Marathon men forced work-in

THE 151 men sacked Glasgow's Clydebank yard last week have told to join the work-in.

The men were to have been re-employed on Monday by the Texas based Marathon Manufacturing Company but they cannot open for business without a £12m loan from the Tory government.

Delay in pushing the enabling legislation for the loan through the House of Commons meant that the cash was not available and Marathon was not in a position to begin to hire men.

Shop stewards 'were not happy about this', but at a meeting between the stewards, union officials, UCS liquidator Mr Robert Smith and representatives from Marathon at the weekend it was agreed the sacked men should join the work-in and receive pay from the fighting fund.

ABOUT 200 workers, a third of the labour force at the Miles Redfern rubber factory in Hyde, Cheshire, are to lose their jobs by the end of the year.

The 72-year-old factory is to close down and most of its work will be transferred to other parts of the group in Leyland and Burton.

The factory, famed rubber heels, was taken the BTR group only nine ago.

The shock announcement followed the : previous day's announcement that the. Ferranti is to axe 175 jobs at Chadderton, near Oldham.

Last week's increased unemployment figures showed that the number of workers wholly unemployed in the industrial northwest is now 135,511, a rise of 7,455 on the previous month's : In the greater Manchester area, the unemployment rate is 4.4 per cent compared with 4.1 per cent in June. This also compares with a figure of 3.3 per cent for the same time last year. Mrs Beryl Maudling's other name was announced received a chairmanship companies.

shipbeen for its over by months WHEN Reginald Maudling's ¡unala Mauging's case it was 'favourite charity' linked with the linked with the that he had not salary for his p of one of the He had foregone a salary in return for a covenant to be paid to his wife's 'favourite charity, the Adeline Genee Theatre • Trust at East Grinstead.

In the Wakefield bankruptcy court it was revealed that £22,000 had been agreed to go to the trust. Now another charity has suffered which bears the patronage of the ex-Home Secretary.

Ever heard of the International Social Service of Great Britain?

It's not a group which many workers and their wives would necessarily belong to.

Patron is the Duchess of Kent, president is the Countess De La Warr and vice-presidents are Sir John Balfour, the Rt Hon the Viscount Bearsted, the Lady Katherine Brandram, Lady Henriques, the Rt Hon the Lord Layton, Angela, Countess of Eric Rechnitz: 'UC must come off fence.' Limerick, the Hon. Richard Lyttleton and Lord Moyne. No shop stewards there!

One of the aims of the ISS is *to study the conditions of migration as they affect the individual and his family.

In October last year the Home Office announced that a Tory scheme for giving assistance to immigrants wishing to leave Britain was to be administered by ISS.

The decision to make ISS the agency for repatriating immigrants, a vicious concession to the Powellites in the Tory Party —caused a great deal of uproar in race relations circles. Both the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants and the West Indian Standing Conference criticized the Tories for choosing ISS to run the scheme.

Particularly they objected the fact that ISS is hardly 'grass roots' operation.

Its fund-raising events find their way into the social pages of the posh newspapers like the Lord Thomson-owned 'The Sunday Times.

Take the fashion pages of this Lory newspaper on May 16, 1971. It included a big spread by Ernestine Carter which began: 'England is especially fortunate in possessing the handsomest set of ambassadresses of any capital one can think of off-hand. Rarely have accomplished diplomats been so happily matched with beautiful wives!' This was a review of ISS's annual spring fair in that hotbed of racial conflict, Chelsea Old Town Hall. The number of coloured workers and their wives present was not mentioned. But Miss Carter, the doyen of fashion writers, revealed that the Marquesa de Santa Cruz from Franco's Spain filled her moneyraising stall with magnificent sherry. London buses, airport stop FROM DAVID MAUDE LONDON'S ways.

drivers and commuters lorries and transport services have been thrown into chaos by unofficial action by trade unionists on the buses, in commercial transport, at Heathrow airport and Southern Region railby 24,000 re bus enductors left str anded in Turning to the latest annual report of the ISS, the fair receives a special mention. It says that over £7,000 was raised, £2,000 more than the previous year. It goes on: 'We were fortunate last year in having Mrs Maudling as president and Lady Goore-Booth as chairman and a very able and experienced committee.' So, Mrs Beryl Maudling's interests attend beyond her 'favourite charity, the Adeline Genee theatre, to ISS. On page 21 of the same annual report is another item of interest.

In a table headed 'Income and the December 31, 1971 the year expenditure account for the following entry: 'Government grant—£2,500'.

The state hand-out was made on the recommendation of the Home Office. Home Secretary during this financial year was none other than Reginald Maudling. centre of London while hundreds of tourists packed the terminals at Heathrow.

More than 120 men unanimously passed a resolution calling on all Southern Region drivers and second men to strike from midnight today if the five men have not been freed by 6 p.m. that day.

•We have pledges of support from Portsmouth drivers and in attendance were leaders of the Hither Green drivers and leaders of the station staff at Waterloo,' said Mr Derrick Fullick, a Waterloo driver.

The drivers' union, ASLEF, will hold an executive meeting today to decide what official action to take.

The first action by transport workers was taken on Monday.

Hundreds of striking drivers met outside the Royal docks, London, where they were urged to bring commercial transport in the capital to a The drivers chatted amicably TA71t on rare' pickets, who handed out leaflets to the few vehicles trying to enter the docks saying: Five trade unionists in jail-why aren't you out?

And after a brief docks stewards' meeting, Jim Carpenter, chairman of the Port of London Authority stewards at the Royal to said: Any differences with drivers are past. We've proved that when we're under attack, we go as one solid Moves are now well underway for the formation of a joint action committee between drivers and dockers.

Eric Rechnitz told the meeting: 'We say to the trade union leaders, the time to lead is now. To Vic Feather and the TUC we say: "Come off the fence"?

He was confident, he said, that the drivers and dockers would be joined in the coming days by the whole of the working-class movement.

Jim Carpenter said: •Vic Feather made many gallant speeches about what the TUC would do when it came to the crunch. He's got to be as good as his word and tell all trade unionists to stop work until these men are released.'