Workers Press no. 788

workers press

DEVALUATION DRAWS

BY ALEX MITCHELL

THE RAPIDLY deteriorating tain-so amply spelled out in tive reports this week-has be strength and determination of t But the working class soli- darity which smashed the Tory 'norm' in the miners' strike will have to be steeled a hundredfold to withstand the next stage of the Tory onslaught. Driven by the deep-going nature of their economic crisIs, the compelled to Tories will be embark on more desperate attacks on the working class.

Unemployment will soar, food prices will rise which to levels millions of families simply won't be able to afford and the trade unions leaders will be brought even closer into the state machi- nery to discipline their members.

As this grave situation unfolds, the question of revolutionary leadership in the working class becomes of life-and-death signi- ficance. That is why the Socialist Labour League is engaged in the historic task of building a revo- lutionary party which will fight reformism, revisionism and cen- trism in the labour and trade union movement. The Tories stand today at the economic crossroads their • eco- landscape a veritable nomic minefield. A of voices-the chorus National Institute for Economic and Social Research, the Bank of England, the Confederation of British Industry and 'The Times' - have enjoined this week in set- ting out the Tories' plight.

Times' points to the sharp *The drop in Britain's international competitivenes since 1970 and concludes that any return to full employment is 'unlikely'.

The Bank of England's quar- terly bulletin says that the Chan- cellor Barber's reflationary man- totally failed to oeuvres have business confidence, restore investment or output. • The National Institute for

IMPORTANT

FEATURE SERIES

Cliff Slaughter today con- tinues his important series with Inter- of articles national Marxist Group (IMG) writes off the working class' MONDAY: Centrism and the crisis of reformism TUESDAY: The political independence of the work- ing class Make sure you follow each day's instalment of this theoretical series.

INCORPORATING THE NEV

DAILY ORGAN OF THE CENTRI

orating economic crisis in Bri- out in a series of authorita- -has been aggravated by the tion of the working class.

Economic and Social Research on Wednesday forecast high unem- ployment, rocketing prices and a balance-of-payments crisis later in the year. • The CBI statement two days ago made clear that there was little chance of the so-called prices pledge being extended after of July, the end its date of expiry. In desperation director- general Campbell Adamson cal- led for further collaboration with the TUC to hold down wages.

• Three of the Big Four banks -National Westminster, Midland and Lloyds, yesterday increased loan interest rates by a half per cent, a move which clearly indi- cates that the money-supply is being tightened. It is "The Times', however, which comes forward in a major editorial to grapple with the rul- ing class's problems. The paper calls on the govern- ment to show "great courage' and devalue the pound. Such a drastic step will, how- ever, only intensify the problems internationally. capitalism Other countries would follow suit and the trade war would • be hotted up on a new scale.

In any case devaluation today would occur under vastly differ- ent conditions from the Labour devaluation in 1967. For one thing 1967 was the post-war boom. tailend of the Today world capitalism is in the throes of a recession. On top of this, the August 15 of Nixon-ending dol- measures convertibility-have thrown lar the world monetary system into a state of virtual anarchy.

Thus Britain would be attempt- ing a major reorganization of its currency without the safety net of the Bretton Woods agreement.

The first tactic of the Tories in the coming period will be to draw the trade union leaders into intenser levels of • collaboration.

Of his own volition Victor Feather of the TUC yesterday went to see Employment Secre- tary, Maurice Macmillan. Meanwhile Jack Jones of the General workers' Transport and Union was sitting down with Lord Aldington, chairman of the Port of London Authority and ex-deputy chairman of the Tory Party, to discuss ways of averting the national docks strike in six days' time. David Watt, political editor of "Financial Times, had this the cynical comment to make yes- THE cost of living in Yugo- slavia increased by 15.9 per cent in May this year compared with the same month last year. Since December 1971 the increase was 6 per cent, according to figures issued by the Federal Institute of Stalinists. This means, according to rep- orters in Belgrade, that the ceiling on the cost of living set by the Federal Assembly at the begin- ning of the year has already been reached. The rise for the whole of 1972 was to have been only 6 per cent. The biggest rises were in postal, transport and telephone charges.

The rapid inflation is partly a government's result of the attempts to make the dinar a convertible currency. INCORPORATING THE NEWSLETTER •SATURDAY JUNE 10, 1972• No. 788 • 4p DAILY ORGAN OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE

E NEARER

DRAMATIC move in rail dispute yesterday afternoon, when three rail secretaries union general went to British Rail headquarters, London. Richard Marylebone, Marsh, Railways Board chairman, There to see mem. terday about the twisting and hand in glove with Mr Macmil- and down the country. turning of the trade union lead- lan (who glad of his The Councils will very compromise all Appearance els. can De extrem assistance. mank you very muen) sections orune la Doul and seyn in the last tere weeks.

we have trying to prevent a docks strike.'

trade union movement; they will With the capitalist sor enle battle press become Sidney Greene, mocking the normally cowardice the resistance the working and retardca as a pilar or me moot UnION leaders. IL becomes Cass the mont to elect erate union establishment, is now the urgent task of the working Labour government pledged to let ack a the whole, alleged to be class for the Tory socialist policies. to prepare Jones, while offensive. Support the railwaymen! suppose radicalism, ty working major step can be taken by Force the Tories out! gerous radicalism, working building Councils of Action up Students in embassy protest ABOUT 100 anti-apartheid demonstrators chanted Jacks, who took demonstration, said protest outside the South African embassy in afterwards that it was quite unprecedented treat- London yesterday after their deputation was turned in London' ment by an embassy away by an embassy security officer.

embassy official refused to accept letters academics, colleges political groups pro from National Union of Students president Digby testing about apartheid in South Africa.

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BOOKS • PERIODICALS • NEWSPAPERS

workers press

DEVALUATION DRAWS

BY ALEX MITCHELL

THE RAPIDLY deteriorating tain-so amply spelled out in tive reports this week-has be strength and determination of t But the working class soli- darity which smashed the Tory , 'norm' in the miners' strike will have to be steeled a hundredfold to withstand the next stage of the Tory onslaught. Driven by the deep-going nature of their the economic crisis, Tories will be compelled to embark desperate on more attacks on the working class.

Unemployment will soar, food prices will rise to levels which millions of families simply won't be able to afford and the trade unions leaders will be brought even closer into the state machi- nery to discipline their members.

As this grave situation unfolds, the question of revolutionary leadership in the working Class signi- bécomes life-and-death ficance. That is why the Socialist Labour League is engaged in the historic task of building a revo- lutionary party which will fight reformism, revisionism and cen- trism in the labour and trade union movement. The Tories stand today at the economic crossroads their eco- nomic landscape a veritable minefield. of voices-the A chorus National Institute for Economic and Social Research, the Bank of England, the Confederation of British Industry and 'The Times' —have enjoined this week in set- ting out the Tories' plight.

"The Times' points to the sharp drop in Britain's international competitivenes since 1970 and concludes that any return to full employment is 'unlikely'.

• The Bank of England's quar- terly bulletin says that the Chan- cellor Barber's reflationary man- totally failed to oeuvres have business confidence, restore investment or output. National Institute for • The i

IMPORTANT

FEATURE SERIES

Cliff Slaughter today con- tinues his important series of articles with Inter- Marxist Group national writes off the

(IMG)

working class' MONDAY: Centrism and the crisis of reformism TUESDAY: The political independence of the work- ing class Make sure you follow each day's instalment of this theoretical series.

INCORPORATING THE NEW

DAILY ORGAN OF THE CENTRA

orating economic crisis in Bri- out in a series of authorita- -has been aggravated by the tion of the working class.

Economic and Social Research on Wednesday forecast high unem- rocketing prices and ployment, a balance-of-payments crisis later in the year. statement two days • The CBI ago made clear that there was of the so-called little chance prices pledge being extended after the end of July, its date of expiry. In • desperation director- general Campbell Adamson cal- led for further collaboration with the TUC to hold down wages.

• Three of the Big Four banks -National Westminster, Midland and Lloyds, yesterday increased loan interest rates by a half per cent, a move which clearly indi- cates that the money-supply is being tightened. It is The Times, however, which comes forward . In a major editorial to grapple with the rul- ing class's problems. The paper calls on the govern- ment to show 'great courage' and devalue the pound. Such a drastic step will, how- ever, only intensify the problems internationally. capitalism Other countries would follow suit war would be and the trade hotted up on a new scale.

In any case devaluation today would occur under vastly differ- ent conditions from the Labour devaluațion in 1967. thing 1967 was the For one post-war boom. tailend of the • Today world capitalism is in the throes of a recession. On top of this, the August 15 measures of Nixon-ending dol- lar convertibility-have thrown the world monetary system into a state of virtual anarchy.

Thus Britain would be attempt- ing a major reorganization of its currency without the safety net of the Bretton Woods agreement.

The first tactic of the Tories in the coming period will be to draw the trade union leaders into intenser levels of collaboration.

Of his own volition Victor Feather of the TUC yesterday went to see Employment Secre- tary, Maurice Macmillan. Meanwhile Jack Jones of the Transport and General workers' sitting Union down with was Lord Aldington, chairman of the Port of London Authority and ex-deputy chairman of the Tory Party, to discuss ways of averting the national docks strike in six days' time. David Watt, political editor of 'Financial Times', had this the cynical comment to make yes- living in Yugo- THE cost of slavia increased by 15.9 per cent in May this year compared with the same month last year. Since December 1971 the increase was 6 per cent, according to figures issued by • the Federal Institute of Stalinists. This means, according to rep- orters in Belgrade, that the ceiling on the cost of living set by the Federal Assembly at the begin- ning of the year has already been reached. The rise for the whole of 1972 was to have been only 6 per cent. The biggest rises were in postal, transport and telephone charges.

The rapid inflation is partly …a government's result of the attempts to make the dinar a convertible curréncy. INCORPORATING THE NEWSLETTER @SATURDAY JUNE 10, 1972 • No. 788 • 4p

OF THE

SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE

E NEARERE

DRAMATIC move in rail dispute yesterday afternoon, when three secretaries union generai went to British Rail headquarters, Marylebone, London. Richard Marsh, Railways Board chairman, there to see them. terday about the twisting and hand in glove with Mr Macmil ana down tne country turning of the trade union lead- lan (who is glad of his The Councils will very compromise assistance. thank vou Boome the bate tround or eis. Aoocalance canoe exuen have trying to prevent a docks strike.

the With the capitalist openly battle press mocking Sidney normally the cowardice ot thi working rosislance and regaraca as a pillar or tne mod• Tace union leaders it becomes cass the night to elect erete dnio be abacking the whole the urgent task of the working Labour government pledged prepare for alleged to whole class the Tory attacking to socialist policies. while Jack ottensive Support the railwaymen! suas radicalism ordin major step can be taken by Force the Tories out! gerous radicalism, working building Councils of Action up Students in embassy protest ABOUT 100 anti-apartheid demonstrators chanted Jacks, who took demonstration, the said the South protest outside African embassy afterwards that it was 'quite unprecedented treat- London yesterday after their deputation was turned away by an embassy security oficer.

embassy official refused to Ine accept letters academics, colleges and political groups pro from National Union of Students president Digby testing about apartheid in South Africa.

