Workers Press no. 842

workers press

DOCKERS SAY

NO REPORT

BY ALEX MITCHELL

Docks delegates are to meet ir vote on the rehashed Jones Yesterday dockers throughou they will not accept the deal At mass meetings at every major port the dockers decided to extend picketing; some indicated they would stay out even if the recalled docks delegates' conference voted to return. At Tilbury, Frank Shilling, a member of the shop stewards' committee, told a mass meeting: 'It does not look like we are going to get the safeguards we want.' He described the new document being prepared by Jones-Aldington as nothing more than a 'rehash'. The same theme was echoed at the container port in Preston where Phil O'Hagan, chairman of the shop stewards, told Work- Press that there was ers no point in going back without jobs guarantees. If they vote to go back, we'll be out again. I think the men are more determined than ever' he said. Bernie Steer, secretary of the London port stewards and one of the Pentonville Five, told a meet- ing at the Royal group of docks in London: 'Don't take anything that will be a sell-out.'

But despite the undoubted spirit of the dockers they face enormous dangers. Yesterday Robert Carr, the Lord President and Home Sec- retary, and three other govern- ment Ministers flew to Balmoral Castle for a meeting of the Privy Council with the Queen. And yesterday the RAF step- ped up its strike-breaking acti- WORKERS at the British Lion studio at Shepperton have been called to an official mass meeting on August 24 to plan a fight against their new owner, asset-stripper John Bentley.

It is widely believed that Bentley is planning to close the film studio and turn over the property development. Yesterday a group from the Association of Cinematograph,

INCORPORATING THE NEWSLE

DAILY ORGAN OF THE CENTRA

meet in London tomorrow to 1 Jones-Aldington proposals.

roughout Britain made clear he deal. vities in Scotland by flying petrol and flour to Tiree in the West- ern Isles. Meanwhile the capitalist press is pouring pressure on Jack Jones to recall his delegates to call off the strike. The ultra-Conservative Finan- 'cial Times' said in its editorial yesterday: •With the stoppage now in its third week and with the Jones- Aldington committee having gone as far as it can at this stage in trying to secure jobs for dockers, to be there appears a strong dockers' case for recalling the policy-making conference to see how much change there has been in attitudes since the national strike was called by 38 to 28 votes with 18 abstentions.'

The paper goes on to confirm in the bluntest terms that some container firms flatly refuse to hire dockers. Working hand in glove with the big employers of the Road Haulage Association, the Tories determined to smash the are dockers. One of the dangers to emerge from yesterday's mass meetings was that few, if any, dockers raised the question of calling for solidarity action from the rest of the trade union movement.

It is dangerous nonsense for the dockers to see their fight as a sectional issue. They must demand the imme- diate recall of the biennial con- ference of their union, Britain's largest, to draw up a policy of nationalization of the docks and road transport industry. Such a demand will necessarily demand the removal of the Tories and the return of a Labour government pledged to socialist policies.

ion Television and Allied Technicians (ACTT) handed out leaflets to Shepperton employees urging them to fight against Bentley's plans and for the nationalization of the film industry without compensation and under workers' control. Three members of the union's executive and one from the com- mittee of the freelance shop among those involved in were distributing the leaflets.

: NEWSLETTER

• TUESDAY AUGUST 15, 1972

CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE SOC

THE

C

MEANS

JA* Coventry trade unionists on the march y

BY IAN YEATS

COVENTRY was brought to standstill yesterday after a 100,000 workers staged a one- day strike against the Tory anti-union law. All major car factories except Triumph were halted and commuters made their own way to work after bus crews stayed away from city depots. The day of protest was called by 500 stewards of the Transport and General Workers' Union but the strike was also backed by Coventry's 34,000 members of the Confederation of Ship- building and Engineering Unions.

Despite attempts to limit slogans to 'Axe the Act', 1,000 trade unionists marched through the city centre yesterday chant- ing 'Heath out. Workers on the march said many had stayed away because they felt a one-day protest was inadequate and they called for solidarity with the dockers in their fight against the employers and the government. Triumph shop steward Jerry Mulhearn said that although workers had not joined many the demonstration, response to the strike call had been 100 per cent. Criticizing the T&GWU leader- ship he told me: "The policy of opposing the Industrial Relations Act because of the £55,000 fine is sectarian. It is futile to believe

COMMITTEE OF THE SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE

WC

WANT A

NO

AXE

THE

ACT

ER E Coventry strikes to defeat Act that this will one-day strike make in the lory armour. the only way to stop this Act is to demand General Strike and a government. Midland Red worker Bob Innes lashed the T&GWU leaders for failing ask for immediate •all recall of the union's biennial con.

ference fight the Act and to back the dockers

T&GWU

steward Chrysler Sheehan added that it the dockers were beaten, hundreds of firms would be seeking com- pensation through the Act against the Standard worker Robert Rowan said the union should have €55,000 rused -Dav une nIne and if necessary the leaders gone to jail while the whole of the was mobilized working class destrov not on v me Act out tne Tory government. Earlier at a mass meeting ai the city's shopping precincl T&GWU Midland regional chair- man Arthur Davies said: 'Feeling in relation to increasing diabolical Act. Although people have nOT turned UD Thel thousands today you can rest assured that the has been city virtuay cuppied by -ine acuon

AUGUST FUND

£530.79—STILL

A LONG WAY

WE STILL need £1,219.21 by the end of this month to complete our target. Let's not waste a moment in this fight.

Our special campaign for a big circulation drive for Wor- kers Press starts this week. In different parts of Scotland, our team is campaigning with leaflets around housing estates, factories, labour exchanges, aiming to win regular readers wherever they Post go. all donations immediately to: Workers Press August Appeal Fund, 186a Clapham High St, London, SW4 7UG. WE

WANT

NO

TORY

LAW

we have taken.' After the meeting Mr Davies told me: 'It may come to national strike but at this time we feel demonstraiions of this kind will build up the support to get this necessary Act repealed.' Regional secretary Brian Mathers told the meeting: •Britain was the cradle of the trade union movement. We were the first trade unionists and we are not going to stand by and watch this government destroy the movement we have built up.

