Tenants' committee member expresses new fears

close THE NATIONAL Coal Board has announced the closure of the Glebe colliery at Washington and the running down of the Morrison Busty pit at Annfield Plain, both on the Durham coalfield.

The Board says that reserves at both pits now exhausted.

At the Glebe pit, 525 men will be made redundant and at the Morrison Busty many of the 650 men left out of 1,200 in 1968 will be transferred.

walter Malt, secretary Durham NUM branch, objectea to the short notice given, but said that nothing could be done about the closure if no coal was left.

Productivity in the coal industry was higher than a year ago, and capacity lost by the miners' strike would be replaced in the next few weeks, said Derek Ezra, the NCB chairman, yesterday.

'Less than three months after the end of the strike, weekly productivity is running at higher levels than a year ago.

'This is a great achievement and has come about much more quickly than expected,' he said while visiting Dawdon colliery, one of Europe's most technicallyadvanced mines.

ONLY 60 miles of motorway will be opened in Britain this ye ir— compared with 229 miles in 1971. The seven miles of the M6 opened in the Midlands yesterday brought the total to 1,020 miles. But another 180 miles under construction is less than half the work in hand at the corresponding time two years ago.

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Or Full subscription (six days) for .. Am Junt would like information abou THE SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE Fill in the form below and send to NATIONAL SECRETARY, SOCIALIST LABOUR • LEAGUE, 186A CLAPHAM HIGH ST, LONDON, SW4 7UG. Name Address borough. out a subscription MONDAY TUESDAY enclosed f Our Housing Correspondent THE LONDON 'Evening Standard' recently carried an advertisement from Camden Borough Council stating thạt they would not implement the Tory Housing Finance Act. This is one of the very few Labour councils in London which has promised to stand firm against the government's plans to double the rents of thousands of council and private tenants.

Tenants in the area are watching the council closely. They are hoping they will hold out. But some of them are a little sceptical.

Bertram Board, a member of the tenants' association committee in William Boyd Court, West End Lane, tolc Workers Press that he is worried about what the council will do when the government starts imposing fines and putting in a Commissioner to take over housing in the 'All tenants should be fully behind the council, not just council tenants, but private tenants as well,' he said.

'Everybody should go againsi the Act now whilst they have a chance. But I don't know if Camden is going to really stand out, or whether when it comes to it they will pay the fines. The people are behind them bectuse no one wants to pay higher rents. But if they are going to beat'the government they will have to mount a big campaign among all The dally paper that leads the fight agaln the Torles.

Clapham High St., THURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY Bert Board, is wife Josepp Will Camden council = back down? the tenants and they don't seem to be doing that. If they do, it will give a lead to other councils.

'The council was elected by the people in the borough, and tor the government to say it will put their own man in over their heads should never be allowed. It just shows how much they really care for democracy.' Mr Board lives with his wife and five children in a flat for which he now pays nearly £10 a week. If rents are doubled, he says, it will be impossible to make ends meet.

He does not have any faith in the promised rent rebate scheme.

'We applied for a rebate,' he be considered for one until we applied for a Family Incomes Supplement. When we did that they said we could not get a Family Incomes Supplement because we were getting a rebate.

'My mother used to. tell us about life in the 1920s and I think it is going back to those days. If you needed social security, then they came into your home to see if you had anything to sell. They will be doing the same thing now if you ask for a rebate when the rent increases come in.

It's a vicious circle, Mr Board said. 'Many families are just living on the borderline now. You don't like having to keep denying your kids things all the time, but when you have five children and are faced with Redditch tempers still high A CROWDED and angry meeting of local residents at Redditch, a 'new town' south of Birmingham, has demanded to know what the local development corporation is going to do about rent levels under the Tories' Bill.

Redditch is one of the most expensive of the new towns and last month. hundreds of housewives staged a protest march against the Bill led by Mrs Ivy Jones.

On that occasion members of the corporation refused to meet the march. One official later described it as 'raucous'.

On Monday night the officials reluctantly made an appearance and faced the wrath of local people.

Feeling in the 300-strong meeting, which lasted over two hours, ran "high.' I was valsed further by the efforts af the sole declared This children, Gina and Tony. having to pay a rent you can't afford, you can't buy things for them or for the home.

'How do you think a man feels when he has to tell his kids he can't afford to even buy them a few sweets?' ....

His five children aged five to Il are all at school now. His oldest daughter's school has just moved to new premises and the headmaster has told parents he will expect the children to wear a uniform in future.

Mr Board reckons that if he had to buy uniforms for all his family it would cost him about £100. His daughter is leaving that school in September anyway and he and his wife are adamant that they will not buy her a uniform.

Mrs Board said that many parents are threatening to keep their children away from school altogether rather than buy uniforms.

'These kids who are protesting against uniforms,' Mr Board said, I agree with them. The children can't help but know that their parents are worried about rents, rising prices, unemployment and so on, and they are probably not very happy at school anyway because of the way. they are treated there.

"They know their parents can't really attord the unitorms, SO they demonstrate and good • luck to them.' Mr Board is very angry the Tory government. against officials Labour man on the corporation, Che milans test contained in ind Bill.

Several of his former supporters declared that they would not book him again.

Many speakers pointed out that rents were already so high that many houses in Redditch were standing empty.

Mrs Jones declared that only united action by tenants throughout the country could force the Tories back over the Bill.

Several other speakers thought the Tories would themselves have to be pushed out if the Bill was to go.

Tory members of the corporation said " as little " as " possible throughout the meeting, leaving all this had been brought up when the General Election was pending,' he said, 'you know which party would have been elected. Now the Tories are in they are trying to hit the working class hard. The only way to stop these rent increases is to sling the Tories out.

It is the same thing they are doing to the unions, he added. 'But the union leaders won't fight them. Instead of standing up to the government, they tell their members to do what the government says.

"They paid out the £55,000 fine, and where has it got them? Worse off, in fact, because the government is now hitting them all the harder as they know they can get away with it.

'To me it seems as if the union leaders are frightened of the government. You elect them to lead you and what do they do? —as soon as the government says do this, they back down and do It almost makes you think, what is the use of joining unjons if the leaders are on the side of the government helping ; to suppress their members.

'Now the workers are saying they must get a new leadership. We need a General Strike to get rid of this government. We want to sling out both the Tories and those union leaders who won't fight them. Until we do that the working man will be under the thumb all the time.' CORRESPONDENT most of their defence officials they had brou ght them.

Few residents were satisfied sati: fied with the evasive answers they got. But in the end there firm promises of action corporation.

One local resident, Mr V. Green, said afterwards the people would 'take this no longer' 'It's time that the people of the country stood up for themselves. They are being forced to do so.' As an immediate measure, a committee of residents has been formed which will meet the corporation again. Meanwhile it will go ahead with plans to withhold rents 'above the lével which tenants consider 'fair'.

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