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PAGE 2 Workers Press, Saturday June 11

AROUND THE WORLD

BY JOHN SPENCER

SHARP differences between 1 and the liberation movement been revealed in Peking by Prin leader of the Cambodian Nat The Prince has attacked the Soviet decision to allow Nixon's visit to Moscow to go ahead despite the bom- bardment of North Vietnam and the blockade of its ports.

He told a French correspon- dent recently that Nixon should never have been allowed to visit Moscow. And in an interview with of the Harrison E. Salisbury Sihanouk York Times', 'New slammed Soviet proposals for a new Geneva conference. 'Such meeting,' he said, a 'would only provide the entracte for the third Indo- [interval] China war.' He said it would result in the partition of Laos into eastern and western sections, and Cam- bodia into a Phnom Penh region for the goverrmient of dictator Lon Nol 'with the rest of the country in our hands' It would also, he said, produce three Vietnams- -North Vietnam and two southern sections, one Saigon and one for the for National Liberation Front.

He said a Geneva-type confer- ence had been proposed by the Soviet Union along with Britain and France, but that he, North Vietnam, NLF and the the Pathet Lao were opposed to such a meeting. His remarks are a blow for the British Communist Party, which supports the idea of a new Geneva conference, organ- ized on similar lines to the 1954 conference which partitioned Vietnam and opened the way for US domination of the South.

In another with interview, Richard Dudman of the 'St Louis Post-Dispatch', Sihanouk said the Chinese had not opened to Soviet their ports supplies Heath backs all-Europe conference SUPPORT for the calling of a European security conference was clear in Edward Heath's luncheon speech in Copen- hagen yesterday. He said that the signature of the four-power protocol on 'opens the way for the Berlin next move on the proposed con- ference on European security and co-operation, and thus marks a significant step in the develop- ment of East-West relations in Europe' Heath called on the West European countries to go to the conference with a united and fully prepared negotiating position and be 'ready to search long and hard for solutions to the problems the conference will present'. The NATO countries have suggested that talks already should begin at ambassadorial level this year. The Communist Party can now look to the Tories for support of their campaign the for European security conference, the next move on the road to 'peace- ful co-existence'. Such a conference will make the Soviet bureaucracy still more ready to accept the European Common Market as part of the deal. Gollan and Co may soon themselves making find yet another alteration of course.

ay June 10, 1972 tween the Soviet government vements in Indo-China have ; by Prince Norodom Sihanouk, an National Liberation Front.

Sihanouk diverted by the US ships blockade because they did not want the USSR to see their coastal defences. he himself admitted, As Sihanouk was speaking as a 'good friend of China'. He made no open criticism of Nixon's visit to Peking earlier this year, when the US president refused his request for a meeting.

He has good reasons for hos- tility to the Soviet leaders, how- ever; the Kremlin still maintains diplomatic relations the with Lon Nol puppet regime and has yet to recognize Sihanouk's gov- ernment, which controls most of Cambodia. By A Foreign Reporter IMPENDING entry of Britain into the Common Market has awakened latent antagonism and her between France 'partners' which had been pushed into the background since the demise of General de Gaulle. There is now a serious possi- bility that the summit meeting planned for early October will not take place. President Pompidou dropped a bombshell last week when he threatened to cancel the meet- ing. The French Deputy Foreign Minister followed it up by saying that the Common Market was not irreversible. These statements represent a warning by France that she is not prepared to see the policy the Market dictated of by Britain, Germany or the United States. The enlargement of the Com- mon Market requires the work- ing out of a policy on the inter- national monetary and trade crisis. There are deep disagreements' between member countries on what this policy should be. The French government wants closer monetary and economic union to do battle with the dollar.

The biggest opposition to such a line comes from West Germany, which both wants to avoid an economic war with the United States and to prevent French . domination of the Market. Pompidou also wants the pro- A NORTH Vietnamese offi- cial in Paris yesterday said American planes and ships were conducting a. near- systematic campaign against North Vietnam's dams and dykes. The • dykes 'extremely were for important the everyday peaceful life of our country, said Nguyen Thanh Le, spokes- man for Hanoi's delegation at the Paris peace talks. 'The attacks are weakening the capacity of resistance of these hydraulic works and all is being done by our government and our people to consolidate them. 'If president Nixon continues these attacks he will have to bear the consequences.' has repeatedly North Vietnam warned that the US is bomb- ing the dykes to create the for massive flood- conditions ing during the monsoon season which has now begun. Floud- ing of the Red River Delta result of the bombard- as ment could cost millions of lives. posed European political secre- located in Paris, tariat to be fearing that if it goes to Brussels as other members wish, it will become an instrument to oppose French influence. A meeting between Pompidou and Brandt is scheduled for July 3 and 4. Unless reached then on monetary and economic union, the summit may very well be postponed, thus aggravating the crisis.

BY OUR OWN REPORTER

MINERS at Wankie No 3 colliery adjacent to the dis- aster pit where more than 400 miners were killed in an explosion are still on strike despite the drafting in of big police reinforcements. They are standing by the Kamadama shaft of the No 2 pit, where operations to recover the bodies of 426 miners who died in the disaster are in progress.

One miner said: 'We had a THE RAILWAYMEN gave their leaders an overwhelming mandate to resume the struggle for their full pay claim in the ballot imposed under the Industrial Relations Act.

Instead of going forward resolutely to take on the Tory government, however, the union chiefs have been look- ing around desperately for a compromise.

Having failed to find one they have been forced to impose a ban on working from midnight next overtime and rest-day Tuesday. The leadership has already settled for a much more modest claim than was first submitted.

The work-to-rule actions previously taken fell short of achieving full shut down. And now Sir Sidney Greene and his friends plead fear of the Act to declare a still milder form of action.

Greene, secretary of the railwaymen's union, and Ray Buckton of the locomen came out of the joint union is still 'ne meeting on Thursday saying that the claim gone into gotiable'. Railwaymen, who have already their claim, will not Victor action twice for agree. Feather, of the TUC, instead of calling for the solidarity of other workers with the railwaymen, is running true to Yesterday, at his own request, he met Employ- form. ment Secretary Maurice Macmillan—no doubt to offer some kind of mediation in the dispute.

This is just what the government is looking for. Now that it has exhausted the powers given by the Act its next step must be to impose a state of emergency. Railwaymen will not win out if they allow press reports of hesitations and divisions in the Tory ranks to deter them from pressing ahead with their action and rejecting any compromise settlement of the kind for which the leaders are angling. The attitude taken by British Rail chairman Richard Marsh has the clear endorsement of the Tory govern- ment and there can be no doubt that a state of emer- gency will be swiftly declared when the work sanctions become operative. The Tory strategy has been to isolate the railwaymen from other sections of the working class in order to impose a settlement. It needs to do this to force down wages in preparation for entry into the Com- mon Market. The working class must be alerted to the grave dangers from the Tory government and the re- treats of the trade union leaders. The railwaymen need the support of all sections of workers. Only in this way can the strength of the entire class be mobilized to make the Tory government resign.

The railwaymen's struggle gives added point to the call for Councils of Action to decide on a policy to fight the Tories.

A WARNING that the world could collapse if trade system West German trade discrimination continued made by Nixon's No. 2 was William trade negotiator, Pearce, in a speech before the International Trade Club of

CHANCELLOR

Willy Brandt Chicago. may be forced to hold an elec- Hitting out at the prepara- before the end of this year tion tion for trade war by the in West Germany. Common Market, he said: It is thought that he will ask 'Our profound most concern of confidence after tor a vote centres on the vast network of the when the recess. preferential trading Games will also arrange- Olympic be ments being created by the over. European Community? The Brandt coalition holds the He said that discriminatory same number seats in the trade practices were reinforcing Bundestag the Christian- as protectionist feeling in the Democratic opposition. The United States. federal budget failed to obtain The speech follows a similar approval and has been referred the chief US trade warning by back to a committee for cuts to negotiator William Eberle. be made. meeting and decided not to go Anglo-American said yesterday down. that only about 20 per cent of er dund feel happy working working the miners at No 3 pit had underground while the reported for work. our friends have not been taken Nearly all the miners trapped out.' in the disaster colliery are black.

There The men refused to go under- was security 1gh No 2 around the pithead ground when it became clear as workers began bringing there hope for rescue no the out their mangled bodies. The trapped miners in the No 2 pit.

main entrance to the mine was The racialist Ian Smith regime off with black curtained called police Thursday out plastic screen. against strikers and issued strict Company spokesmen revealed orders that officials were not to that there had been no less than talk to the press. Both mines are owned by the Wankie Colliery Co, a subsidiary underground of Anglo-American Consolidated store of dyna- Southern Africa's biggest mining mite, considerably hampering the corporation. rescue work.

BY STEPHEN JOHNS in Manchester TALKS aimed at settling one o ing sit-in strikes were being h Divisional organizer of the Amalgamated Union of En- gineering Workers, John Tocher, met management at Hawker-Siddeley's Woodford plant, where 1,000 workers been occupying for have eight weeks in support of demands for more pay and better conditions. The occupation at Hawkers is in the Man- one of seven chester area. The only other big firm involved is GEC Diesels at Newton-le-Willows. settlement at Woodford, where convenor Bill Anten is a member of the AUEW national committee, is thought unlikely.

Management have offered pay £2.25 increases amounting to holidays, plus two days extra but the union says this 1s not enough. Hawker-Siddeley workers at the firm's Chadderton plant have already accepted a £2 pay offer after a sit-in strike. Sit-in strikers at Wingrove and Rogers

ALL TRADES UNIONS

ALLIANCE MEETING

Support. the dockers and rail- waymen. Build Councils of Action 8 p.m. St Michael's Hall, Hillside and Knatchbull Rds, NW10. COVENTRY: Tuesday June 13, The Queen', Prim- 7.30 p.m. rose Hill St. SOUTHAMPTON: Tuesday June 13, 7.30 p.m. Chantry Hall, St Mary's St. g one of Manchester's remain- being held yesterday. Of the remaining disputes, the most bitter is at Viking En- gineering, Stockport. There man- agement are sticking firm over a decision to sack the convenor.