*Any Act of parliament which in jail cannot succeed and that is why we say it must be re- pealed now? Confederation chairman Fred Palmer added: 'We hope people will back the campaign we have started preferably for a general election but secondly for the repeal of the Act.' Winding up the meering, metal mechants' district secretary Charlie McCartney was cneered when he said: 'The trade union movement demands the immedi- ate repeal of the anti-union laws and an end to any form of collaboration with the Act.'

workers press

DOCKERS SAY

NO REPORT

BY ALEX MITCHELL

Docks delegates are to meet ir vote on the rehashed Jones Yesterday dockers throughou they will not accept the deal At mass meetings at every major port the dockers decided to extend picketing; some indicated they would stay out even if the recalled docks delegates' conference voted to return. At Tilbury, Frank Shilling, a the shop stewards' member of committee, told a mass meeting: It does not look like we are going to get the safeguards we want.' He described the new document being prepared by Jones-Aldington as nothing more than a 'rehash'. The same theme was echoed at the container port in Preston where Phil O'Hagan, chairman of the shop stewards, told Work- Press that there ers was no point in going back without jobs guarantees. 'If they vote to go back, we'll be out again. I think the men are more determined than ever' he said. Bernie Steer, secretary of the London port stewards and one of the Pentonville Five, told a meet- ing at the Royal group of docks in London: 'Don't take anything that will be a sell-out.'

But despite the undoubted spirit of the dockers they face enormous dangers. Yesterday Robert Carr, the Lord President and Home Sec- retary, and three other govern- Ministers flew to Balmoral ment Castle for a meeting of the Privy Council with the Queen. And yesterday the RAF step- ped up its strike-breaking acti- WORKERS at the British Lion studio at Shepperton have been called to an official mass meeting on August 24 to plan a fight against their new owner,.

asset-stripper John Bentley.

widely believed that It is Bentley is planning to close the flm studio and turn over the property development. Yesterday a group from the of Cinematograph, Association

INCORPORATING THE NEWSLE

DAILY ORGAN OF THE CENTRA

meet in London tomorrow to 1 Jones-Aldington proposals.

roughout Britain made clear he deal. ery vities in Scotland by flying petrol and flour to Tiree in the West- ern Isles. Meanwhile the capitalist press is pouring pressure on Jack Jones to recall his delegates to call off the strike. The ultra-Conservative 'Finan- cial Times' said in its editorial yesterday: 'With the stoppage now in its third week and with the Jones- Aldington committee having gone at this stage in as far as it can trying to secure jobs for dockers, there to be a appears strong case for recalling the dockers' policy-making conference to see how much change there has been in attitudes since national : the strike was called by 38 to 28 votes with 18 abstentions.'

The paper goes on to confirm in the bluntest terms that some container firms flatly refuse to hire dockers. Working hand in glove with the big employers of the Road Haulage Association, the Tories determined smash the are to dockers. One of the dangers to emerge from yesterday's mass meetings was that few, if any, dockers raised the question of calling for solidarity action from the rest of the trade union movement.

It is dangerous nonsense for the dockers to see their fight as a sectional issue. They must demand the imme.

diate recall of the biennial con- ference of their union, Britain's largest, to draw up a policy of nationalization of the docks and road transport industry. Such a demand will necessarily demand the removal of the Tories and the of a Labour government return pledged to socialist policies. • Television and Allied Technicians (ACTT) handed out leaflets to Shepperton employees urging them to fight against Bentley's plans and for the nationalization of the film industry without compensation and under workers' control. Three members of the union's executive and one from the com- mittee of the freelance shop those involved in were among distributing the leafiets.

INCORPORATING THE NEWSLETTER • TUESDAY AUGUST 15, 1972 • No. 842 • 4p DAILY ORGAN OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE

TO JONES

ISEUSTED LN77

LOVENTH

TORY

LAW

MEANS

JA" -alr

THE

REPEAL

THE

ACT

NOW?

Coventry trade unlonists on the march yesterday

BY IAN YEATS

COVENTRY was brought to standstill yesterday after 100,000 workers staged a one- against day strike Tory the anti-union law. All major car factories except Triumph were halted and commuters made their own way to work after bus crews stayed away from city depots. The day of protest was called 5O steward Of ker TraChion and General Workers' also backed Suke was members coverly s the Confederation Ship- building and Engineering Unions. Despite allemors 11011 slogans to Axe the Act', 1,000 trade unionists through the city In Workers 'Heath out' on the march said had stayed because many away they • felt a one-dav protest was and they called for solidarity with the dockers in their fight against the employers ana une government Triumph shop steward Jerry Mulhearn that although had H10L response demonstraton. the strike call had been 100 per cent. Criticizing the T&GWU leader- ship he told me: the policy opposing the Industrial Relations £55,000 of the Act because nne is sectarian. I is rume to beneve T 15, 1972 • No. 842 0 4p

IE SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE

T march yesterday one-day that this strike will make even a pin-prick in the Tory armour. The only way to stop this Act is to demand a General Strike and a Labour government.' Midland Red worker Bob Innes lashed the T&GWU leaders for failing to ask for an immediate recall of the union's biennial con- ference to fight the Act and back the dockers. Chrysler T&GWU steward P. Sheehan added that if the dockers beaten, hundreds were of firms would be seeking com- pensation through the Act against the T&GWU. Standard worker Robert Rowan said the union should have re- fused to pay the £55,000 fine to jail while the whole destroy not only the Act but the Tory government. Earlier at a mass meeting aï the city's shopping precinct T&GWU Midland regional chair- man Arthur Davies said: 'Feeling is increasing in relation to this diabolical Act. Although people in their have not turned up thousands today you can rest assured that the city has been virtually crippled by the action

AUGUST FUND

£530.79-

-STLL

A LONG WAY

TO GO!

WE STILL need £1,219.21 by the end of this month to complete our target. Let's not waste a moment in this fight.

Our special campaign for a big circulation drive for Wor- kers Press starts this week. In difierent parts of Scotland, our team is campaigning with leaflets around housing estates, factories, labour exchanges, aiming to win regular readers wherever they Post go. all donations immediately to: Workers Press August Appeal Fund, 186a Clapham High St, London, SW4 7UG. we have taken.' After the meeting Mir Davies told me: 'It may come to a national strike but at this time we feel demonstraiions of this kind will build up the support to get this necessary Act repealed.' Regional secretary Brian Mathers told the meeting: 'Britain was the cradle of the trade union movement. We were the first trade unionists and we are not going to stand by and watch this government destroy the movement we have built up.

'Any Act of in jail cannot succeed and that is why we say it must be re- pealed now Confederation chairman Fred Palmer added: 'We hope people will back the campaign we have started preferably for a general but secondly for the election repeal of the Act.' Winding up the mee ing, metal mechants' district secretary Charlie McCartney was cheered when he said: 'The trade union movement demands the immedi- ate repeal of the anti-union laws and an end to any form of collaboration with the Act.'

