Stewards hands would be tied -Birmingham trade unionist

the right wing.

Scanlon has always been reckoned a left-winger. Now he has got to either stand by the TUC or go agaimst them.

In the past, resolutions from the rank and file have generally been disregarded and referred back. Most of these leaders are tied up with the official Labour The biggest snag in the 'guidelines' is tying of the hands of the shop stewards.

Most strikes are spontaneous, but the stewards would be tied down by the officials. This ties the trade union movement firmly to the state machine which would make us into puppets.

It gives the government a free hand to put the prices up and keep wages down.

The ordinary trade unionist has to do some serious thinking. In a reTHE questions raised by Bro. Hindle's letter (Workers Press, January 10, 1970) on the attitude of Scanion, Jones and the Communist Party in relation to the TUC's 'guidelines' can, in my opinion, be answered from their past records.

When Bro. Hindle talks about the attempts so far to shackle the shop stewards, he is quite correct when he says: Wilson and Barbara Castle couldn't do it'.

The danger is when he says: 'So, I fail to see how Feather and the right wing can achieve success.

It was Scanlon who led the negotiations on the engineers' package deal in 1968, which gave the employers the right to introDiggers strike NEW YORK'S gravediggers began • their fight against the rising cost of living when they struck on Monday for a 48dollars-a-week wage increase. NOWI Two aditlana (For any two days you select)

E4 a year £1 for three months Workers' Press for Organizer, Workers : Press, 18 Landon, SW4. (Tel: 01-720-200 cession they can clamp down at any time. Trade unionists have to fight for a socialist outlook.

The campaign to stop Wilson's visit to Washington plays a part in this fight. We have to pay for the war, whether we like il or not, through repayments of debts and profits of USowned industry in Britain.

The campaign brings people out in the branches and makes them think about the issues. Most people think that the war is nothAll Trades Union: —savs Coventry shop steward trade unionists on the shop floor.

It is this movement which is responsible for the failure of the incomes policy, that has resisted wage cuts, and is now pushing up wages.

The employers themselves could not have drawn up a better clause than this one : •Meetings of members are a useful and authorized method of consultation, but that such meetings are not entitled to make decisions, or to instruct shop stewards to take actions which are variance with union policy, or with obligations arising out of establishment company or industry-wide agreements to which the union is party.

After the AEU National Committee which accepted the package deal, strings and all, Scanion said that shop stewards would not be able to reject the strings, only decide the price locallity ones, lity for operating them.

Jones, as we know, has already spoken out in favour of productivity bargains on The question that Bro. Hindle should think over is why did the 'Morning Star' distort the whole question of the TUC 'guidelines' in its issue of December 30, 1969.

It is the cover that the Communist Party gives that we should look more closely On Sunday, June 1, 1969, they were instrumental in organizing a conference at Birmingham Town Hall on the threatened anti-union laws.

The main job of this conference - at which Scanion, Roberts of the AEF, Doughty of DATA and left Labour MP Orme, U.S. crisis hits aero-space Skilled workers face loss of jobs THE DEVELOPING recession in the United States economy is now raising the spectre of mass unemployment before the working class in every capitalist country.

Within the United States itself, as reported in Friday's Workers Press, sharp increases in the cost of living and the threat of redundancy now face every section of the working class.

Two recent announcements reveal that even skilled workers and technicians who, in the past, have considered their jobs secure are now coming under attack as Nixon's measures to curb inflation begin to bite.

Officials at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have stated that the Apollo-13 shot, scheduled for March 12, to be postponed until April 11 and Apollo-14 from July 11 until some time in the autumn.

The revised schedule will entail considerable cuts in the overtime payments to assembly and launch crews at Cape Kennedy.

More involved However, much more is involved than this.

The suggestion that the delays will give space scientists more time between flights • analyse data is an attemp • cover up a further slowins down in the US space programme.

Over 200,000 workers have already lost their jobs with VASA since 1966 and more will certainly follow.

The present cuts will mean the cancellation of Apollo 20 -the last flight in the Apollo series, while Apollo-19 not be launched until 1974, a postponement of over two ing to do with them.

But the government is trying to tie us to the state machine, which is helping the American state machine carry out the war in Vietnam.

Any people throughout the world who are fighting US imperialism are fighting the workers' battle.

if the YCL and CP say the spade-work has not been done for such a campaign, they have had ample opportunity to do it óver the past ten years. were among the speakers became very clear at the end when Stalinist chairman, Warman, refused to take an amendment to the platform resolution calling for a campaign against the TUC proposals which were to be put to special conference on June 5.

Warman said : 'We are here to deal with the main enemy, Wilson. The TUC proposals are for discussion in the trade union moveThat this conference was intended to head off all struggle against the TUC proposals again became clear on the day of the Croydon lobby when another Stalinist, Halpin, who had spoken at the Birmingham Conference, was in the chair of the CP meeting outside the conference hall.

He restricted all slogans from the CP contingent to 'Let's kill the Bill, thus opening the door for the TUC betrayal.

At Croydon, we saw the real face of the Communist Party when known members of the Party attacked the open-air meeting of the All Trades Unions Alliance and tried to overturn the Young Socialists' loudspeaker van which was demanding that the TUC call a general strike to defeat the anti-union laws, and for an emergency Labour Party conference to scrap the anti-union laws.

We see even clearer the counter-revolutionary role of the Communist Party in relation to Vietnam.

In answer to the Workers Press campaign to Stop Wilson's Visit to Washington' and for the international fight of the working class against capitalism, the - BY MARTIN ZARROP This rules out the construction of an 'orbiting workshop' by 1972-a vital step in achieving a permanent space station, without which no future space exploration is possible.

Further cuts must therefore place the entire NASA programme in danger and with it the jobs of thousands of Not restricted However, the squeeze on government expenditure is not restricted to the space programme.

There are now indications that the Nixon administration is having second thoughts on the plans to go ahead with the construction of the Boeing 2707, the giant supersonic transport aircraft.

This project - a direct challenge to the Soviet Tu 144 and the Anglo-French Concorde-has been estimated at 4,500 million dollars.

Ninety per cent of the cost of the first stage is to be financed by the government.

A White House announcement has stated that 'it is the unequivocal position of this administration that no commercial supersonic aircraft will be allowed to fly over populated areas at boom-producing speeds'.

Nixon knows that such a restriction must limit the possible market for the STT.

It's no use asking Wilson to do anything.

The CP has got to come out with some positive action if they want to do something about Vietnam. They must take up the fight to stop Wilson going alongside the SLL.

I would think they have refused so far because they took the line from Russia of not giving out-and-out backing to the Vietnamese G. Taylor (AEF), Birmingham.

It has been estimated that this will mean a drop in sales from 1,200 to 500 in the period up to 1990. This must now face workers in the civil aviation industry with the threat of redundancy.

These attacks must be answered. Already the road haulage members of the Teamsters' Union have submitted a 96.4 per cent wage chan just a might for wolged The beginning of the 1970s now sees a rapid intensification of the class struggle at the very centre of imperialism.

The fight against unemployment and the rising cost of living, bringing into action every section of workers, is first and foremost a political task demanding Marxist leadership.

The development of this leadership within the American trade union movement is central to the construction of a Labour Party for the expropriation of the giant corporations.

All Trades Unions Alliance meeting DAGENHAM Lessons of the 1969 Ford strike and the fight for parity Wednesday, January Marshew Ro School Dagenham , NORTH KENT Lessons of the Frangemouth strike hursday, January 1