John Tocher said yesterday using the that Viking were district-wide pay claim initiated 27 to attack on March unions. 'This firm is very hostile to us,' he said. "This is the second convenor they have sacked.' The Manchester action, which involved 28 sit-ins at its peak, should be a major talking-point at the AUEW national confer- ence next week and the Con- federation of Shipbuilding and Unions' national Engineering conference a week later. But as industrial correspondent our points out below, the conterence agenda only palely reflects this.

In Birmingham, unions are plannirg a campaign similar to the Manchester action, but are unlikely to demand the key con- cession of a shorter working week. • Turn to page eight. What hastened to the engineers in d Rogerson the Kirkby industrial estate By our own reporter DESPITE harrassment from the Ford management a big collection has been taken up for the workers sitting in at the Wingrove and Rogers factory, Kirkby. Management has recently been reluctant to allow collec- tions to be held throughout the Halewood plant to help other workers in struggle.

So the 'docks system' was introduced. Collectors stand out- side the gates and take up a collection among workers as they are leaving work. BY DAVID MAUDE our industrial c FEW SIGNS of the crisis gripping Amalgamated the Union of Engineering Wor- kers are visible on the agenda for next week's conference sections in of its four Hastings. But when the Wingrove ans turned up outsidt Rogers men the transmission plant gate this week, security men told them to away. The Ford officials move said the area was a private road- way and they called the police.

Yesterday morning, another confrontation occurred as men left the night shift. Transmission-plant convenor John Meikle intervened, how- ever, and pointed out that the collectors were not causing an obstruction. After some discussion the collectors were allowed to stay and a big collection was made.

The Wingrove and • Rogers plant has now been occupied for eight weeks. Workers Press, Saturday June 10, 1972 PAGE 3 'Nay, nay lad, plant by plant!'

The AUEW executive will also dustrial correspondent demand ask conference to all pledge from unions not to policy-probably Wages or oPerate in verseas tonsored preoccupation major among government-sponsored the amalgam's 1.4 million bodies connected with the Act'.

members at the moment — is Whether this means the NIRC mentioned is not clear, but what is clear is only 1n minor from Con- that nowhere on the is resolution its agenda action structional Section. force the Tory government which concrete negotiating This says that in

AUEW

up to resign. set the court locally she s should not for relinquish right go increases nationally as well.

What rank and file, is worrying the however, the substantial failure of both of avenues approach. this week AUEW Only W presi- Hugh Scanlon dent Midlands the in stomp an attempt to save face for his and executive's disastrous policy of fighting the national claim— drawn up 14 months ago--plant by plant. the centre of this At year's which is only conferencé, the second involving engineering, foundry, technical, and con- structional sections together, will be the issue of the Industrial Relations Act. téchnical and Both the have al- engineering sections ready been challenged in the National Industrial Relations Court, and both have decided not to attend. The £55,000 fines imposed on General Transport the and Hugh Scanlon Workers' Union are clearly very mind, The closest anyone comes is the much in the executive's however. long executive technical and supervisory section resolution calls for the setting up

TASS,

which 'reaffirms its deter- of a TUC joint fund to meet mination bring about to its penalties imposed on any union. downfall' in a tired sort of way. Also proposed by the executive And the North-East division of is the establishment of machinery the engineering section wants the whose oper- to allow any union executive to use all means at its paralysed ations by the disposal to campaign for the seizure of its funds to continue of a Labour return government committed to socialist policies. operating.

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PAGE 4 Workers Press, Saturday June 10 Part four of a six part series Slaughter, Central Committee 1 Labour League. Middle-class politics in the working-class move- ment are always charac- terized by irresponsible zigzags in policy, by light-minded dismissal of the past conquests and experiences of the work- ing class and by contempt for theory. The IMG exemplifies these traits in every respect. Robin Blackburn wrote in the 'Red Mole', before the 1970 election, that since the Labourites and the Tories had identical pro-imperialist poli- cies on questions such as Viet- nam, IMG supporters should go into Labour meetings and break them up, thus treating the General Election purely as a field for sensational propa- ganda acticas by the tiny group in the IMG. International Socialists The concluded in the editorial of magazine International their Socialism' that to refuse to vote Labour would be 'a mis- take, but only a small one'!

What a spectacle for a group claiming to represent some sort of alternative leadership in the working-class move- ment! At a General Election about to return the most reactionary Tory government, its sails set for Bona- with partist dictatorship, it shrugs off the disastrous and irrespon- sible abstentionism the of IMG and of many of its own members with the cynical 'only a small mistake'! We find an instructive guide to the real thinking behind the IMG's recent development conclusions after the 'student revolt' and Vietnam Solidarity Campaign' confronta- tions in 1968. group then drew The IMG the conclusions that a new revolutionary leadership could be recruited from the largely student elements engaging in these actions and not from the working class. When they looked at the Labour Party and the unions, they could see only the appara- tus and not the working class.

Their talk about a new revolu- tionary vanguard was, as we explained at the time, essen- tially a writing off of the working class as the revolu- tionary forces for socialism.

The • IMG's journal Inter- national' for February 1969 an editorial carried entitled 'The Labour Party After Four Years of Wilsonism'. It described the decline of constituency Labour Parties estimated that the and even number of active Labour Party members was fewer than those participating in the October Part four of a six part series on revisionism by Cliff Slaughter, Central Committee member of the Socialist

INTERNATIONAL

1968 Vietnam demonstration!

'If Wilson leads the Party into electoral accelerates the present process of decay without provoking a fight from the left TO reinvigorate the labour move- working will ment, class have suffered a major defeat which could lead to the domin- ance of reaction for a whole CS.) period? (My emphasis, Here is the clue to the real thinking behind the surface militancy and 'leftism' of the

IMG!

February 1969 they saw In a Tory electoral victory as la working major defeat for the 'the domin- class', leading to of reaction for whole ance 1970 period. the working class was told that it made no difference whom they voted for! kind of politics, if it This were to gain any credence in the working-class movement, would the be dangerous and revolutionary extreme, party can be buit ony on the basis of the most determined struggle against it. For the

IMG

the working independent class is never an which revolutionary lorce in Marxist leadership must be The is working built. class written off. The betrayals of Wilson and the electoral victory of the Tories are considered on the one hand to be equivalent to a defeat for the working class, and on the other to be meaningless. There is here not a shred of confidence that the working be mobilized to defeat must the Tories, overcome the con- Wilson of 's sequences betrayals, and force the ques- of socialist policies to a tion head with the Labour leader- 5 We shall see in our final two Monday and articles next Tuesday that this process of writing off the working class, with the which began sub- bureaucracy in ordination consciously 1953, has now been completed by the IMG.

CONTINUED MONDAY

Top: Vietnam Solidarity Campaign 'confrontation' of 1968—the IMG concluded that student elements could No confidence workers form a revolutionary leadership. Above: Robin Blackburn-suggested breaking up Labour Party meetings.

ability to resist wilson (above).

candidates in the Lebanese parliamentary electi Above: publicity posters for Lebanon must be a Maronite The Lebanese parliament, (Christian), the Prime Minister a rubber stamp for im- Sunite (Moslem), the presi- perialist exploitation of dent of the parliament a Shi'as (Moslem) and the vice-presi- the Lebanese masses, dent a Greek Orthodox. maintains deep religious Since 1943 the number of divisions through its con- deputies in parliament has but not the propor- stitution. changed, tion of religious sects repre- According to a law decreed sented. Parliament is now com- III in 1821, by Emir Bachir 20 30 Maronites posed of and which still stands, the Sunites. 11 Greek Orthodox, various religious sects must 19 Shi'as, six Druses, four be represented in government Armenian Orthodox, one such measures do as long as Armenian Catholic, one not affect the 'general welfare Protestant and one who repre- of the state'. sents the minorities. variegated sects have These then been able to find con- sistent agreement on the need to maintain the status quo. Under the present form of This hardly surprising. is president of the Fifty per cent of the deputies the law, the tary elections are landowners and the rest come from the ranks of big business and the legal pro- fession. Although the parliamentary debate is dominated by rivalry between sects, the system carries on. As one Lebanese newspaper recently stated: 'For the past 25 years, or better still, the past 50 years changed in what has the Lebanon? The political picture is the same. There is a sort of fatalism in the air that in- exorably brings in the same men, the same figures—or their or cousinsto the same sons posts.'

BLACK COPS

FOR THE GHETTOS

Black control of the police in the ghetto areas is the latest campaign of Workers' the Socialist United Party in the States. SWP is in political solidarity with the International Marxist Group in Britain. The latest demand is in line with the call Ior a separate black party put forward in the SWP's presidential election manitesto. The call for black police in originally the ghettos came from the reactionary sect of Moslems, Black who are anti-communist and violently stand for the compiele sepal- of black white and workers. According to "The Militant, the SWP's weekly the paper, backed by demand is also 'various community organiz- black several ations, demo- the cratic politicians, and Nation of Islam (Black Moslems)'. These people staged a 5,000- York's strong rally in Ivew Harlem ghetto which was 'hailed' by the SWP's local congressional candidate, B. R.

Washington. The rally followed an attack by more than 100 police and plainclothes men against Muhammad's Temple No. 7 in Harlem on April 14. According to 'The Militants', supposedly the police responded to a call about an officer in distress on the second floor of the Temple. They first building burst into and then surrounded it, brandishing automatic weapons and shot- 'Scores of children attending the Moslem school were Moslem leaders present. say officers some of the pointed, their guns directly at the heads of some of the students.'