PAGE 2 Workers Press, Tuesday August

BY ALEX MITCHELL

UGANDA'S Asian com- munity has become the centre of the most vicious politicking between the military junta in Kampala and the Tory government in Britain. Edward Heath's special emissary, Cabinet Geoffrey Rippon, hela talks in the lanzanian capital, Dar es Salaam, yesterday. But so far during his whirl- wind tour he has not met any of the East African leaders — General Idi Amin of Uganda, Kenya Jomo Kenyatta of Julius Nyerere of Tanzania.

In his only serious statement on the 90-day • expulsion order, Rippon said at Nairobi airport: 'Our view is that if people are expelled, however unreasonable and inhumane that action might be, we have to accept responsi- bility' But at the same time Rippon has given no specific pledges to the 20,000 British passport hold- ers who face being deported over the next few weeks. When asked directly about the government's plans to admit the British subjects he complains

BY JOHN SPENCER

THERE IS little joy for President Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto 25th anniversary of on the Pakistan's formal indepen- dence from Britain. Following its defeat in the war with India and Bangla December last year, Desh in Pakistan's economic situation is deteriorating rapidly produc- ing constant conflict in the factories and political conflict in the provinces. massive 56.7 per cent The devaluation of the rupee three months ago has given rise to a steep increase in the cost of living, raised unemployment and up the cost imported sent capital goods. But it has done almost nothing to stimulate and the exports overcome country's huge foreign debt.

Deprived of its captive market in Bangla Desh, Pakistan's industry is in no position to com- elsewhere. for markets pete Cotton, its main export, held its a bumper crop own thanks to over the last 12 months. But the other major export, sugar, was not exported at all last year.

Ominously, however, the bulk of the cotton exports are now China going to and Eastern Europe, while sales to the main capitalist countries have de- clined. officially The government admits that a quarter of the 4.6 million industrial labour force is unemployed. This is wildly conservative. At least 2 million are unemployed in the towns and their num- bers are augmented every day influx of peasants by a fresh leaving the land. virtually no There new investment both because of the depressed state of markets and the political uncertainty follow- ing the war. Faced with a wave of strikes, the manufacturers are demanding restoration of 'disci- pline in the factories and com- plaining about the low quality of their own products. They blame strikes and 'sabo- tage' by the workers, but the reality is that over the last 25 exporting inferior goods to the have relied years former East Pakistan. A recent ay August 15, 1972 General Am about 'the complexity of the problem'. Meanwhile Rippon's colleagues in the. Monday Club-he used to be a prominent member before joining the Cabinet - have sent him a cable suggesting that the refugees should be taken to a 'convenient Ocean island Indian under British colonial adminis- tration', • They could use the island to 'some kind of transit set up camp'. ministerial conference concluded that unless quality and produc- tion levels could be improved any potential benefits from the rupee devaluation would be lost.

Bhutto's is own demagogic bolstered denunciations the ousted of Yahya Khan. But the new presi- dent is himself resorting increas- ingly to dictatorial forms of rule.

He recently ordered the arrest of over 100 of his political opponents in Sind province where have i there been riots over language issues. The arrests were carried out under the Defence of Pakistan rules, which allow internment without trial and have provided the main legal basis for military dictatorship in Pakistan.

BY OUR OWN REPORTER

TOP secret NATO plans for the use of herbicides and defoliants in Western Europe and other parts of the world have been exposed in Washington. They include proposals for the destruction of vegetation in Belgium, France, Germany and Luxembourg in the event of a threatened war with the Soviet Union. According the NATO to defoliation and crop experts, destruction would reduce the number of NATO troops re- quired by forcing the 'enemy' out into the open and stripping his staging the cover from areas and lines of advance.

This technique has been used on a vast scale in Indo- China. The Americans have sprayed over 5 million acres alone, in South Vietnam destroying over 12 per cent of the country's land area. In Indo-China, these tech- niques have permanently altered the natural balance of entire. regions, destroying rice, timber and mangrove forests and ruining almost 4 million acres of arable land. The chemical defoliants and herbicides in the US arsenal can also cause genetic damage, giving rise to the birth of mal- eneral Amin Answering questions in Dar es Salaam: Rippon refuted the sug- gestion that the Asian problem uncovered a racialist aspect of British immigration laws.

It had rather exposed the racialist nature of General Amin's policy, he said. "That's what we would like to say to the Ugandan government,' he added. 'You can't treat people like cattle' Rippon did not mention, how- ever, that he had supported the racialist Kenya Asian Act passed by the Labour government and then strengthened by the Tories.

Arrangements were in progress late yesterday for Rippon to see Amin on his return journey to London today. This followed a radio broad- cast by Amin in which he said he had not deliberately tried to snub Heath's special envoy.

TWO YOUNG Arab girls_ were given life sentences by an Israeli military court at Sarafand yester- day for complicity in the hijack- ing of a Belgian airliner last May. Rima Tannous, 21, and Therese Halassah, 19, were convicted. on charges arising three of four from the hijacking. Both girls faced the death penalty under Defence Emergency Regulations but the military prosecutor asked for the lesser sentence. The court rejected their plea that they had been forced into the Al Fatah organization and had taken part in the hijack- ing against their will. formed babies. According to the NATO report, revealed by Washing- ton journalist Daniel Green- berg in his 'Science and Gov- 'the use of ernment Report, herbicides

NATO

permits forces successive to prepare defensive positions by selecting defoliating areas where the attacking forces must assemble' But the defoliants take several days to strip the vegeta- THE SOVIET Communist Party paper 'Pravda' yesterday attacked critics of the Czechoslovak purge trials and accused them of trying to put a spoke in the wheels of European detente.

The paper accused "The Times' and other 'organs of bourgeois propaganda' of conducting 'slanderous campaign planned according to all the rules of psychological warfare. The campaign had one new feature, 'Pravda' said. Reaction- ary forces were 'attempting with aid of inventions about the THE WORDS and behaviour of Victor Feather, general secre- tary of the TUC, are now an open scandal in the labour movement. Last Sunday he continued to besmirch the memory of every for worker who has fought trade unionism with a leading in the News of the article World'. His topic was 'violence' and particularly violence on the picket lines. Feather naturally chooses to believe lies printed in the capitalist papers about his own TUC members. He suggests : dockers used violence against other trade unionists, threw bricks through windows and, like some male declared Mary Whitehouse, that the whole thing is against democracy. What fine words from the man who has elevated class compromise to some kind of principle within obscene the trade union bureaucracy. For it is Feather, above all men in the trade union move- ment, who has refined the art consorting with the real men of violence and dictator- ship-the Tory Cabinet. man bother to Does this visit the picket lines before he composes his string of sicken- ing law and platitudes on order? Of course not. There he would see the truth.

