Strike cracks racist slave

agree OVAMBO contract labourers in SW Africa, whose solid strike has crippled the country's commerce and industry over the past month, will not be allowed a direct voice in negotiations to of SW of time.

workers are ditions.

Registered Post Omci Press, 186 Printed by 180b Clap} end the contract-labour system.

A spokesman for the S African government in Pretoria announced on Tuesday that the contractlabour system is to be replaced by agreements between the S African government and tribal authorities in Ovamboland.

The government is to meet ministered from Pretoria.

The entire Ovambo labour force of about 13,000 went strike month go against the system which ties them to one employer, restricts them to certain areas and separates them from their families for long periods The system is one of virtual Slave labout, herded into barracks and robbed of all The S African government's decision decisi the stooge tabal onl ministration means that the workers have no right to negotiate their own con'FAIR PLAY' The government, according to Pretoria, will be acting as 'referee to ensure fair play between both sides'.

The S African government is picturing the Grootefontein meeting as a triumph for the 'principle of tolerant consultation' and a victory over 'agitators who were exploiting the situation and the simple innocence of the Ovambo The fact that the S African racialists have been forced to promise abolition of their slave-labour system is, on the contrary, an enormous step forward in the night against apartheid, and a vindication of the Ovambos' courageous strike.

But it remains to be seen whether the Ovambo labourers, who will have no direct say in the Grootefontein talks, will recognize any agreement reached there. POLICE reinforcements were flown from Pretoria to Ovamboland yesterday to protect the public for intimidation', according to S African polic commissioner-general Gideon Joubert.

The réinforcements flew to Ondangua, the Ovambos' main town. They are the second wave of police sent into the territory since the strike began.

Joubert said ominously that they would protect those Ovambos 'who had been forced to go on strike and wished to return to work'.

JAPAN last year suffered its first decline in steel production in nine years because of the prolonged domestic business slump, the Japan Iron and Steel Federation announced yesterday.

The nation's crude steel production in 1971 totalled 88,560,000 metric tons, a decline of 5.l. per cent from record output of 92 million tons in 1970.

The federation also said Japan produced 78,120,000 tons of rolled steel products and 63,820,000 tons of pig iron in 1971. They were down 4.8 per cent and 5.1 per cent, respectively, from the previous year.

News of the steel slump came as Japanese and American officials met in Washington to discuss US demands for trade concessions.

NEWS DÉSK 01-720 2000 CIRCULATION 01-622 7029 ubllahed by Workere apnam niga strees, on, S.W.4. rush Press Ltd. (TU), High Strert, London, S London town hall strike looms ALL 1,200 members of the National Association of Local Government Officers in Southwark, SE London, have endorsed a resolution from the area's socialservice workers calling for a one-day strike.

The action is in protest against 'mismanagement and chaos' at the local council.

John Cooke, secretary of the local NALGO branch, told Workers Press that a full branch meeting had officially pledged full support.

The motion has now been forwarded to the union's emergency committee, which will discuss the situation at a national level.

The social-sérvice workers complain the council has not provided adequate organization and finance for the new-style area organization of social services.

They also point out that there is no clearly-graded career structure within the new set-up. Promotion will be more difficult to get, they say.

Carbon-brush makers speed closure plans CARBON-fibre makers Morgan Crucible have brought forward by a year their plans to shut down operations in Battersea, S London.

The 1,200 workers at the Battersea factory-the largest still open in the area—will go on the dole in two years' time rather than three.

Management says the earlier shut down has been forced on them because of a sudden drop in profits from £4.78m to an estimated £3.8m for the 1971 financial year.

Because of this, Morgan's have decided to speed up the movement of their carbonmaterial and carbon-brush sections to S Wales.

Already over 1,600 people are unemployed in the area. January's figures are expected to show a further increase.

Tories must

fall, says Devlin BERNADETTE DEVLIN, MP, said on Tuesday's Radio 4 programme 'It's Your Line' that socialists should work together to bring down the Conservative governments in Ulster and Britain and work towards the creation of a socialist workers' republic.

She also said she visualized a united Ireland as a secular state. It would be owned, run and controlled by the people,' she said.

WEATHER A FRESH SW airstream covers the British Isles, between a low NW of Ireland and a high over Europe.

All areas will have showers and sunny spells. Some of the showers are likely to be heavy especially in the w, merging at times to give several hours of rain.

In E areas the showers will be rather isolated giving long sunny periods.

Temperatures will be near or a little milder than normal for mid January but frost is likely at night.

Outlook for Friday and Saturday: Some bright intervals at first but becoming mostly cloudy with rain at times and on mountains. Temperatures falling below normal except in the NW.

INOTTINGHAM po.

ALL MINERS hate the pits-those places where men crawl like animals and lives are taken cheaply.

In every mining village slag heaps are a perpetual reminder of the main factor in people's lives.

Most families have suffered a loss in one way or another Maimed limbs, silicosis, ablement- the pit's exacting toll is shared evenly.

John Musgrove was his right led in hen an accident 18 years old he at Thoresby colliery in North Nottinghamshire.

'It was in 1943 when we were all under pressure to increase output because of I was sent out the fitting shop where I worked to the pit bank to run tubs of coal on to the chair. I was inexperienced at that job.

'I went to step on the chair to push an empty tub against the full ones, something I'd seen other men doing.

'LACERATED'

'Suddenly the seven-ton tub went down and I nearl vent down the shaft with if altogether. fractured right leg in a dozen places below the knee and the safety gate lacerated my right arm.

'The manager cut the leg off—it nearly off anyway?

John was 'Spencers' By a Workers Press correspondent Children, irrespective of religion, class or grading, would have equal opportunities.

During a discussion on the possibility of reunification, Miss Devlin said unity was not won by the unity of masters or parliaments.

"The only unity which can bring about peace' is the unity of the working classes' During the same programme another member of the panel, Mr Roy Bradford, Ulster Development Minister, said he found only two cases of alleged discrimination in unemployment last year.

Bradford said that a statement by John Hume be a that no one could Stormont minister without being a member of the Orange Order, was 'utter nonsense'.

The Rev Martin Smyth, County Grandmaster of the Orange Lodge, Belfast, said: 'As long as you have Orangemen walking in the province you will not have communism ruling the province.' they have a special story to tell. leaders. stifien their resistance to sell-out.

- DAYFIVE attitudes.

Here two of them MINERS-SITRET talk to Workers Press.