Two Moslems, Louis 17X E 9X Норея Dupree and Bobby were arrested for throwing out the first group of police to enter the mosque. Police fired 'warning shots' into the mosque entrance and one officer later died. The call which originally brought out the police turned be a false alarm, and, out to says "The Militant', "The Moslems are demanding an apology from [Police Com- missioner Patrick] Murphy and Mayor John Lindsay for the assault, the dropping of all Charges against arrested Moslems and the removal of police from the black community and their replace- ment by black officers under black commanders.' Not surprisingly, these demands have the backing of all the nationalists and separ- atists in Harlem, including, according to "The Militant", 'an

TROUBLE

FOR NIXON

Even the best efforts of the

KGB

enough were ensure a trouble-free stay for President Nixon during his recent visit to Moscow. When he and Mrs Nixon Moscow visited the ballet, where the bemedalled bureau- Old reminded of cre s as forcibly reminded the he was the Vietnam war. As the ballet was ending, the wife of an Italian Com- munist Party member shouted: 'Get out of Vietnam!' The Soviet police quickly • Press, Saturday June 10, 1972 PAGE 5 organization of black police- "The Guard- men known as ians"' Black control of the Harlem police would obviously suit them down to the ground. Other backers proudly listed in the revisionist paper include nationalist news- two black papers, the Black Panther Party. Harlem congressmen Charles Rangel, State Senators Waldaba Stewart and Sidney von Luther and 'many com- organizations munity and churches'. 'The Militant's' report of ' the Harlem rally opens with a description of the enthusiasm which greeted a speech from Louis Farrakhan, a Protestant Minister. the Libyan Even govern- ment of Muammar Gaddafi is behind the Moslems' demand.

It appears that Libya's deputy, foreign minister confronted the US consul in Tripoli with a protest over the mosque attack. The SWP candidate issued a statement specifically endors- ing the call for black police in the ghettos. He said: 'The Moslem defence cam- paign and demands should be by the entire supported spectrum of political opinion in Harlem [!]. 'To cement this support we must build a black united front [sic] committed to mobilizing and organizing the community in behalf of the demands.

It is only by demonstrating our power, as we have begun to do in this rally, that we can compel the withdrawal of the white police and their replace- ment by black officers accept- able to us. We must have com- munity control!' The statement reveals the total bankruptcy of the SWP revisionists, who have thrown out of the window all the teachings of Marxism on the state and class struggle.

The capitalist state machine (defined by Lenin as bodies of armed men) exists for the pur- private pose of protecting property and maintaining the subjection of the working class.

Black or white, that is the policeman's job. No communist can talk of •.. officers acceptable to us'.

To line up with religious reactionaries, Democratic shy- organizations and sters black 'pigs' for so-called 'com- munity control' of the police is to delude black workers into thinking there is some separate road for them. This is also the essence of ack the SWP's demand for a separate black party, reflected here in the call for a black united front. Such demand means launching the SWP even deeper middle-class swamp into the is firmly where it now embedded. hustled her out of the theatre.

The same police scuffled with workers along the route of Nixon's motorcade from the airport to the Kremlin. As the police hustled him away from the route, one worker remonstrated angrily with them: all this fuss about be hanged at the corner lamp- post and you try to put every- one in order.' To try and prepare the way for the visit, the Soviet CP leaders held a concentrated propaganda campaign in favour of 'peaceful co-existence' Workers at many of the meetings, however, demanded to know why the Soviet leader- ship was 'helping Nixon to win the election'.

PAGE 6 Workers Press, Saturday Juno 10, 18

BY PHILIP WADE

The announcement on Monday that the most advanced machine tool company in Britain, Herbert- Ingersoll of Daventry, had finally collapsed, came as no surprise to the 338 wor- kers left in the plant. For the Anglo-American ven- ture had not made a profit since it began trad- ing in 1968. In fact it had accumulated losses of over £4m. Throughout the tast 18 Herbert-Ingersoll months sacked 215 workers the as company floundered in deeper financial difficulties. Yet in January 1968 the firm opened with 600 workers. They were skilled workers recruited from all over England, some of them coming from as far away as Sunderland on the North East coast. Four years and five months later the parent companies, toolmakers, Europe's largest Herbert of Coventry Alfred the Ingersoll Milling and of Illinois, Machine Co announced they had had enough. The now-common figure of in this che receiver-manager, case Kenneth Cork of Barclays Bank was called in. The bank had a vested interest because they were the debenture hold- ers of a £3.7m loan to Herbert- Ingersoll. Most importantly, however, the company's collapse indi- cates the severity of the crisis facing capitalism. British Under the impact of the world economic recession it proved unable to sustain an industry vitally necessary to its future.

If British capitalism was to have any chance of meeting competitors in the international trade war it would need to have on the most advanced retool basis. Herbert-Ingersoll's aim was to produce special purpose machine tools and advanced systems like working metal those made in the United States. It aimed at customers in the motor, commercial-vehicle and electrical-engineering indus- from one order tries. Apart from Chrysler's, for the Aven- ger project, it virtually failed.

Last year new orders were worth £2. But £1.9m of these were for export. British capi- talism just didn't want to know. Herbert-In gersoll was launched in the middle of the deepest recession the machine- tool industry had known since the war. As British capitalism shelved plan one investment after another because of the reces- sion the first thing io go were machine-tool orders. By 1968 the slump began to Saturday Juno 10, 1972 hit the machine-tool industry.

industry, Today which employs 55,000 workers, is running at just 60 per cent capacity. Last year new orders were 40 per cent down on 1970 in the £200m industry. Export orders were down 19 per cent.

Throughout the 1960s, efforts had been made to change the whole outdated of the industry. structure Today there are still 200 firms producing machine tools, a drop of 150 on 1961. Alfred Herbert, Europe's largest toolmaking concern, was severely hit. In the trading year of October 1971 it sus- tained a loss of over £4m.

its It purged workforce The of ruthlessly. number sites went from 15 to 11 and 14 months they sacked in 3,190 workers, one quarter of its labour force. Chairman Sir Richard Young described bankruptcy reports 'moonshine' Sir Richard as lives in a luxurious manor house in Stratford-upon-Avon is a director of Rugby and Portland Cement and the Com- monwealth Finance Develop- ment Corporation. For the company, Herbert- Ingersoll was an attempt to drag the ailing company into the 20th century, to compete on the world market. Herbert-Ingersoll first was conceived of in 1966 as the Labour government began des- perate attempts to make Bri- tish capitalism work. The industry machine-tool was vital. Yet it had an antiquated structure rooted in the 19th • century. British manufacturers If wanted advanced toois they sought them abroad. In fact about 30 cent of all per machine-tool deliveries were manufacturers from overseas The Labourites des- were perate to ensure the success of the company. And with the co- of Amalgamated operation Union of Engineering Workers' officials they helped impose the most draconian conditions of employment. It would be fair to say that the AUEW sold its whole rule- book, representing conditions in years and years of won struggle to try and appease the employers. As convenor Len Rudkin put it to me outside the factory gate on Wednesday: 'We had complete mobility of labour.

'In the end you had skilled engineers running round the plant sweeping up. Others in fact painted some of the fac- tory. 'The company said they would keep the original labour force, paying us overtime when there was a lot work on guaranteeing us a and always 40-hour week when work was slack' .. Clocking in was abolished and everybody was made member of the staff on a sala- ried basis. The AUEW obtained right to represent all the workers in the plant. As J. H. managing Spurr. 1969, put director October 'Herbert-Ingersoll has com- it: mitted itself to a new approach in human relationships. 'We have abolished clocking- in and out, all our people are on salaried conditions of holi- days and pay, one restaurant is used by all of us.' In the end, other Daventry workers used to say they wouldn't work at the factory if asked because the pace was Killing. Shop stewards and convenor were virtually powerless. Ine convenor himself, according to Rugby district secretary of the AUEW, Jim Hunter, could only visit other sections during of- cial breaks. It is little surprise, there- four-and-a-half fore that in vears there was not a single strike at Herbert-Ingersoll.

That is why the firm esti- Above: the Herbert-Ingersoll fac tory in Daventry. Far left Jim

AUEW

district Rugby secretary. Top convenor at Herbert-Ingersoll. left: Herbert-Ingersoll Milburn. worker, Jim that it could produce mated of £5m worth goods its £3km 600 factory with just workers. Against background of general slump in British indus- try and stagnant capital invest- Herbert-Ingersoll ment, lost just over f2m in its first trad- ing year on sales of only f2.3m.

This was put down to starting- up and learning costs But in the 1969-1970 period losses were £1.23m on sales of £3.3m. . The Labour government then stepped in with a loan of through its now defunct Industrial Reorganization Cor- poration. The IRC took a 13 cent shareholding per result. near the nimos a further £800,000 on sales of £5m. With the Alfred-Herbert a whole losing f4m as well the final straw came when Tories refused more Ine aid after lengthy discussions at ministerial level earlier this year The scene was then set up for the announcement by dir- ectors that the receiver had been called in. The business failed financi- 'the volume of ally because business available in the United Kingdom has been consistently disappointing and the total workload has not been suffi- cient to enable the company to trade at a profit, they said.

ALL

What did the workers think when they heard the news. Said Len Rudkin: 'Although we've been anticipating it since the last redundancies an- were nounced (120 in October 1971) it still came as a shock. We were shocked to the core when the very first men were sacked in February last year. It was like having someone in hospital who you know is dying. Nevertheless, when the letter comes through the door it still hits you. 'Here we are in a position where two big companies like these can simply sit down and decide to finish something like Workers Press, Saturday June 10, 1972 PAGE 7 Three ago 140 went ycals at Rex Arnold, the steel-based furniture frame company. Then last year Daventry Engineering trying to for real sacked 150 men -one quarter need of its, labour force. 'Daventry's imäge is becom- mod- he said. ernized at all. ing a little tarnished, orders 'There are still jobs about like Brazil and tries but it's no use my skilled mem- came from up bers who and round. work down the country at TO 'One after Herbert-Ingersoll® taking a job but another has nothing at Green Shield. What seems to be happening stop-go. these days is that everyone is people went saying it's no good investing in people. Instead you have to put your industry.' money into things like pro- Len agreed perty and land if you want to make a profit, he told me in rity given in his Rugby office. 'This leads me as a socialist to say that places like Herbert- end. Ingersoll should be nationalized -and I'm not particularly Their problem what is nationalization man. If it is 350 to to the impossible to run these indus- going men but how with private capital then tries should take them the state over' pany think it 'The of control finance in It country. like a Com- now!' Len munist who be taken then talks the on then that's it. situation at moment.' the town in of south-east pany that he industry? for Yet the has rush bringing Britain. of fresh returning on basis- of decided that ster only to the planned the firm? accelerated to General Union con- Jim from bation. Ford's, warning: it— lation has to Under the dancies. 1,400 plan municipal this. will they be together with end And like brought try Green Ford of and the pro- they'd get sup- added Tim. Young Right-to- at Rolls- once Royce That in received earlier it tion at the the Labour the family a Party trade union branches. The of that We have vou fight for a political children To go fight against the Tory govern- back to the ment, the men responsible for be unthinkable. the creation of 1 million un- employed. Young The Socialists said the only defend way to the right to who have are now work was through a mobilization of the working class to force the Tories to some- resign. where else. The meaning of that cam- paign now takes on a life-and- death significance in Daventry.

playing Already one trade union passed branch has a motion Tim' said 'Mv calling for the setting up of a than Council of Action to organize of that the fight back against the all road. Now being Tories. That call has to be made a reality and the Council must fight for the resignation of the return of Tories and the place is Labour government committed socialist policies including the nationalization of the basic industries under workers' con- trol and without compensation.

like that yet. That is the only way for- ward for Herbert-Ingersoll Hunter is now workers defence of their in right to work. engineering.

