FIGHT AGAINST TORIES' RENT BILL

GREENWICH, S London, tenants demonstrated 1,000 strong outside the town hall last week to make sure the Labour group voted against the Tories' 'fair Now tenants are signing pledges of support to the local Labour group, which has voted 44-9 not to implement the Bill if it becomes law.

Many feel, however, that the struggle cannot end there.

The Tories are intent on destroying all workers' basic rights. The only way these attacks can be answered is with a policy of forcing the Tories to resign Michael | Potter, a committee member of the Barnfield Tenants' Association in Plumstead, was one of the 600 tenants on the estate who went to • Greenwich town hall when the Bill was debated 'The point is that if this Bill goes through, I won't be able to pay,' said Michael. He has been unemployed since last October when he lost his driving licence.

He gets £9.5 dole money for his wife and young daughter.

'I asked them for some money to buy shoes for the girl. But the Social Security me she didn't need them.' Michael lives on one of the oldest estates in the area. It has few amenities-there are no lifts for tenants living on the fourth floor.

Many of the flats have damp walls. One consequence is that children are forced to sleep in their parents' bedroom if it is the only one free from damp.

'All the council suggested to these people was they put an electric fire on in the room and leave the windows open all the year round,' Michael claimed.

'What I'd like to see is all council tenants say no to the rent increases. The aim of the Bill is to force the working class right down and line the pockets of the Tories.

'Those who can't afford to pay will have to apply for a means test, but that's like going into prison-they want to know everything.

'This is the first time I've been out of work since I left school and it hurts my pride something rotten having to go down the labour exchange to beg things for my family.

'But I hope the working class won't let those Oliver Twist days come back—we have to fight it ail the way.

'All the working class has to get together and say to the Tories: "We've had enough-it's our turn now, so get out. Ban on Hull stewards a threat to unity HULL SHOP stewards were not represented at the meeting of the National Docks Shop Stewards' Liaison Committee in Manchester which decided a few weeks ago to prepare for a national strike if 53 London dockers were returned to the unattached pool.

Six Hull stewards travelled to Manchester. Their spokesman asked if any Hull steward would be admitted regardless of whether he was in the Blue (National Amalgamated Stevedores' and Dockers'. . Union) or the White (Transport and General Workers' Union). The Liaison Committee decided— mainly at the instigation of T&GWU stewards from Manchester and Liverpool - that Blue Union men would not be allowed into the meeting.

The Hull men then decided, on principle, that none of them would attend the meetingthough, in fact, all six were T&GWU members.

The strongest opponents collaboration with the Blue Union have been Communist Party members.

For years, the CP has striven to prevent national docks unity because • of their fear of the Michael Potter on the balcony of his flat with his wife Carol and daughter Lisa.

Tenants keep a check on Labour opposition 'All these petitions and so on are not getting anywhere. . The TUC definitely has to organize workers' action, because it's not just a tenants' question-it will hit everyone hard, young and old.

'I think one of the problems is that many of the union leaders are turncoats and don't give a lead.

•What opened my eyes about these men was when the Young Socialists' Right - to - Work marchers. came to Woolwich and were turned away first off.

"The purpose of workers' action has to be to get this government out and put back a government with leaders who will run the country as the working class want it run.

'Labour must give children back their school milk, look after influence of revolutionary politics in the northern ports. Also, ef course, the Stalinists have sought to cuddle close to the T&GWU bureaucrats by opposing the Blue by every means-including strikebreaking-since it first-appeared in the northern ports in 1954.

Hull, with 300 men regularly on the unattached register out of a dock labour force of 2,800, has the largest redundancy problem in the N.

Yet a decision on 'national' action was taken with the Hull representatives excluded!

The National Docks Shop Stewards' Liaison Committee has issued a 'Dockers' Charter', the main points of which are: • Preserve the National Dock A clear definition of dockers' work inside the ports.

Containerization work to be done by dockers (except in special circumstances acceptable to the dockers).

No men to be sent to the Nationheation of the docks.

Many Hull dockers are openly saying that the Charter is fine, but not realistic as long as the Tories are in office and as long as national unity of dockers is not achieved.

There is also some bitterness the port. that Liverpool arters pres COURT IN ACTION Women pin e the pensioners, give everyone a chance of decent housing and put everyone back in a job.