He would see 500 police launching charge after charge at dockers who are trying to scabs breaking their stop strike. He would see men dragged of and beaten and kicked by uniformed policemen. He would see a police car drive over the foot of a picket VIETNAMESE liberation forces bl sky-high yesterday in another strik paign of guerrilla actions against th tion and must be applied in advance if they are to be effective. They are likely to be more useful to an attacker than to a defender. The report states that 'the enemy's crops can be destroyed in a matter of hours or days at suitable times in their growing cycle. The NATO planners also examined the possible use of anti-crop weapons in Cuba, Ethiopia and Vene- Korea, zuela. "Czechoslovak political trials" to sow dissension between progres- sive forces and provoke friction in the Communist and Workers' movement'. This is an oblique reference to the protests over the trial from the British, French and Italian Parties. 'Pravda' Communist added that the trials provided just one more excuse for the editors of 'The Times' and their accomplices to 'try to put a spoke in the wheels of the further relaxation of tension on Euro- pean soil'. and other police laugh when dockers try to get the vehicle off. He would see dockers dis- armed of 'weapons' like jack handles and garden spades.

Then police look see away when scab smashes the a thumb of a docker with an iron bar. Feather As said: 'Don't blame the police. They are only out their jobs. carrying He's right and we all know who they are carrying the job out for-the Tories and their Cabinet; the men that Feather scampers to every week for more talks and drinks on the great problem of how to deal with the working class. In his 1,000-word article he did not have time, ot course, miners' to recall how one picket was killed by a scab lorry last year. Or how other sustained serious in- miners juries just like the dockers today. And what crime have these workers committed-the crime of standing up for their rights.

And Feather ends up with this warning: 'Violence and dis- order is the certain road to self- which destruction. It is that brings and if not disaster checked leads to dictatorship.'

We say this to Feather. The is the road to dictatorship Tory road. Because this is what Tories are preparing for.

This is what the police on the picket lines mean. This is what the violence of 1 million on the dole means and the price rises, the rent increases, the jailing of trade unionists.

And you Feather are helping the march to dictatorship be- are helping the cause you Tories. forces blew a big ammunition dump ther strike in their intensified cam- gainst the Saigon puppet army.

It was the third ammunition storage dump destroyed in 24 hours. Saigon troops did not know exactly what hit them when two bunkers full of 105- mm artillery shells exploded just outside Pleiku city in the Central Highlands. A command spokesman said he did not know whether shell- fire or sappers had blown up the dump-but it was probably who had already trig- sappers, damaging explosions else- gered where. Two bigger dumps near Saigon were blown up on Sunday in raids which cost the government more stockpiled ammunition than ever before in the 4t-month liberation offensive. An estimated 6,000 tons of ammunition went up in smoke at Long Binh base, 18 miles north of the capital on Sunday morn- ing and later another 100 tons destroyed at Thanh Tuy were Ha, six miles east of Saigon.

On the northern front there was no significant change in the position of South Vietnamese marine and airborne troops fight- ing around Quang Tri city. Their six-week counter-offensive aimed at retaking the provincial capi- tal was ground to a • halt out- side the strongly-defended town.

American presidential adviser Kissinger held a Henry new round of secret talks with North Vietnamese officials in Paris yes- terday to find a formula for end- ing the Vietnam war, the White House announced. It was the third meeting since talks resumed two months ago in Paris.

BY PETER JEFFRIES

ONE YEAR ago today President Richard Nixon the post-war severed dollar-gold link and threw the world money system into an insoluble crisis.

Now the Federal Reserve Board of . New York has indicated that over the year the capitalist financial system has moved much nearer to total crisis. Last month the United States issued $3,100m Treasury in foreign special securites to central banks to absorb the vast quantities of dollars they purchased after Britain's decision to float the pound. foreign The central bankers took in the dollars to hold the set last dollar at the level the Washington December at currency realignment talks.

Nixon's August 15 declaration meant the US Treasury would no longer exchange foreign dollar He was holdings against gold. Europe to hold paper forcing 'assets' which had an unknown value. And now the Administration reveals that last month it was prepared to swop West German and Japanese increased dollar holdings for... other pieces of Treasury paper! So much for all those financial pundits who hoped that the August 15 measures were only short-lived, shock temporary, tactics. These 'experts' no doubt hoped the would soon begin again to sell gold, albeit at an increased price. On the contrary. By removing the gold backing to the dollar, Nixon effectively destroyed the corner-stone of the 1944 Bretton Woods arrangements and all the like the institutions, Inter- national Monetary Fund, which they brought into being. has no It is clear the Us intention—or ability-to restore Woods. Last August Bretton died for all time. Even a brief glance at events over the last year confirms this. Far from being 'restored', the has monetary system post-war continued to disintegrate.

following four months For Nixon's bombshell, the European bankers fought desperately their order to restore some monetary arrangements. At the December 18 currency realignment talks, agreement was reached on a series of exchange the leading between rates currencies and the dollar-with for these the gold backing parities now removed. But still unwanted dollars con- tinued to pour into Europe,

BOOKS • PER

fuelled by a growing US pay- ments deficit. By this June the first breach made-the was Tories "floated' sterling and in the opened up a new stage money crisis. From that moment on every currency has been suspect. US is clear-to policy force series of European revaluations which would give American exports a crippling advantage in the struggle for world markets.

Such a move has been resisted desperately, particularly by West Germany and Japan who are critically dependent upon the American market for their survival. But the price paid for their resistance has been high. Despite exchange controls, both severe these countries have been forced to buy in more suspect and un- wanted dollars to hold existing parities. Resistence to revaluation means that Europe is forced to hold ever greater quantities of un- wanted paper, which is 'backed' unwanted equally Treasury paper. Inevitably, under these con- ditions, the gold price has con- to rise. It recently broke tinued through the $70 an ounce barrier, with few sellers even at that price. PRESTON railway workers will meet on their station today to hear plans to fight rail redun- dancies. The job cuts form part of a nationwide plan by British Rail to slash jobs and branch services.

Tommy • Boardman, a shop steward for the National Union of Railwaymen, told Workers Press: 'We are solidly behind the

CORRECTION

ON JULY 13 we reported Mr Phil Hunter, whom we described as an AUEW steward from the factory, Erith, Sovex conveyor Kent, as saying: 'We simply can't allow talks with the Tories to go ahead. The working class is

•STISSUNS

e St

KS • PERIODICALS • NEWSPAPERS

Nixon Here alone is of measure the crisis. For until last August the official gold price was still an ounce. So in only $35 less than a year, Europe's $50 billion holding has been slashed by half is measured in 'real", that if this Is, gold terms. Even now nothing is solved.