HOW THE CP HELD BACK

THE ENGINEERS IN 1957

PAGE 8 Workers Press, Saturday June 11 Engineers' leader Hugh Scanlon this week toured the Midlands in what many of his union mem- bers saw as a desperate bid to save face over the disastrous results of his executive's pay rolicies.

The trip occurs on the eve of next week's conference, in Hastings, of all four sections of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers, where the substantial failure of the union's strategy of fighting for its national claim on a plant- by-plant basis is likely to pro- voke bitter comment. When full-time officers of the AUEW engineers' section met three weeks ago, one of the officials from the Man- district, Bernard chester. Panter, attacked the executive for making no effort even to with arm the membership propaganda for the struggle. A Communist Party member, Panter then himself was attacked by Maoist executive member Reg Birch for taking the failings of himself and ay June 10, 1972 other officers out on the leadership. The Maoists' line is that the decision to abandon the pay fight at national level is one of the best moves ever made by the union. Birch told the AUEW en- gineers'-section conference at Eastbourne in April that it was the first time the membership had been given the freedom to fight in this way. In fact, it is not. The executive's policy to- day is merely a variation on the treacherous theme it played the last time engineers were involved in major struggle -in 1957. On March 23, 1957, 20,000 heavy - engineering workers struck in the start of a 'snow- ball' action for la substantial wage increase. were followed on They March 30 by 20,000 in the Greater London area. By April 6, more than a million workers organized in the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineer- ing Unions were out behind drawn up the pay demand almost a year before. Everything was set for a bitter struggle. On the eve. of the strike, Transport Minister Harold Watkinson, a former chairman of the machine-tool employers, tried to whip up middle-class chauvinism against the strike by declaring that 'the real winners • . Will be ship- builders in Japan, Germany and elsewhere'. The employers and the Tory government continued to insist that vital export markets were being lost, the economy was being shattered and that the stability of prices and wages would be disrupted. Police clashed on several occasions with demonstrations organized in support of the strike.

On April 11, 1957, Hugh Scanlon, then Manchester divi- sional organizer for the Engineering Amalgamated Union, headed at that time by right-winger William Carron, came under fire for calling out Lancashire Steel's Irlam fac- tory. The factory's welfare officer, nd Labour MP Jack Jones, accused him of being 'a known com- munist, a disrupter all his life'. Some sections of the press seized on the incident, to which an element of the spec- tacular was imparted by the sudden demise of Jones' wife while watching a TV confron- tation between Scanlon and her husband. Jones' description, however, was sadly inaccurate; Scanlon had turned in his CP card some two years before, and many Manchester engineering workers remain critical of his role in that dispute. What is more, the policies of the CP itself were no danger to Jones and his employers. In fact they represented a neces- sary division of labour with the right-wing Carron clique domi- nating the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions. The CP uncritically backed the strategy of restricted action, thus maintaining the divisions between shipyard workers and engineering workers, and between engin- eers in one area and another.

It refused to organize inde- pendently of CSEU 'lefts' like Ted Hill, leader of the boiler- makers' and Frank Cousins of the Transport and General Workers' Union. And it con- of in the pay struggles 1957 engineers were limited to та- stricted action which led to Isolation and defeat. Today, with the AUEW's abandonment of the national claim, engineers face the same dangers. Left: Man. chester sit-ins, one such Isolated struggle. Scanion who Top: abandoned the claim. Above: Birch who thinks it the best move ever. Below: Carron who sold out in 1957. raising the sistently avoided demand for the removal of the Tory government. Later in April, when the shipyard workers had been out for less than three weeks, the Carron clique sent their mem- bers back to work for a miserly increase of 57$p a week. same time, At the they agreed with the employers to freeze wages for a year and to help crack down on so- restrictive practices. called Even some right-wingers were amazed-in some cases de- claring the settlement an open betrayal. By the end of May, engin- eers in Salford and a number of other areas were complain- ing of a ruthless enforcement of clocking-on times. Had the CSEU fought to the end, they said, far more than 57łp could have been won-and without any strings. Much greater dangers face engineering workers today, which is precisely why Scanlon and Birch want engineering workers to forget what hap- the last time union pened leaders divided their members' strength in a major struggle.

BY PHILIP WADE

'Chato's Land' is very much a film of its time. It is enormously violent -at least 13 people are killed - and it comes down in the film's own way, on the side of the Indian against the white man. The film's producer and di- rector is British, _36-year-old Winner will Michael Winner. readily admit he never sets out to make a masterpiece but rather a film that will sell.

In that sense he tends to pour scorn on those in the in- dustry who complain the profit system deters the talented film-maker. Winner, however, accepts this system.

He is happy in making average films well and making money when they sell. Like so many westerns these days, the film is centred around the developments that take place within the scope of an extended chase for a fugitive who has supposed to have broken the law, at least in the eyes of the majority. all the Winner has used incorporated in techniques , in- 'chases', recent western cluding the often psychedelic mixture of colour and the slow, panning shots with the tele- photo lense. The opening scene is pure Paul Newman, played with is almost dumbness that a send-up of itself. The half-breed Apache Chato (Charles Bronson) is drinking in a saloon when the sherifi walks in and tells the Indian it is a white man's saloon. As Chato carries on drinking the sheriff pulls his gun and pre- pares to shoot him in the back.

to be the Chato happens fastest half-breed in the West and shoots the sheriff dead be- fore anyone can move. The chase is on and it soon becomes an excuse for all sorts of Indian-haters, mostly small to forget what hap- tarmers, pened in the saloon-that it was a fair fight-to hunt him down. With the sheriff gone, it falls upon a former officer in the Confederate army to lead the fight. All he can remember is losing to the North because Pre- they had more men. sumably one Indian wouldn't be too much trouble. short time he has In rounded the best Indian-haters he can find who vow to catch Chato and burn him. Two Scottish farmers go along be- cause they don't want to offend their neighbours by re- fusing. Chato is not by nature a violent man. And for the early part of the film the director is at pain to contrast him with his pursuers who are driven forward by nothing but in- tense hatred for Indians general. Chato's aim is simply to tire Charles Bronson Land' them he end for them the salone horses and water supply. skill the who, ahead, And, Tions. remains see. Chato his home driven most brutal Eventually this From hunted and Indian who home. trast word interest alive. conflict have taken which Yet the enough. it again, film. 'Chato's confuse them leaves signs while al shooting their their officer strategically Chato's inten- there paranoiac thinks the mountains against often by the them. among Chato's rape they time are by the those who in argu• The con- the rabble the fully above product specializes in. honest scenes ale right exciting Workers Press, Sat

BY IAN YEATS

The frightening thing about "The Ruling Class' is that Saturday's troop- ing of the colour proves well. Director importance of it. has undergone. Carolyn Seymour as Jack's bride-to-be 'England was a jewel set in a silver sea'. All of this is true. But it does not make them irrelevant as a social force. that they are The idea Medak to make a allows great deal of often very funny mileage at their expense.

His principal instrument is family butler (Arthur the Lowe) whose satirical tongue is loosened after old Lord Gurney (Harry Andrews) hangs himself by mistake in a sensual and bequeaths him orgy £30,000. son and The noble Lord's heir, Jack, is a schizophrenic who believes he is Goa and the immediate family difficuity is how to restore to him suffi- cient sanity to permit him to manage the estate and take up the class banner where his father dropped it. In line with Medak's con- cept of the class as museum pieces, Jack (Peter O'Toole) from acting out the shrinks : that what he and subterfuge his class did meant something.

But in rejecting the role he was born to, he faces the terri.

fying prospect of social extinc.- tion. he seeks refuge in the So belief that he is God—a figure whose powers are only one step removed from those of fo the ruling class and who is a good deal more secure. He is not the God godfear- ing people know. He is a hippie a mystic, tripping God, a divinity to whom all the world is love and roses. When this flower child is dragged back from the rarefied heights of extreme idealism to reality through confrontation with another "God', love and turn into their direct roses opposite-black reaction. Press, Saturday Juno 10, 1972 PAGE 9 The only way to give the life of his class meaning is to put teeth into it and he becomes the spokesman for all those who are desperate to arrest its decay. by the Tory He is feted ladies of the hunt when he descends upon them to make a hang 'em and flog 'em speech of maniacal intensity. He sets about the elimina- tion of all signs of decadence, beginning symbolically with his own house. He stabs his aunt who tried to seduce him and who has already had an affair with his psychiatrist and murders the gold-digging petty bourgeois wife the family foisted on him when they thought he would have to be shut away for life but needed an heir first.

The butler who is discovered to be a Maoist gets the blame for the first and we are not told who pays for the second.

Perhaps he does because now he has a son to carry on the line. All this is done in moments when he imagines himself to be Jack the Ripper-a significant choice by Medak since the whore killer is also rumoured to have been a nobleman dis- ride-to-be in 'The Ruling Class' gusted with the decadence around him. In other words, if Gurney then he could not be God, would have to be what he was and defend what he was against all and everything that sought to undermine it. His maniacal speech to the House of Lords, where he calls down fire and brimstone for all those responsible for tar- England's image, is nishing greeted by wild cheering from the Lords and declarations of "at last he is one of us.

• Gurney's The gap between 'madness' and their 'sanity' has been closed. They all agree on what has to be done. While Gurney speaks Medak shows us the Lords both reality and as cobweb as draped skeletons. What Gurney and the Lords stand for its certainly as back- ward and barbaric as the skeletons suggested, but it is by no means as dead. Colonels are not all blimps and Lords are not all eccentric, goutish old fools. They are the owners and defenders of capital and they will fight to preserve themselves and their positions. afford The ruling class can to lose an empire-that is only a form of rule. But they cannot forfeit the monopoly of wealth which is their life-blood.

Medak's mistake is to ignore the fact that the ruling class is the capitalist class. It is their system. They are not only part of it. They are its mainspring. The logical development of Gurney is not lonely • madness performing empty rituals in crumbling castles but the 'new world' of fascism where rulers are rulers and the ruled are ruled.

