MAJOR EEC SPLIT

A SHARP division has appeared inside the Common Market over the terms of last Friday's Brussels agreement on trade with the United States.

The EEC's permanent representatives were meeting in Brussels_yesterday to discuss strong French objections to the terms.

At Monday's meeting, France expressed 'grave reservations', claiming negotiators had exceeded their mandate by giving concessions without getting anything in return from the US.

The Pompidou government wants a unilateral declaration from the Common Market inviting a specific American undertaking to facilitate certain European exports to the US.

The Brussels agreement TIME RUNNING OUT FOR US PORT BOSSES THE UNITED STATES W coast strike reaches its 124th day today. But Harry Bridges, President of the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Association, says the union and the bosses are only 2.5 cents (Ip) apart on economic issues, according to House of Representatives Labour sub-commitee chairman Frank Thompson (Democrat).

Both the Senate and the House of Representatives are trying to rush through Bills to end the strike.

The Senate Labour committee has agreed on compulsory arbitration and the proposal goes before the full Senate today. Previous opposition to compulsory arbitration by the Democrats (because of their trade union support) appears to have been dropped.

Committee chairman Harrison Williams described the Bill as substantially the same as that requested by President Nixon last month.

The House of Representatives Labour sub-committee has approved a Bill that would send the dockers back to work to handle military and agricultural cargoes for 60 days or until a settlement is reached, but rejects the idea of binding arbitration.

This Bill, however, would free the employers from one stranglehold-the hold-up of grain shipments. As previously reported in of the strike which is making the bosses scream most.

What the politicians are trying to do now is reconcile the two Bills, particularly the conflict over binding arbitration. If this is not done by tonight when Congress adjourns for its Lincoln's birthday holiday 'weekend', nothing can happen until next Both Republicans and Democrats are desperate to bring the W coast strike to an end because a Taft-Hartley 80-day injunction against the strike of the International Longshoremen's Association at E and Gulf ports expires in mid-February.

ILWA and ILA leaders conferred in New • York last month but Bridges' '2.5 cents' statement indicates that neither he nor ILA President Thomas Gleason are anxious for a joint national strike. Troops out The 5,000 Indian troops still in Bangla Desh are to be pulled out by March 25—anniversary of Yahya Khan's invasion. About 100,000 troops were pulled out of Bangla Desh when the Pakistani army surréndered on December .16. to the dollar devaluation agreed in Washington on December 18. On the strength of Brussels, President Nixon has agreed to ask Congress for a formal rise in the official gold price.

But the Gold Bill will not overcome the basic instability of the Washington and Brussels agreements. A big section of Nixon's administration, headed by Treasury secretary John Connally, is calling for a dollar bloc to take drastic trade measures against the Common Market.

Nixon himself raised the question in a speech to business executives on Monday. Urging them to learn again to compete in world markets and boost productivity, he said:

If we were to let this country turn protectionist in its economic policy, we would be inviting a trade war-and, like the other kind of war, every nation on this planet would lose.' This will not deter the growing sector of big business, and its representatives at the heart of the administration, who are pushing for the most belligerent trade war policies.

ATION, AFLCIO. RECESSION HITS STEEL AND COAL IN W GERMANY W GERMANY'S two GERMANY'S basic industries — coal basic industries — and steel - continue to be hit by the growing recession.

As the economy runs deeper into crisis, the big employers are also waging a policy of wage-cutting and massive unemployment.

Steelworkers at the giant Hoesch steelworks Dortmund are demanding a 10-per-cent wage increase. They have been claim. The workers are demand- on strike in defence of this ing a strike ballot because metalworkers' union leaders have been involved in three months of fruitless talks.

Considerations like these did not stop Nixon himself from imposing a 10 per cent import sutcharge last year to force trading competitors to heel.

Even if the US does raise the 'official' gold price, the dollar will remain inconvertible with gold. In these circumstances, the official price has little practical significance, except that it brings about a slight increase in the dollar value of other countries' gold reserves.

Edward M. Bernstein, former director of research for the International Monetary Fund, who now acts as a consultant to central banks, has warned that the currency crisis will continue so long as the dollar is not convertible.