'If we can't do this I'm sure we'll all end up as slaves. Somebody's got to do something we've waited long enough.

I'm certainly not going to let my wife and child starve, said Michaek Mis Goddard (72), who has a small bungalow on the estate, told me of how rent rises have already affected her.

'My rent has just gone from £2.54 to £2.63 because they put more on the rates. When I first came here in 1955 the rent was only 19s 3d.

'The pension increase will be 75p, I'm told. But some of it's gone already. I feel bitter because they're making us wait for our increase right round until CORRESPONDENT dockers' leaders called off the blacking of Pilkington glass, after the Hull men had repeatedly refused to handle such a cargo during the dispute at the St Helens, Lancs, firm.

In addition, there is some feeling that the leaders in the other ports left Hull to fight alone on the issue. of nonregistered ports.

It is experiences such as these which have pushed the Hull men into the reformist blind alley of attempting to form their own company on the docks.

Some men-pointing out, correctly, that local one-day stoppages would be useless against redundancies-even regard this as a form of 'workers' control'.

The anti-Marxist. 'Institute for Workers' Control' clearly bears responsibility for confusing dockers by presenting workers' control as an attainable reform within capitalism instead of a revolutionary demand directed against capitalism.

The employers are more farsighted and welcome the • 'company' as a means of diverting the dockers from a real fight to defend their rights.

Hull port employers have offered to place equipment, including cranes, at its disposal!

Despite this, the refusal of the CP Stalinists to unite all October.

'It'll help, but I don't we'il be any better off. Ar id we won't be able to afford any more rent increases, said Mrs Godlara, whose pension is to a supplemented by : 22.10 Social Security.

'Once you've paid your rent, there's not much left to live on. To be able to live as I should I'd need another f2 a week.

'Only two or three months ago I had to give up butter. And as for a bit of meat ... well.

'With these rent increases and everything else, it'll be leading back to the old days when my husband used to queue up for Is towards the rent and a bread ticket.

sooner these Tories are better. They never were working class.

dockers around a struggle to attain the Charter by forcing the Tory government to resign remains bigger obstacle to national unity than the dream of a dockers' company.

The Hull shop stewards' committee has agreed to support any national action against men being returned to the pool and this decision was endorsed by a mass meeting of Hull dockers.

An attempt by the 'Hull Daily Mail' to present the dockers' company as an alternative to a national strike has been refuted of the Hull Shop Stewards' Committee. that the Hull dockers, statement 'I did not make a company could take the place of a national strike. I merely said it might mean fewer local disputes,' he told Workers Press.

Speaking in a personal capacity, Mr Cunningham went on: 'My attitude is that we should go along with a strike on a national basis, but there will be difficulties for us if our stewards are excluded from the National Liaison Committee.' A successful fight against an enlarged unattached pool and for the defence of dockers' conditions, however, requires a fight against the Tory government which the Stalinists will do their utmost to prevent-even at the cost of sabotaging national docks' unity. Grim Tory game with jobless TORY proposals to encourage workers to move all over Britain in pursuit of work come into effect on April 5.

The plans are a blueprint for wider Tory plans , within the Common Market.

If the Heath government gets dragged into a grim game of workers will musical chairs not only around Britain but also around parts of Europe, being exploited and degraded • by a new era of Euro-capitalism.

Unable to provide the right work in communities throughout the country, the Tories are proposing to smash them up, while men search for work wherever they can find it.

The new 'resettlement' plan is to be operated by Employment Secretary, Robert Carr, author of the anti-union Indus trial Relations Act.

A rehousing grant of £400 and £600 is to be introduced and lodging allowances will go For the first time people without dependants who move away from home may be paid a weekly allowance of £2 a week for up to one year.

The new increases will also make available to workers with dependants a lodging allowance increase of about £2 a week until they move their home.

Another increase will be to meet expenses incurred in the sale or purchase of a house because of a move. Where a sale or a purchase is involved, legal and other expenses will be reimbursed up to £145.

Where both are involved, the amount will be £240.

The income limit above which people cannot benefit under the scheme will be raised to £2,650.

NICHOLAS RIDLEY, Parliamen= tary Under-Secretary for industry will visit Lisbon, capital Portugal, tomorrow and Thursday for talks with Portuguese minister and the AngloPortuguese Co-operation Committee inaugural meeting.

Press