When the next US payments figures are announced they will show a record deficit. In other the outflow of dollars words The crisis is continues. SO that support appears to severe be growing for a French proposal to establish a separate European gold price. This would mean not but three-tier gold two a system. It would mark another stage of the total disintegration of any cohesion and unity in the world financial system. If there was ever any doubt it has now been dispelled: release her America will not much-reduced gold holding to capitalism. salvage European Nixon's August 15 declaration was an announcement of irrevers- ible economic and financial war- fare. As they recall the August 15 anniversary, all workers preparing for their enormous battles against the capitalist class throughout Europe and America must keep this in the forefront of their minds. dockers in their fight for the right to work. 'We are fighting, too. 'In October British Rail starts a massive programme of redun- dancies like you've never seen in your life before. The first 100 go then. In the area there are about 1,000 jobs which are going.

'Already, last week, we've lost for good three: jobs.' strong enough to force the Tory government to resign. But in there [the TUC Economic Com- mittee] they're going to be dis- cussing how to save it.' Mr Hunter informs us that he is not a steward and made no such statement. We apologise for any inconvenience that may have been caused him.

NOW OPEN

Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Fri 9 a.m.-7.30 p.m. Sat 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Workers Press, Tur

BY OUR OWN REPORTER

BENTLEY

Tenants' Asso- Bentley ciation at near Doncaster, have called a mass meeting tonight at the Pavilion to organize the next steps in their campaign against the Tory Housing Finance Act. Spurred on by the decision of the Doncaster Council not to they implement the Act, are demanding that the Labour- controlled Bentley Council gets off the fence and clearly opposes the Act. six-week-old Association The has already recruited hundreds of the 3,000 Bentley tenants.

Chris Rigg (24) is a fitter at Bentley Colliery pit and secre- tary of the Tenants' Association.

He had this to say: "The Tory rent Act means a doubling of rents and is part of a general attack by the Tories class, • the working on together with the Industrial Relations Act and high unemployment. 'Since I've been in my house, the rent has risen from £1.95 to £3.47 per week. That's in two years and under the Act it will be doubled.' At the • founding meeting of Bentley Tenants' Association, Gordon Ward, a local Labour councillor assured tenants that Bentley Council had been among the first in the country to con- tact other councils to organize against the Act. He told tenants that he would under no circumstances vote for the implementation of the Act in Bentley. But Chris Rigg told our reporter: 'The local Labour Council are implementing halfway to the Act. They have agreed to set up a sub-committee to look into how much extra the rents will be under the Act. 'Our association is trying to BOILERMAKERS' leader Dan McGarvey yesterday accused the Law Lords of making 'out- rageously shocking' decisions.

In a circular to his members, MeGarvey says that Lords deci- sions were sometimes so

SUT-

L McGarvey prising as to cast doubts on its motives. He went on: 'On occasions, particularly in cases of a political- social character, it gives decisions so outrageously shocking as to make lawyers gasp and laymen raise cynical laughs. 'Such a case is its decision in Heaton's Transport Ltd versus the Transport and General Workers' Union which made a nonsense of the well-established principles of the law of agency, and at the same time, as a side- effect, enabled the industrial court to get itself and the gov- ernment off the hook over the imprisonment of the five dockers.'

Jack Jones, the

T&GWU

leader, has already written to the Tory Lord Chancellor, Lord Hailsham, complaining about the Lords decision on the container blacking case. In his letter Jones refers to the 'most extraordinary' aspects of the rushed Lords judgement which enabled the National Industrial Relations Court to reconvene and free the five jailed dockers. Press, Tuesday August 15, 1972 PAGE 3 force the Council to take position of non-implementation and to refuse to turn the books over to a commissioner when he is sent in. 'Doncaster Council have said they will neither assist nor hinder the Commissioner, but that's not enough. We demand Bentley Council do more than this.'

Margaret Bedford, a Bentley housewife with a ten-month-old daughter and a tenants' com- mittee member, agreed about the role of the council. are not doing The Council anything against the Act. From the way they spoke, ! think they implement the Act. We might have to be united and make a stand when the time comes to stop them and force them to take up a position of non-imple- mentation. 'We want the Tories out because they are a government that's against the working class.

We want a Labour government that is going to repeal this Act.

If these Labour councillors here go ahead and implement the Act, the tenants should elect new Labour councillors time who are prepared to next fight.' Chris Rigg added: 'This Act will only be defeated by forcing the Tories to resign.

This is why at our first meeting we passed a resolution calling on the Council to refuse to imple- ment the fair rents Act and call- ing on local trade unions to set up a Council of Action. 'This would involve all those fighting the Tory government, including all tenants' associations and trade unions, to organize to bring down this government and replace it with a Labour govern- 'We want to unite all tenants associations in the Doncaster area to fight the Tory rent Act around this programme.

BY OUR OWN REPORTER

OVER 1,500 blastfurnacemen meet this afternoon to decide resistance plans to meet the impending closure at the Stanton and Stavely Iron Works, near Ilkeston, Derby- shire. The action committee of all the unions involved last met night to thrash out a policy. The most favoured suggestion seems to be that of launching a work- in. The British Steel Corporation is to close the pig-iron produc- tion works as part of its ration- alization plans. Meanwhile the General and Municipal Workers' Union, pipes branch, has voted against further strike action in support of the engineers' pay claim. The 900 men in the branch work at the spun-pipe plant at the Stanton and Staveley works.

Management has refused to negotiate with the G&MWU branch separate from other unions on the site. Offers ranging from f2 for skilled men and £1.25 for labourers on the consolidated time rate (CTR) have been accepted by other unions, and the fight for improved conditions dropped. The G&MWU branch had been holding out for £3 on the CTR and extra holidays with pay. On Tuesday of last week the 900 men struck among some con- fusion. Many stewards felt, however, it was possible to press the claim further. Said Stan Hatton, who is also secretary of the local ward Labour Party: 'The break-up of the national bargaining was a disaster. The body chickened out, national Lord Cooper included.'

PAGE 4 Workers Press, Tuesday August PA Management Consult- ants, the international job-surgeons who investi- gated the Clydebank shipyard for the Tory government, are believed wooing union to be i leaders in the Post Office.

For some months, the firm engaged has been in work- study at the Bootle, Liverpool, headquarters of Post Office's Giro service. Its basic fee is understood to be in the region of £25,000.