Lack of confidence in the dollar lay behind the recent sharp rise in the 'free market' gold price to nearly $50 an ounce and the heavy selling of dollars in Europe.

Despite the Brussels deal, great nervousness is still reported among foreign exchange dealers who have no confidence that a crisis has been averted.

SIR ALEC FOR SPAI VISIT FOREIGN Secretary Sir Alec Douglas Home is to visit fascist Spain from February 27 to March 1. Home, a member of the appeasement lobby with Hitler and architect of the sell-out to the racialist Smith regime in Rhodesia, last visited Spain in May 1961. No other British Foreign Minister has visited the fascist state since then.

Bridges with ILA president Thomas Gleason trade union leadership, after secret discussion with the employers, accepted what amounted to a 5-per-cent increase. The deal also headed off the men's plea for a strike ballot.

Meanwhile, a total of 1,045 workers were sacked without warning from the textile firm 'Göcke' in Hohenlimburg in the Ruhr area of Germany last week.

The firm went bankrupt with 1,800,000 DM debts. These workers will not find it easy to find another job as the whole district around Hohenlimburg is a steel area, and workers in the nearby steel works at Haspe and Eckesey are already fighting to keep their jobs.

In Bremen-North, workers in the Krupp Machine factories 'Spinnbau' have been on shorttime work since January 3. They work a four-day week, losing 20 to 28 per cent of their net income. DEVLIN PAY-OFF ON THE DOCKS DOCKERS who want to fight mass redundancies should look closely at the credentials of those claiming to lead 'militant action to protect their jobs'.

For despite the big boost they received in yesterday's 'Morning Star, their action is belated and their militancy questionable.

ports the decision of the men in London's Royal group of docks to strike each time an employer tries to throw anyone into the port's unattached labour pool. We hope that the Tilbury dockers who meet today will support their decision.

le employers' aim in returning men to the pool is to stretch to breaking-point the statutory guarantee of jobs contained in the 1947 dock labour scheme, which they and the Heath government are planning to abolish.

fending jobs on the docks, therefore, is part of the therefore battle, of which the miners are the spearhead, against the Tory drive to destroy all the post-war gains of the working class.

it yesterday's "Star' talked glibly about national action for 'steps leading up to eventual nationalization [of the docks] under full workers' control' without even hinting at a united fight to force the Tories to resign.

In planning their strategy against the dockers' right to work, the employers have seized Bremen dock workers, one of the most important industries in the area, are living in the fear that there will not be enough sea traffic to provide them with work.

Four thousand of the 6,700 car workers in the new highlyautomated works in Saarlouis are being threatened with short-time working. The hrm intends to cut production in the assembly works.

Only two years ago the first Ford Escort made in Saarlouis rolled off the assembly line. Production was pushed up to 350 Escorts a day.

The largest coal company in Germany, Ruhrkohle AG, which owns 80 per cent of the mines, has decided to put 130,000 of its 180,000 workers on short time. Overall there are preparations to put 20,000 miners out of work. every opportunity presented them by the world trade slump, the retreats of the union leaders • . and the opportunist policies of many docks stewards themselves. le threat of. redundancy in London is in many ways the pay-off for the stewards' acceptance of Devlin 'modernization' Phase Two, which was never fought by the 'Star' or the Communist Party which publishes it. oreover the CP has continuously covered up for the activities of the docks union leaders, particularly Jack Jones of the Transport and General Workers' Union, despite his retreat when dockers staged first strike against the Tories in the summer of 1970. ud the Party and its 'Star' are still covering up. Not a single CP steward has ever publicly challenged ones to explain our exposure in Workers Press -13 months ago-that the T&GWU chief was in talks with the port employers about abolishing the 1947 scheme. We urge dockers and those of their leaders who really want to fight to consider these points when they strike, possibly later this week. And we urge them above all to back the Young Socialists' Right-to-Work campaign, join the All Trades Unions Alliance and help build the Socialist Labour League - the only organization which is seriously fighting to remove the Tory job-destroyers from the scene.