DEFEND DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS HANDS OFF I.S.

hours after Harold Wilson's sinister overtures to Heath on Ulster, the Tory government gave the Labour bureaucrat a foretaste of its much awaited political initiatives by an unprecedented raid of Special Branch officers on 60 homes in London and the provinces.

These.. included the homes of four leading International Socialism members. The removal of documents belonging to the IS is irrefutable evidence that the Tories are cynically using the Aldershot bombing as a pretext to intimidate and accumulate information On radical groups not even remotely connected with the IRA as a preparation for the implementation of the Industriat Relations Act, It is a well-known fact that Scotland Yard receives a copy of every radical and revolutionary journal published in Britain.

It is also an open secret —revealed clearly during the Dutschke deportation -that the Special Branch taps the phones, and opens the mail of many left-wing organizations.

This is apart from its more shady operations penetrating left - wing organizations with its agents and provocateursas it does on a large scale in Ireland particularly.

It is equally well-known ist Worker Paper, "Social• has publicly dissociated itself from the Aldershot bombing and opposed the IRA, albeit from a reformist standpoint, on many issues.

The IS group is not guilty of instigating or supporting the Aldershot bombing.

The Tory cabinet knows this too, but it is not concerned about the truth. It is only concerned to create a state of patriotic hysteria and stir up the middle class into a frenzy against trade union militants as well as radical and revolutionary groups.

In this way it hopes to push through its plans for open collaboration with the right-wing Labourites and the TUC leaders in entering the Common Market and carrying out the terms of the Industrial Relations The Tories think they can act with impunity, unprecedented even in the period before 1926, because they have got the Labour leaders - both right and left-crawling obsequiously and looking for a 'dialogue' with Heath.

That is why they contemptuously turned down Eric Heffer's plea for an emergency debate on the raids.

Why should the Tories worry about the Labour 'lefts' craven antics when these unprincipled reformists are not prepared to call for the withdrawal of troops from Ireland or the expulsion of Jenkins from the Parliamentary Labour This latest raid is a barefaced assault on the basic democratic rights of the working class. Regardless of our serious theoretical differences with. IS, and without abandoning them for one moment, we appeal to the entire trade union and labour movement to treat this anti-working-class action with the utmost seriousness and urgency.

only the beginBUILCING WORKERS BUnDING CHARTER WORKERS £35 for 35 hes ABOUT 30 building workers from all over Britain lobbied pay talks at the Bedford Square headquarters of the National Federation of Building Trades Employers yesterday.

The men are demanding a reduction in hours from 40 to 35 and almost £1 an hour — near double the present rate-bringing the weekly wage up to £30.

Statement by ning of a process which, if unchallenged, would lead to the destruction of working-class organizations and ruthless police dictatorship.

Every trade unionist, every worker who values his basic democratic rights must unconditionally defend the IS and other victims of this inspired conspiracy.

They must demand that their union leaders cease their 'dialogue' with Heath immediately and that they detend, with all the • теsources of the anions, trade unionists and political groups against the persecution of the capitalist state.

16, CHARTER For 35hr To date the employers have kept their offers strictly in line with the Tories' 7 per cent pay norm suggesting pay increments for craftsmen of £1.40 and for labourers £1.20 a week.

But yesterday they offered a guaranteed weekly minimum of £2 above the standard rate for craftsmen and £1.50 above the labourers' rate.

In a 9.7 per cent pay deal they said that from Committee the Political of the SLL Steel plant ONE THOUSAND steel workers in the Manchester area took unilateral action over the engineers' pay claim when they began controlling their Bredbury plant yesterday.

The dispute began when a mass meeting of workers voted to take immediate action ahead other workers in the S Manchester area.