GOODWILL

Now Tom Jackson, secre- of Post tary of the Union Office Workers, and Alistair Graham, posts secretary of the and Public Services Civil Association, have been invited to Bootle to look at the opera- tion. PA are also thought to be planning a visit to Jackson in London when he returns from leave, with the object of gain- ing his goodwill. The firm's most contro- versial contract was in 1968, when it became involved with the Greek military junta in re- organizing their regime fol- The Registrar has approved an for registration application under the Industrial Relations Act from the newly-formed ICI Staff Association. This is the first staff associa- tion to organize under the Act and register. move is filled with This dangers for trade unionists. An Association spokesman says: "The formation and develop- ment of the ICI Staff Associa- tion have only been made pos- sible by the very existence of the Act. 'The Association intends to continue to use those parts of the Industrial Relations Act which consider advan- we tageous and beneficial in furthering the interests of ICI staff generally.' The most sinister aspect of this arrangement is that it has the official backing of various trade union leaderships. ay August 15, 1972 lowing the coup. The firm's studies also provided the basis for the Tories' negotiations with Marathon Manufacturing, who last week forced the unions into a no-strike deal at Clydebank.

LETHAL

PA Management's expertise in job-surgery, allied to the Post Office's eagerness to slash its labour force down to a minimum, is already a deadly enough combination for Post Office workers. A further amalgam with the philo- productivity - dealing sophy of the UPW leadership would be absolutely lethal. Yet the insidious message of the is management - consultants already being put at across union schools all the over country. The credo of PA Manage- which has offices in 20 ment, countries and a staff of 1,250, is 'to ensure that clients obtain an increasingly profitable re- turn from their operations' One thing is certain, it has nothing in common with the aims and objects of trade unionism. Below: Tom Jackson, invited to view the Bootle operation.

International Computers Ltd, which recently received £14m from the Tories is to get another f3m. come up against ICL has stiff international competition and many of its systems are duplicated by the giant US combines which produce them at less cost. The Tories seem determined maintain a British-based to computer industry and with government help ICL staved takeover bid from a Borroughs. But the company is still in poor shape and as well as placing new contracts to tide the firm over, the government has placed two study contracts to help the industry develop to meet market demands. Under present world market conditions ICL is likely to turn out to be a bottomless pit for exchequer cash. Hardly anyone was more relieved by the release of the five jailed dockers and the calling-off of the TUC's one-day national strike than the leaders of the Civil and Public Ser- vices Association. Shortly after the TUC General Council called for a stoppage, but before the five were let out, the CPSA General Purposes Committee took what must rate as one of the most weak-kneed bureaucratic de- cisions of the year. It called on branch officers to hold meetings first thing in the morning the following Monday, not to consider a stop - work recommendation, but so that each member could individual, decide, as an whether he wanted to come out. Immediately this decision was taken, the full might of the machine swung into

CPSA

action. With the kind of efficiency it normally reserves for arrang- ing expensive 'receptions' for journalists, it prepared a cir- cular for issue the following informed national day and union officials. Arrangements were made to make telephone contact with area committees and branches. The release of the dockers that same afternoon deprived world of seeing how the CPSA leaders would rational- ize their decision. But Workers Press has now obtained a copy of a letter sent out by Walter Kendall, the association's right-wing in an general secreta criticism of attempt to stem his failure to advise members about the TUC call. Kendall's General Purposes Committee apparently began its discussion of the jailings as it was to go on, by sitting firmly on the fence on the issue of the dockers' fight for jobs. 'The GPC took the view that the merits or otherwise of the dispute which led to the im- prisonment of the trade union- ists was irrelevant, writes the CPSA secretary. He went on: It was clear to the GPC that individual trade unionists in the civil and public service would wish to respond to the TUC appeal.

'We decided, aware of the differences in emphasis which members bring to bear on industrial action of this nature, that mandatory in- structions to strike on Mon- day should not be issued.

'It was agreed, however, to call upon branch officers to meetings of convene mass members at the commence- ment of work on Monday to

THE CIAL & FUBIC SENUCES ASSELIATI

FORMERLY THE COTL SERVICE GLERICAL ASSOCATOM

os Branch and Sub Branch Secretarder Including P. & I. Group. Dear Colloague, Industrial Relations Act - Inpris There has been some criticism that no advic T.U.C. decision to organise a one day stoppage on of the firo trade unioniato imprisoned by the Nat!

I should explain that the formal decision tr to organise a one day stoppage of work was taken I morning, 26th July. We immediately arranged to p: and I reported fully to the General Purposes Corn Cormittee which was then in session.

After very full consideration the G.P.C. del nacoar o that Information could be issued to 1 that the merite or otherwise of the dispute, whic.

trade unionists, was irrelevant. We have repeater previous Labour Government) that the relationship oriohn covers hu neRotiation eat amronise an asuad on Thursday, Eith July. Tho intionad.

ade to contact by tolophone Area Committee Seorg ad poseible belora Friday. Tha Imprisoned trade ovening and the General Council on Thuroday after In the lignt of these developments lay stoppago roposed action. consider the terms of the TUC circular. 'At these meetings we ex- pected decisions to be taken about individual membership participation in the one-day strike or other appropriate action. 'We were of the view that members, individuals, as should be free to make their own choice-thus ensuring that the range of CPSA mem- bership opinion was taken fully into account.' Rank-and-file CPSA mem- bers will no doubt be as happy.

ás dockers by this apologetic policy. Kendall, general Top: Walter secretary of the Civil and Public Services. Below: Kendall's letter.

ASSELIATICNI

215 Balham High Road London S1417 TBQ Telephone 01-672 1289 Telagrams CAPSA Landon SW17.

31st July, 1972. Act - Imprisonment of Dockers hat no advice was issued Last week about the stoppage on Monday, 3lst July for the rolosso d by the National Industrial Relations Court.

I decision to call upon all affiliatod unions k was taken by the General Council on Hednesday rranged to pick ip a copy of the I.U.C. circular urposes Cormitteo Of the National Executive he G.P.C. decided that immediate decision vas • issued to Branches. The G.P.C. took the riew tspute, vhica led to the imprisonmeat of tbe este vas infox. mittee Secrotarios and as many Brain Secrotarz.

isoned trade unionists were freed on Wedneeday uraday afternoon cancelled the request for a ons devolopments, the G.P.C. agreed to call off all secretaries as soon as possible, having drafted id hope that there will be understanding of our asible in the very short time available to us.

Yours incerely, oral Secretary.

PRESS CLAMP DOWN

The military government of Argentina, led by General Lanusse, is facing a deep economic crisis. Industry is working at only 60 per cent capacity and unemployment has risen to nearly 1 million.