PAGE 10 Workers Press, Saturday June 10, 1972 BUILDING trade unions representing 400,000 workers are on the point of launching official industrial action in support of their claim for £30 for a 35-hour week and three weeks' holiday.

Negotiations, which have set up with the task of selecting the firms hit and dragged on for a year now, to co- ordinating the activities of the have made virtually no pro- unions involved.. A special sub-com- gress. The involved in the unions mittee of the wages negoti- negotiations have been led by the of the ating committee Union of Construction, Allied National Joint Council Trades and Technicians is (UCATT), which represents about trying to break the noW 262,000 building workers. deadlock. Others involved have included The trade union side of the General the Transport and

NJC

Union, has the employers Workers' representing until June 26 to come forward 100,000 workers, the about with substantial improvements in General and Municipal Workers' their offer. Union and FTATU, the furniture trades union. On this date the trade unions will consider procedure exhausted They have between them 12 the NJC, under the NJC constitution and the same as seats on intentions of have declared their the building employers. forward with industrial Throughout protracted going the employers have the negotiations, treated the with National and regional action really The riggers' to work return of followed the reinstatement three sacked men. Standon, the Michael pipe- boiler-

PIPEFITTERS

and said his fitters' shop steward, makers at Shell's huge refinery men would only return subject in Stanlow, Ellesmere Port, to guarantees from management that they will recruit no more remain on strike following a fitters until all the issues had phased return to work by the been resolved. riggers and mechanical fitters One of the causes of the dis- pute is the refusal by manage- on Wednesday. ment to recruit union members who have been out of work for The whole work force at long periods. Fluor, a sub-contracting firm on He said that failing this the the site, struck two weeks ago and were subsequently all dis- site shop stewards had pledged the Their support- -probably form missed. pickets were In harassed police of another mass picket-starting by throughout the strike. next week. The dally paper that loads the fight against the Tories. £20.28 for 12 months (312 Issues) {10.14 for 6 months (156 Issues) £5.07 for 3 months (78 issubs) If you want to take Workers Press twice a week the rates are: £1.56 for 3 months (24 issues) £6.24 for 12 months (96 issues) Fill in the form below NOW and send to: 186a Clapham High St., Irculation Deot.. Workers Presi ondon. SWA 7UC I would like to take out a subscription to Workers Press.

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BUILDING

WORKERS

CHARTER

Building workers lobbying union-employe contempt, cancelling at short, sometimes non-existent notice, NJC meetings. They have attempted to take advantage not only of the weak leadership in the building unions but also the phenomenally high unemployment rate among build- ing workers. Almost 180,000 workers are in the industry, out of a job about one in six of the total labour force. to use unemployment to intensify their attacks on trade unionism on building sites. At the moment no more than 35 per cent of the industry is organized by trade unions. The trend can be seen by the membership in of decline tormed by the union recently formed amerger of the , and the painters' woodworkers' and decorators' unions. In December 1970, member- hin stood at 283.764. The most recent figure we have is over 20,000 lower at 262,610. More and more employers are encouraging the practice on the lump to keep working wages down and break up union organization. Almost 300,000 men in the industry now work as self- employed and without insurance cards, earning about £8 for a 10- hour day. So when the pay claim went in, the wages and conditions in the organized industry made the workers some of the lowest paid in any industry. Under the present three-year agreement craftsmen were only on a basic rate of £20 for a 40- The Labourers' hour week. basic was a meagre £18.50.

A recent Department of Em- ployment survey of earnings industry said that in April 1971, building workers were 16th in the wages table. The claim for a £30, 35-hour week and three weeks' holiday was first registered with the NJC in June 1971 after months of preparation on the union side.

wasn't until October, It though, that anything was heard.

Then the employers told the they unions would like to adjourn the meeting to enable them to make a written reply to the claim. long for the It didn't take unions to receive a letter rejecting out of hand the unions' claim. The employers then used the excuse of the reorganization of the NJC to delay another meet- ing with the unions. Eventually the first real negotiating meeting took place on February 8 of this year. The employers came up with the insulting offer of just £1.40 for craftsmen and £1.20 labourers. It was rejected by the unions. The next scheduled meeting for early in March was arrogantly unilaterally by the cancelled employers and it was not until March 16 that the two sides met again at the NJC. n-employer pay talks in February They increased the offer to £2.00 for craftsmen and £1.60 for labourers. They also wanted to introduce a guarantee weekly minimum wagé to give craftsmen another £2.00 and labourers £1.50p—but they didn't earn that only if in bonuses. much The unions rejected the deal. On April 12 the employers snubbed the unions yet again by cancelling another scheduled meeting. first UCATT officials The heard about it was when the T&GWU phoned them up. The meeting eventually took place on April 25 when the employers . their March 16 offer. repeated On May 4 the employers tried another tack by offering a 19- month agreement which would Fighting the Tories Rent Bill A COUNCILLOR in West London has bitterly attacked his Labour group for putting up no fight against the Tory council and allowing the fair rents' Bill to pass on the nod.

In the elections last year in Kensington and Chelsea-for as long as anyone can remem- ber a Tory stronghold-the swing to the left increased Labour's representation from five to 24. 'Labour has failed very, very badly. There may as well not have been 24 Labour councillors during the last 12 months, for their effectiveness has been quite negligible,' said Cir lan Flintoff.

In interview with the an 'Kensington News', he con- demned the right wing for virtually collaborating with the Tory council. 'Labour could have been more coherently progressive,' said. 34- year-old Cllr Flintoft, who works at the Labour Party's Transport House headquarters. On the 'fair rents' Bill and the lack of fight of Labour the opposition he had this to say: "The housing thing in the past 12 months has not improved at all. 'And, for example, I would have walked out of the council chamber when the Tories pro- posed the Housing Finance Bill.

I asked the group to walk out but they refused.' In a damning indictment of the right-wing's contempt for the workers they représent. Flintoff TSW PoB have lasted until December 1973.

By that time craftsmen would only have been £24 and £20. Rejection again. labourers The employers said it was their 'final offer'. On May 18 the unions met and decided to press ahead with procedure before exhausting organizing industrial action.

Deadlock was recorded at the subsequent NJC meeting on May 21 and a special sub-committee to try and was set up come up with a solution. The unions gave it until June 26. leadership is not The union prepared to launch all-out an strike for the claim. Instead pre- parations are being made for as yet unspecified industrial_ action on a series of selected strikes up and down the country. added: 'Mainly, I should get back to the fact that our 24 members are a failure, if we're really honest with ourselves. 'Because, in my opinion, our socialist. Half group isn't the bloody devils are Tories.'

He accused the group of tailing to raise any issues on the council, apart from school milk. 'Many of the councillors', he added, 'didn't want to be elected in the first place. Most of those standing never thought they had a chance of winning. "The nice thing about being a socialist is that you can shame the Tories. We should be able to them and we're not. Say shame milk, free travel for and on pensioners and things like that, I would have walked out. 'But of course the Labour group don't because they're chicken. They'd rather have sherry in the mayor's parlour.

'If we walked out it would be biggest thing the that ever happened in Kensington. 'At the moment it's like a tennis match. The Tories are serving the ball and we're send- serving,, back. We should be Cllr Flintoff has been fighting successfully for the preparation by the Labour group of its mani- festo for the 1974 elections.

He insists, however, that there will have to be new faces in the party. 'I'd like to see new people and in fact I think the party will want to see new people? He said he had made his feel- ings public before it was too late to do anything about it.

REGIONAL TV

CHANNEL: 1.10 London. 5.10 Train now standing. 5.40 Lon- don. 9.00 Film: 'Night Walker'.

10.30 London. 11.25 Weather.

WESTWARD. As Channel ex- cept: 12.05 Gus Honeybun. 12.10 Rupert Bear. 12.20 Lone Ranger.

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HARLECH: 10.50 Tennis. 11.15 Pippi Longstocking. 11.40 Sesame street. 12.40 Farming diary. 1.10 London. 5.10 Sale of the century.

5.40 London. 5.45 Train now standing. 6.15 London. 9.00 Film: 'Husbands, Wives and Killers'. 10.20 If it moves. 10.30 London.

11.25 Prisoner. 12.20 Weather.

HTV Cymru/Wales as above ex- cept: 5.10-5.40 Siona sian.

ATV MIDLANDS: 12.35 Horo- Captain scope. 12.40 Scarlet. 1.10 London. 9.00 Film: 'Scandal Sheet'. 10.30 London. 11.25 Dick Van Dyke. 11.50 Who knows?

Weather. ULSTER: 12.55 Enchanted house.

1.10 London. 5.10 Primus. 5.40 London. 5.45 Train now standing.

6.15 London. 9.00 Summer re- sults. 9.05 Film: The Invasion of the Body Snatchers'. 10.30 London. 11.25 Theatre.

REGIONAL TV

CHANNEL: 11.00 London. 12.05- 12.30 Music in the round. 1.58 Weather. 2.00 Avengers. 2.55 Film: 'On the Town'. 4.35 Date with Danton. 4.40 London. 7.55 Film: 'Crack 9.30 Cinema. 10.00 London. 11.15 Edgar Wallace. 12.05 Epilogue.

Weather. WESTWARD. As Channel ex- cept: 12.30 London. 12.55 Farm- kitchen. 1.20 Sound of house ... The Settlers. 1.35 Farm and country news. 12.05 Faith for life. 12.10 Weather. SOUTHERN: 11.00 London. 12.00 Weather. 12.05 Music in the round. 12.30 London. 12.55 farm progress. 1.25 Training the family dog. 1.45 Stingray. 2.15 London. 3.15 Film: "The Love War. 4.35 News. 4.40 London. 7.55 Film: 'The Mountain Road'.

9.50 Bugs Bunny. 10.00 London.

11.15 Songs for your delight.

11.45 Short story. 12.15 Weather.

Insight to the artist. HARLECH: 11.00 London. 12.05 Music in the round. 12.30 Lon- don. 12.55-1.25 Farmhouse kit- chen. 1.45 London. 3.15 Film: 'Battle Taxi. 4.40 London. 7.55 Film: 'Girl in the Headlines'.

9.30 Mr and Mrs. 10.00 London.

11.15 Avengers. 12.15 Weather.

HTV Wales and HTV Cymru/ above except: 12.05 Wales as Dan Sylw. 12.40 O'r wasg. 12.55 Llusern. ATV MIDLANDS: 11.00 London.

12.05 Music in the round. 12.30 London. 12.55-1.22 Farmhouse kitchen. 1.40 Horoscope. 1.45 London. 2.15 Sports. 3.15 Film: 'Blind Spot'. 4.40 London. 7.55 Film: 'East of Eden'. 10.00 Lon- don. 11.15 Spyforce. Weather.

