apology . esterday the army apolo ized for any confusion cause ports of ishe shootigerent recapitalist world.

In reality the dollar has been devalued against other currencies since August 15. Then President Nixon stopped selling gold to overseas dollar-holders and other countries were forced to let their currencies 'float' upwards against the dollar.

The US decision makes it formally clear there can be no going back to the pre-August 15 Bretton Woods agreement.

At the same time, Nixon is hoping his main trading oponents will agree to the per nanent up-valuation of their own currencies against. the The US is also demanding that the Common Market countries demolish some of their tariff barriers and. open up their protected markets to American goods.

This can only intensify the trade war as each country seeks to protect its own markets and make inroads into thosé of its opponents.

The US leads the pack with its 10 per cent imports surcharge. killing BY IAN YEATS intelligence officers, members of the Special Branch, uniformed RUC men and British paratroops.

A consultant surgeon who examined the men in Dublin on Monday said the wounds and marks on their bodies could be consistent with their accounts of being tortured with needles and burning cigarettes.

Martin Meehan told reporters at Tuesday's press PUBLIC MEETING A series of crisis meetings between the capitalist powers has only driven home the impossibility of restoring the pre-August 15 international agreement to ovèrcome the crisis.

As Workers Press has pointed out consistently -Nixon's decision pushed the capitalist world towards trade war and slump.

The trend towards the latter is now glaringly predominant.

Reporting back from a world international glass monopolist Lord Pilkington told City businessmen on Tuesday that for the first time since World War Il he had found the same worrięs afflicting every major. country. her ad visited; low investinen high unemployment, a bigh rate of inflation, falling de mand and above all a lack of confidence.

Raising the dollar_price of gold cannot change this basic situation.

The US government in any case is unable to open the gold window' because the $40,000m in the hands of overseas bankers cannot be covered by the $10,000m-worth of gold in Fort Knox.

CURRENCIES

Nor can a realignment of currències — likely to be discussed at the Group of Ten meeting in Washington tomorrow-'solve' the crisis.

The connection between paper money and gold, that is, the relationship between currency and value, has been decisively broken.

The capitalist powers have been discussing 'monetary reform' for the last five years without result.

There is no way in which the employing class can put value back into currency except by the most titanic onslaught against the working class.

The crisis within world capitalism drives the employers to attack all workers' rights and standards and move increasingly towards dictatorial and fascist forms of rule.

At the same time it must intensify the trend towards war-above all war to recapture the markets and territories lost to capitalism following the Russian and Chinese revolutions.

These are the stark historical lessons of the 1930s which cannot be sidestepped by facile hopes that peaceful comcapitalists Crisis. overcome the

conference that his arms and legs had been strapped to chair with iron clamps while his head was held with karateor judo-type holds.

He said: 'They then got long needles of steel and began prodding them into my hands, into the bones on the back of my hands and sometimes the needle went in so far it came through the palms of my hands.

"They started scraping the bones of my hands with the needle. I felt tremendous paiti, not much in my hands but in my brain. I was screaming. This went on for about two hours' and I just wanted 'to die.

'Then they cut a deep hole in the back of my hand at the thumb. This wound was later stitched at Crumlin Rd jail and required six stitches two days later. Thèy prodded mi humb and scraped the bones.

Tony Doherty showed pressmen two open wounds on his left leg (see picture) where he claimed to have been burned with cigarettes. He had about 100 other marks on his thighs and buttocks.

Doherty said he was strapped to a chair and hooded :

I could hear matches being struck as cigarettés were lit. The pain from the burns was terrible and I could even smell my skin burning.' 'Practice' After the press conference an army spokesman claimed people snatched in raids 'often voluntarily helped the security forces.

'Afterwards it it is common practice to allege they were forced to help.

'When the three men were admitted Belfast prison and we doctors reports make were medically examined absolutely no mention of cigarette burns or other forms of torture.' Yesterday the army rounded up another men in Ballymurphy district of Belfast.

TORY Home Secretary Reginald Maudling warned yesterday that the IRA terror campaign had assumed 'new and more vicious forms'.

Earlier he had talks with right-wing Protestant leader thẹ Rev Ian Paisley, but Maudling denied they had discused the possibility of direct rule.

But all the signs are-including Maudling's statement that the army is capable of reducing IRA terror to 'something acceptable' and his talks with Paisley-that the Tories are clearing the path for some form of direct rule.

Maudling appealed to Republican Premier Jack Lynch clamp down on IRA extremists in the S.

Two British soldiers were seriously wounded in Belfast yesterday when they were ambushed in a city street.

The immediate task is the. construction of an alternative revolutionary leadership in the trade unions together with a campaign to force the Tories to resign.

A Labour government must be returned, pledged to policies of nationalizing the basic industries under workers' control, without compensation, as the only road to ending: unemployment.