In June, the cost of living went up 5.8 per cent, making a total rise of 37.3 per cent for the first six months of this year. Working-class militancy, in the face of this attack on standards of living, has forced the government to concede wage rises. But such con- cessions only serve to deepen the crisis: two months ago, International Monetary the Fund withheld a loan to Argentina on the grounds that wasn't sufficient wage there restraint. The government has been forced to promise General Elections for early next year, but far from bringing a period of conciliation, this step has had the result of heightening the political conflict which has under the been building up surface for several years.

This conflict came to the surface in the General Strike which paralysed Cordoba in 1969. In April this year there was an uprising in Mendoza, the fifth largest town in Argentina, Where cars were overturned and burnt and office windows broken. Since the end of June there have been uprisings in Santa Fe, Malargue, General Alvear and General Roca. In Malargue, a town of 5,000 inhabitants, which ten years ago had four times that unemployment had amount, reached almost 50 per cent. At the news that a project for a was to be new soda factory scrapped and that the local magnesium mine was to be shut down, workers occupied hall and the local the town radio station. In General Roca the im- mediate cause of the uprising was the fact that the provincial governor was giving prefer- ential treatment to Cipolletti, town in the same a rival province. were erected, Barricades bonfires lit in the streets and a parallel local government was Both here and in set up. Malargue, the uprisings were repressed with extreme brutality. is also a growing There wave of terrorism. On July 26 an organiz- the Montoneros, ation which supports Peronism, planted 55 bombs in Buenos Aires and the provinces. Thirty causing of them exploded, serious damage and badly wounding several police and firemen. The Peronist bureaucracy in General Lanusse who Above: promises General Elections early next year the trade unions, which . has been selling out the working class to its enemies for the is finding it past 26 years, increasingly difficult to hold back the working class. In the face of enormous rises in the cost of living workers are no longer prepared to take part in token strikes and to watch their leaders negotiate are lost rises which wage they are almost as soon as gained. the uprisings in the In provinces, workers have clearly rejected the old methods.

Workers Press, T Despite generous bribes from government coffers, the South Vietnamese press is not servile enough for President Nguyen Van Thieu. This can puppet-masters as freedom's representative in Saigon, has accord- ingly decided to close down most of the capi- tal's papers. It may be that he was annoyed about the news- papers' revelations regarding the army pension fund from which his former Defence Minister has systematically en- riched himself at the expense of war widows for the last tour years. Or perhaps he decided that about the war any reports with the National Liberation would be detrimental Front to national morale, even after they had passed through the distorting prism of his mili- tary censorship. Whatever the many and perhaps reason, most of the country's news- papers will have to close down as a result of Thieu's latest decree. The decree requires every daily paper to deposit in the • 20 mil- government treasury lion plastres, or about $47,000, within 30 days. This money, according to the decree, will be a guarantee to cover pos- sible future • fines and court arising from charges the government's already strict code on 'national se- press curity' matters. Many Saigon dailies are shoestring operations and they expected to go out of are business simply because they cannot raise that amount of money• Water pollution in Mexico causes the death of more than 85,000 people a year, according to studies made by a private body, the Association of Sanitary Engineering. association The says also that pollution in Mexico City has reached such a state that it affects the normal growth of trees. Of the country's 50 million inhabitants, some 40 million drink contaminated water, the study points out. Exhaustive study of the problems of the Mexico City metropolitan area shows that pollution has atmospheric begun to affect ecological con- Millions of trees ditions. planted in public thorough- fares have shown growth much below normal. of young Hundreds trees specially imported from Holland and planted in La Reforma Avenue in the city to be uprooted had centre because their growth had been totally paralysed. And have medical studies shown that traffic police in the 8 Press, Tuesday August 15, 1972 PAGE 5 The decree states further that when the daily issue of a newspaper is confiscated for the second time for carrying 'articles detrimental to the national security and public the Interior Ministry order,' can shut the paper pending a decision in the courts. The impact of that second- offence clause could be even more severe than the financial requirement in the decree. Hardly a day passes in Saigon a few dailies having without their editions confiscated on grounds of their having viola- ted the security provisions of the press code. Two weeks ago, for example, the government took 44 such alleged violations to court and won a verdict of guilty in 39.

There are 46 daily news- papers in South Vietnam. All but one, which is based in are published in Can Tho, Saigon. Of the total, 29 are Vietnamese-language papers, 14 are printed in Chinese, two in English and one in French.

Only four or five of these can be described as out-and- out opposition newspapers anything that rarely find favourable to say about the Thieu government. But most of the rest are also critical to time and they, from time too, have felt the government's wrath. Newspaper publishers had been able to avoid paying the large fines handed down by the lower courts by keeping the cases tied up in a morass of appeals in the cumbersome court system. With Thieu's action, how- ever, that will become impos- sible. The decree said that the courts would have to rule on all press cases within 30 days that certain cases, and apparently those adjudged the most serious by the govern- ment, would be handled by military courts from which there would be no appeal.

city centre have suffered ner- visual disturbances vous and because of the smoke. The Mexican capital lies in a valley, almost completely mountains. surrounded by Public cleansing services are seriously deficient and the city has more than a million motor vehicles. wonder then that in Small recent years Mexico City has one of the world's become most polluted urban centres.

Sometimes huge clouds of dust arise from the dry bed of Lake Texaco on which much of the city is built. The air becomes grey and smokey and alarming pollution reaches proportions.

PAGE 6 Marters Presa, Tuaaday Augeal 18, 1072 By Stephen Johns. Photographs by Martin Mayer.

'The Port of Hull Only last week, another • may established be said to be struggling for estan Good and Son decided to employer, survival. It is time that every- pull out of the port, though body realized that one-day they are developing a groupage stoppages and other restric- warehouse off the dock pre- tive practices helped to put cinct at Anlaby. Hull in its present position The employers blame the and that repetition of these stubborn militancy of the dock habits will do no more than labour force for the crisis. But the dig grave deeper - a this hardly explains Goole's performance. The port has had message from port employers industrial peace for 26 years, o the Hull dockers yet its decline is the most Hull began as a fishing serious on the Humber. village on the Humber. The real reason is that Hull's Dockers fear that if the position and its trade make it particularly vulnerable to present crisis continues it modern developments. may end life the same Containerization of deep-sea trade brought with it improve- way. ments in land transport net- Workers in all the traditional works. The cost of the land ports face big problems, but journey became relatively nowhere are they so severe as insignificant proportion of total in Hull. Cargo grouped in The unregistered docks and costs. containers far inland and what the scattered along little advantage there was in east coast and rivers eat into the shipping through nearest Hull's conventional cargo. The lost. Hence the port port is surrounded by small exporter or importer (or more groupage operators employing likely the shipping line) non-dock labour and it is fast plumped for the port which losing its remaining deep-sea offered the most sophisticated the trade to rivals in south container berths. like Southampton. Hull neither has the facilities The tonnage figures tell their nor the river depth to take the depressing tale. In 1963 biggest 9.4 million ocean-going container Hull shifted tons boats, so what little deep-sea of cargo. Last year the figure traffic she did possess is being was down to 6.3 million and lost. Benn Line has transferred a record flm the port made Far East trade from the its loss. port to Southampton and this At Goole, 50 miles down has meant a 3.6-per-cent drop river, the position is even more in Hull's import cargo. desperate. The slump in coal The vast proporti Scan- transport caused a 25-per-cent Hull's traffic is with drop in tonnage to 1.5 million.

dinavia and northern Europe.