ULSTER: 12.05 Music in . the 12.30 London. 12.55 round. Farmhouse kitchen. 1.45 London.

3.15 Film: Santa Fe. 4.40 Lon- don. 7.55 Film: 'Tender Trap'.

10.00 London. 11.15 Saint.

10.45 Talking

YORKSHIRE:

11.00 London. 12.05 hands. Music in the round. 12.30 Be- loved enemy. 12.55 Farmhouse kitchen. 1.25 Farming outlook.

1.55 2.20 World snooker. 3.15 4.40 London. 'Green Fingers'. 7.55 Film: 'Confidential Agent'.

10.00 London. 11.15 Division 4.

12.15 Weather. GRANADA: 11.00-12.00 London.

12.05 Music in the round. 12.30 London. 12.50 Farmhouse kit- YORKSHIRE: 11.25 All our yesterdays. 11.50 Make a wish. 12.15 Skippy. 12.40 Lidsville. 1.10 London. 5.10 Primus. 5.40 London. 5.45 Train now standing.

6.15 London. 9.00 Film: 'McMil- lan and Wife'. 10.25 If it moves.

10.30 London. 11.25 Danger man.

12.20 Weather. GRANADA: 12.15 Woobinda. 12.40 Secret service. 1.10 London.

5.10 Guns of Will Sonnett. 5.40 London. 5.45 Train now standing.

im: 6.15 London. 9.00 Film: Pit of Darkness'. 10.30 London. 11.25 Danger man. TYNE TEES: 11.25 All our yes- terdays. 11.50 Bush boy. 12.15 12.40 Lidsville. 1.10 Arthur. London. 5.10 Primus. 5.40 Lon- don. 5.45 Train now standing. 6.15 London. 9.00 Film: 'McMil- lan and Wife. 10.25 If it moves.

ers'. 10.30 London. 11.25 Strange report. 12.20 Epilogue. SCOTTISH: 12.05 Beagan gaidh- lig. 12.20 Clapperboard. 12.40 Tom Grattan's war. 1.10 London.

5.10 Road runner. 5.40 London.

dal 5.45 Train standing. 6.15 now London. 9.00 Film: "Turn the Key Softly'. 10.30 London. 11.30 Late call. 11.35 On the house.

GRAMPIAN: 12.40 Yoga. 1.10 5.10 Rovers. 5.40 London. 5.45 Train now standing. 6.15 London.

9.00 Film: 'McMillan and Wife'.

10.20 If it moves. 10.30 London.

11.25 Strange report. Sinead Cusack In J. M. Synge's 'Playboy Sunday. chen. 1.20 All our yesterdays.

1.50 Mad movies. 2.15 London.

3.15 Film: "The Diamond Wizard'.

4.40 London. 7.55 Film: 'Sergeant Rutledge'. 10.00 London. 11.15 Man in a suitcase. TYNE TEES: 10.20 Farming out- look. 10.45 Talking hands. 11.00 London. 12.05 Music in the round. 12.30 Beloved enemy.

12.55 Farmhouse kitchen. 1.25 Farming outlook. 2.15 Where the jobs are. 2.20 Snooker. 3.15 Film: "The Astonished Heart'. 4.40 London. 7.55 Film: Behold A Pale Horse'. 10.00 London. 11.15 Randall Hopkitk. 12.10 and Epilogue. SCOTTISH: 12.05 Music in the round. 12.30 London. 12.55-1.22 Farmhouse kitchen. 1.25 All our yesterdays. 1.55 Out of town. 2.15 London. 3.15 Film: 'Sailor of the King'. 4.40 London. 7.55 Film: 'Any Wednesday'. 10.00 London. 11.15 Late call. 11.20 Randall and Hopkirk. GRAMPIAN: 12.05 Music in the round. 12.30 London. 12.55 Farmhouse kitchen. 1.20 All our yesterdays. 1.50 Farm progress. lon. 2.20 Randall and Hopkirk. 3.15 Film: 'Cash On Demand'. 4.40 London. 7.55 Film: 'Victim Five'.

9.30 Odd couple. 10.00 London.

11.15 His and hers. 11.45 Job look.

BBC 2

Not- Cricket. Leicestershire tinghamshire.

7.00 NEWS

REVIEW and weather.

7.25 THE WORLD

ABOUT

US. Chimpanzee!

8.15 FILM: "THE ART OF

LOVE'®

Tames Garner, Dick Van Dyke. Elke

BBC 1

10.00-10.30 Wie bitte? 11.20 Weather. 11.25 Cricket. England .1.30 Grandstand. y Australia. 1.40, 2.10, 2.35 Racing from Haydock Park. 1.50 Fight of the week. Joe Bugner v Doug Kirk.

2.20, 3.15, 4.10 Cricket. 2.50, 3.35, 4.10 International athletics.

3.15 World bowls championships.

4.50 Final score. 5.05 Basil Brush.

5.35 News. 5.50 Dr Who.

6.15 WONDERFUL WORLD

OF DISNEY. The Owl That Didn't Give a Hoot.

7.00 FILM: 'OPERATION

AMSTERDAM. Peter Finch, Eva Bartok, Tony Britton, Alexander. Knox.

Daring mission is planned to rescue industrial dia- monds from the Nazis.

8.40 THE BLACK AND WHITE

MINSTREL SHOW.

9.25 A MAN CALLED IRON-

SIDE. Check, Mate: and Murder. 10.15 NEWS and weather.

10.30 PARKINSON.

11.30 ALL IN THE FAMILY.

Sammy's Visit. 12.00 Weather. s 'Playboy of the Western World', BBC 1

BBC 1

rd. 9.00 Nai zindagi naya jeevan. 9.30-10.00 Wie bitte? 11.00 See- ing and believing. 11.30 Boomph with Becker. 11.45 Mistress of Hardwick. 12.10 Bellamy on botany. 12.35 Profit by control.

1.00 Farming. 1.25 Hammer it home. 1.50 World bowls cham- pionship. 2.20 Made in Britain.

News. 2.30 Going for a 2.29 song. 3.00 Laurel and Hardy.

Shari Lewis show. 3.45 3.35 1.40 Film: 'The Reluctant Widow'. A Jean Kent, Guy Rolfe. Love, death and treason during the 5.10 British Napoleonic wars. Empire. 6.05 NEWS and weather. 6.15

THE ORIGINS OF

CHRISTIANITY.

6.50

SONGS OF PRAISE.

7.25

SACHA'S IN

TOWN.

Sacha Distel with Daliah Lavi, Olivia Newton-John, Vicky Leandros. 8.15

PLAY: 'THE PLAYBOY

WESTERN

THE

WORLD'. By J. M. Synge. John Hurt, Sinead Cusack.

9.55 NEWS and weather. 10.10

OMNIBUS.

Born Black, Born British.

KENNETH HARRIS IN-

10.55 TERVIEWS Sir Kenneth Keith. 11.40 Weather. Sommer, Angie Dickinson, Ethel Merman. Comedy.

9.50 TUTANKHAMUN'S

EGYPT. War and Trade: Egypt's Place in the Ancient World.

10.10 THE LOTUS EATERS.

11.00 NEWS ON 2 and weather.

11.05 NIGHT

CLUB.

Shirley Bassey. Workers Press,

BBC 2

9.05-1.00 Open University. 2.40 Tutankhamun's Egypt. 3.00 Film: "The Black Tent'. Anthony Steel, Donald Sinden. 1942 and a British officer lives among the Bedouins. 4.30 Cricket. England v Australia. 6.35 MAN ALIVE. Aberdeen- The New Texas?

7.35 WESTMINSTER.

SPORT and

7.50 NEWS,

weather.

8.00 MOTHER THAMES, OBE.

8.40

VENICE - THE MOST

SERENE REPUBLIC.

9.25

SOUNDS FOR SATUR-

DAY. Jonie Mitchell.

10.10 PETS AND VETS.

10.30

BOWL.

THE GOLDEN

End Game. 11.15 NEWS ON 2 and weather.

11.25 FILM NIGHT.

LONE-

12.00 FILM:

'RIDE

SOME. Randolph_Scott, Karen • Steele. Western about a man searching for his wife's murderer. (TV 10.45 Thunderbirds. 11.40 Sesame street. 12.40 Jackson five. 1.10 News. 1.15 World of sport. 1.20 They're off! 1.30, 2.00, 2.30 Racing from Catterick. 1.45, 3:20 international football. Angio- 3.05 Racing from Epsom.

ITV

10.30 All our yesterdays. 11.00 Morning service. 12.05 Farm- house kitchen. 12.30 Something to sing about. 12.55 Out of town.

1.15 1.45 University Stingray. challenge. 2.15 Sportsworld 72.

3.15 Jason King. 4.10 Catweazle.

4.40 Golden shot. 5.35 Follyfoot.

6.05 NEWS FROM ITN.

6.15

NO SMALL CHANGE.

6.35

THERE I GO.

7.00

STARS ON SUNDAY.

7.25

DOCTOR IN CHARGE.

Mum's the Word. 7.55

FILM: 'ANY WEDNES-

DAY'. Jane Fonda, Jason Robards, Dean Jones. A millionaire. Visits his mis- Wednesday in tress every New York. The eight-page youth paper which leads the fight against the Tory government, for the right to work, schools and on the dole queues. Please sond me 'Koop Loft' for one y I encloso £2.86 Name Address Fill in the form below a

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Name Address 18 Press, Saturday June 10, 1972 PAGE 11 and Italian tournament. 4.15 Wrest- ling. 5.00 Results service. 5.10 Irain now standing. 5.40 News.

5.45 Sale of the century.

6.15 2 G'S AND THE POP

PEOPLE. Dougie Squires' Second Generation, Lulu, Jimmy Young with guest Bee Gees.

7.00 NEW SCOTLAND YARD.

Fire in a Honey Pot.

8.00 SATURDAY VARIETY

The Bachelors. 9.00

• FILM:

'DONOVAN'S

Ayres,

BRAIN'®

Lew Nancy Davis. A doctor devotes his life to keeping animal tissue alive after death.

10.30 NEWS FROM ITN.

NIGHT.

Mike

10.40 OPEN

Scott.

11.30 PORTUGAL — DREAM

OF EMPIRE. Out of the Limbo.

12.25 ONLY ONE EARTH.

9.50 POLICE 5.

10.00

NEWS AT TEN.

10.15

PLAY: IT'S GOOD TO

SEE YOU'. Suzanne Neve, John Carlisle. 11.15

MUSIC IN THE ROUND.

Anatomy of Folk. 11.45 SHORT STORY. 'Bloch's Play.

12.15 ONLY ONE EARTH.

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PAGE 12 Workers Press, Saturday June

BY AN INDUSTRIAL REPORTER

THE FERMENT within Equity, the actors' and actresses' union with 92 per cent of its member- ship unemployed, reaches its climax to- morrow with the annual conference at the Vic- toria Palace. The right wing in the union, led by Marius Goring, is desperately trying to stem the tide of opposition by actors to the Tory govern- ment and its policies of un- employment and laws against the rights of unions. The theatrical companies are taking advantage of the massive unemployment in Equity to pre- pare a series of wage-cuts.

The

BBC

has already initiated enormous cuts in appearance fees. In all this the union leadership has remained completely impo- tent. Nu fight has been put up against unemployment or wage- cutting. And the council from the beginning decided to capitu- late to the Tory government and register the union under the In- dustrial Relations Act. Under the impact of Tory-led onslaught on their living stand- ards and rights, the membership has struck back against the coun- cil. In the end a referendum on registration - the result was announced last week-only pro- majority of 888 duced in a favour of registering. Over 1,200 voted against. The nature of the motions down for tomorrow's meeting indicate sharply the content of the struggle within the union.

Goring is moving two motions.

The first 'deplores the recent in- trusion of party politics into the non - political association of Equity' and then proposed two rule-amendments. The first adds to Equity's objects: ... and to maintain its complete freedom of artistic, ideological and political ex- pression by the association itself remaining strictly non-sectarian, impartial and non-political in its activities on behalf of the mem- bership'. Then Goring proposes to give the president sweeping powers by making it his duty • to uphold the constitution and

LATE NEWS

rday June 10, 1972 maintain the objects of the association' Combined with this is resolu- tion 15, which is an attempt to prevent the democratic right to call special general meetings. Two of these have been held in the last year-both the on of fighting the In- question dustrial Relations Act. If his resolution is passed, the chances of organizing another such meeting will be very slim.

For Goring's resolution states: "The president shall have the power to veto the calling of such special general meeting if, in his opinion, the motion is frivo- lous, vexatious, unnecessary or is a matter properly for con- sideration at the next AGM.'

Goring's resolution-if passed —would lead to the installation of an all-powerful overlord who would have the right to tread on any attempt by the membership to express its opinions. If the membership wants to oppose the veto it can summon its own special general meeting under the resolution. The movers of any resolution at such a meeting would, how- ever, have to 'undertake to bear the whole of the in- cost curred in the calling of it'. This could mean expenses of anything up to £2,000. And they would have to deposit £500 with the treasurer before anything else.

The opponents of Goring and the right wing-who successfully mobilized 1,250 against, registra- tion--will take their fight into tomorrow's vital conference.

= A resolution moved on behalf of 55 members for the calls meeting to 'reaffirm its total opposition to the Industrial Rela- recognizing, however, tion Act, of that policy simple non- with the Act, by co-operation itself, is completely inadequate as a defence against a government that has shown itself determined to use the law as a means of de- stroying the trade union move- ment. 'We therefore call on the council of Equity to demand of the TUC that they carry out their responsibility to organize the entire trade union movement in a the campaign to defeat Act in its entirety.' In addition to leading the fight to defend the basic trade union rights, another resolution takes up the question of jobs, which Goring does not mention.

With only 8 per cent of the membership in work, the movers recognize that the fight for full . employment is essentially a poli- tical fight. They state: Tnis AGM de-

WEATHER

A

DEPRESSION

over East Anglia will move slowly East. Eastern areas of Britain will be generally cloudy with showers or more prolonged outbreaks of rain. Western areas of Britain, except North-West be Scotland, will rather cloudy with some sunny periods but also showers, heavy in places. North-West Scotland will have showers with some sunny spells.

It will be generally cool.

Outlook for Sunday and Mon- day: Some rain or showers at times. Sunny periods. Cool.

NEWS DESK

01-720 2000

CIRCULATION

01-622 7029 1868 Clapham

SW4 7UG.

(TU). Printed by Plough Press Ltd.

• Claphem Hish Street, London,

SWA JUG.

The men who want to register: Equit (speaking); Ernest Clark (with pipe), las clares that every worker in the entertainments industry has the right to work. 'In view of the totally un- unemploy- acceptable level of. ment, and the continued con- traction of even such employ- have through ment as we closures of theatres and studios, we resolve in accordance with present TUC policy on the film industry, adopted at the Black- pool conference, that the only ELECTIONS to the Equity council hav ing for the year 1972-1973: Marius Goring, Ernest Clark, Peggy Kenneth More, Richard Briers, Kennet Andre Morell, Frederick Jaeger, Peter Morton, Trevor Baxter, Michael Boot Rawlings, Corin Redgrave, Howard Go Nigel Patrick, Peter Bennett, Richard Warner, Raymond Francis, Mi Richard Attenborough, Barbara Lott, Terry Edwards, Richard Morris, Paul Paulin, Roger Hunt, Roderick Bower Serge Ganjou, Terry Hart, Liza Martin,

BRITISH RAIL

faces more pay claim trouble from the 50,000 engineers in its work- shops in different parts of Britain. Leaders of the NUR and the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions met yes- terday to discuss what action to take as a protest against delay in settling their pay claim.

Discussions on their demands for a substantial increase have been delayed by the current rail dispute. Now the engineers feel that

BY PHILIP WADE

TRANSPORT and General Workers' Union leaders are making every possible effort to try and avert next Fri- day's scheduled dock strike.

Yesterday manoeuvres be- tween employers and union leaders continued at a meet- ing of the newly-created body, the joint authoritative com- mittee. Yesterday the committee an- nounced its terms of reference.

These were to examine the pro- blems of the ports industry with particular reference to the ex- tension of the loading and un- loading of containers in port areas by dock labour. It would also consider the pro- vision of more warehousing, cold storage and distribution points within port areas. The commit- tee also undertook to examine the temporary unattached regis- ter with a view to reducing substantially. The committee was set up and given two weeks to look into and report on job prospects on the docks. Chief figures in the er: Equity secretary Gerald Croasdell pipe), last year's president solution to this crisis is the nationalization the entire entertainments industry under workers' control without com- pensation to its former owners.'

• It is clear from these motions that the membership is not pre- pared to tolerate the destruction union's democratic of their rights--including the right to work-by the Tory government or the Tories within the union leadership. uncil have just been completed, return- k, Peggy Ashcroft, Michael Denison, rs, Kenneth McClellan, Hugh Manning, ger, Peter Honri, Milton Johns. Clive hael Boothe, Donald Sinden, Margaret oward Goorney, Andre Van Gyseghem, Paul Eddington, Robert Flemyng, Carroll, Don rris, paul Janssen, Jerry Ayliff, Rita ck Bowen, David • Grant, a Martin, Karin Karina. it is time their own claims should be considered.

RAILWAY

workers in Wimble- don, South London, have called overwhelmingly on their leader- ship to declare a national stop- page until their wage claim is settled. Members of the Wimbledon National Union of Railwaymen's branch passed a resolution call- ing on the union's executive to call a national stoppage of NUR members until the wage claim is settled, and to demand the re- call of the TUC to call a General Strike to force the Tory govern- ment to resign'. negotiations are Jack Jones of the T&GWU and Lord Alding- chairman ton, of the Port of London Authority and former deputy chairman of the Tory Party. T&GWU docks secretary Tim O'Leary gave an indication on Thursday night what. might satisfy his national docks _com- mittee before they advised the delegates to call off the strike.

Speaking after a four-hour with employers at the meeting National Joint Council for the docks he told reporters that all that he wanted from the Jones- Aldington committee was statement of intent'. It is possible that yesterday's statement from the committee will satisfy O'Leary. Meanwhile the NJC only stands adjourned, and it is more than probable it will meet again early next week. Another meeting of the joint authoritative commit- tee will take place on Monday.

Despite the manoeuvres of the union leadership, and even get their 'statement of in- they tent, the only body that can off the strike is the union's call delegate meeting. THE Tory controlled Greater London Council plans to in- flict massive rent increases on its 200,000 tenants in the next two or three years. It announced yesterday that in fair rents' Bill, line with the rents would rise by at least 33 per cent by 1975. Tenants will already have to pay another £l-a-week increase from this October as the Tory Council waste no time in carry- ing out the Housing Finance Bill being pushed through by their friends in Westminster. The council has admitted that GLC rents have risen by at least 70 per cent since 1967. At that time the council-anticipating the -'fair rents' Bill-said increases of up to 100 per cent would be necessary. This would bring the rents in council flats in line with those in private sector, research showed.

A spokesman yesterday said there was a need for even bigger increases than anticipated.

'Fair rents in the private sec- tor have also increased and it now appears that on average a further increase of about one third after October 1972 will be needed to reach fair rents. The increase will be more in some less in others,' he and cases said. The general range of rents in years time was three two or expected to be in the region of £4 to £9.70. But many tenants are paying this rent now because conveniently the statement omitted to mention, council ten- ants also pay rates. Many rates were increased by 60p and more in April. ШИНА

JUNE FUND

STANDS AT

£158.77 DURING the weekend ahead, we must make an extra big effort for our June fund. Our total stands at £158.77, leaving us still some way to go. However much the union leaders retreat, this Tory gov- ernment is determined not to give the working class an inch.

Workers Press must remain in the forefront of this struggle.

We need therefore all your Support to raise our target of £1,750 this month. So let's have a special effort over this week- end. Collect as much as you can and post immediately • to: Workers Press June Appeal Fund 186a Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UG And yesterday Preston dockers voted to strike next Wednesday and to lobby the delegate meet- ing. They join Liverpool dockers and men in the Royal group in London who have also voted for the one-day stoppage. The one-day strike call came by a one-vote majority from the meeting of the national docks shop stewards' committee which met in London last Saturday.

BRITISH TRANSPORT Docks Board has inaugurated a new Far East container terminal at South- ampton. The first vessel to berth at the terminal, the 59,000-ton new container ship Tokyo Bay' Southampton last sailed from night after discharging 296 con- tainers and loading 450 at South- ampton's newly-completed con- tainer berth 204. The vessel arrived at South- ampton on Thursday morning. It is estimated that throughput is equivalent to about 1,000 twenty- units, which that foot means during the vessel's 39 hours in port, dockers have moved as much as 20,000 tons of cargo at the berth.