And things are not improv- But this too has brought prob- British Transport The ing. lems for the docker. Docks Board (which controls Humber revealed the ports) that in the first six months

SURPLUS

of this the trade graph year continued its relentless plunge downwards. Tonnage fell to 3.101.017 compared with 3.544.931 in With short-sea journeys, the the first half of 1971. In the land transport costs are cor- five weeks ending June 25 the respondingly a greater pro- 576,876 total costs. Hence total was against portion of 712,787 tons for the marginally corres- can ponding period last year.

profitable to group cargo near the port, especially if rates are port has been rocked The that little bit lower than the by a series of closures. Asso- Lines has big inland container bases.

ciated Humber In Hull there has developed stopped trading, Cargo Opera and tions Ltd, a stevedoring firm, host of warehouse went into liquidation and two haulage operators who have from the other dock employers recently taken work away suffered a sudden demise.

causing the port, not only surplus in dock labour, but injuring its economic perform- ance (see diagram). Some of the examples are Ellerman's blatant. Wilson Line (a subsidiary of Ellerman Lines Ltd) is a major dock employer. It runs three roll-on, roll-off services to Sweden and northern Europe. But despite the availability of dock groupage facilities the firm a subsidiary, Key uses Warehousing Ltd, to handle cargo within sight of the King George Dock. North Sea Ferries (con- trolled by P&O), another roll- roll-off drew on, operator, heavily on the groupage re- sources of Panalpina (Services) Ltd, until the recent black on its lorries which led to a suc- cessful action against the Transport and General Wor- kers' Union in the Industrial Court. All this, plus the massively require- reduced manpower ments of the roll-on, roll-off and container services the berths, has taken jobs away from the Hull dockers and injured the port's prospects.

But perhaps the most serious challenge has come from the rapid growth of the un- registered ports and wharves.

The development of Felix- stowe is the subject of a later Suffice article in this series. to say here that its rise is a major blow to Hull. But the fiercest controversy has raged around the smaller along the rivers operations and Ouse. Trent There are about a dozen ports served by the private Humber. Some consist of a jetty that can take one small 1,000-ton vessel a week. The is often handled by cargo farm labour for part-time and conditions wages way below those won by registered dockers. The growth of these 'docking cowboys' has been alarming. In 1968, 677 ships passed Goole bridge on the Humber.

Last year the total rocketed to 1,748. The cargo they carry has been estimated at anything between 500,000 to 1.5 million tons and the National Ports Council has predicted that the rate of increase could go on at the rate of 750,000 a year.

LOW RATES

Again the existing port behind employers are often this development. East Coast River Services — part of an expanding shipping group on Humberside — took over a small jetty and 15 acres of land on the river at Howden- dyke in 1968. Around £500,000 was spent on constructing a new jetty which now handles six vessels of up to 2,500 tons a week-mainly on short runs from north European ports.

Limbs, a stevedoring firm in Goole, has declared a surplus of registered labour. But it at another port- operates Selby-with unregistered men.

These small wharves cannot Hull's roll-on, roll-off match service, but they can offer low fast turnround and no rates, strikes, mainly they because employ casual labour, often on a part-time basis. The workers at the 'cowboy ports' earn between a £18 and £20 basic; this compares with the Hull dockers' £35 for a 35-hour week. The men make up their wages with overtime.

At Howdendyke an average 62-hour working week boosts earnings to £40. This totally undermines the rights and conditions dockers have spent a century fighting for. But it also weakens the port. The Hull Chamber of Shipping has come up with the startling evidence that Hull costs about £1.05 per cargo cubic foot but the rate at a private port near Hull was 65p and this was before the 5-per-cent rise in Hull port charges earlier this year.

Now other port employers are moving out. The latest is a firm called W. S. Barchard and Sons Ltd, who bought a wharf earlier this year private operations from and moved the docks to Bankside on the river Hull. The company hopes to employ its own unregistered labour to unload timber boats.

It admitted moving to cut costs by unregistered recruiting labour. So, far from being the cause of Hull's troubles, the dockers have been the victims. A decade ago approximately 4,600 registered workers were employed the port. Now at the figure is dropping below 2,480, with 500 men already surplus to requirements. One of their leaders, Walter Cunningham, describes how the militants tried in the early days to warn of the gathering storm. 'The stewards tried to put it over for the last few years.

But it was hard to alert the men to the dangers. The thing really highlighted when was we started getting redundan- cies on the dock. When you have full employment it's hard because the problem doesn't become apparent until you find yourself in the unattached pool? This growing awareness is reflected in the progressively dwindling response to the four severance schemes launched by Hull employers to get the men off the dock. In 1967-the year of de- casualization—a massive 1,400 men accepted severance. Last Now, with year only 105. unemployment on Humberside rising steeply, no one wants to leave before retirement.

The Hull dockers are among the best , and most principled fighters in the whole port in- dustry. They have a record of solidarity with other workers ve accepted modern- docker from Hull, sug nd we accepted the an answer: 'You could run this the cost has been If this process con- with 250 men if it was the registered ports pletely modernized. With a could be finished.' sure from the union we could get 1,000 jobs. from the 4,600 who us

OGRESS

work here ten years ago there are 2,400 docker. now, so half way. 'What faces the dock ises an important re is more than just this: there either has to ke in the Hull battle. industrial revolution wil question is posed- workers or we will be all out the harvest of pro- ourselves for a job. workers or the e ? 'If the capitalist syster Teal, a retired not give us the fruit o 6

GRATINE DOCKC

ALEXANORA

DOCK

H U M B

BRITAN TRANSPORT DORKS S ARD ED'A-.

OFFICES HAR MOSES AD PED

Workers Press, Tuesday August 15, 1972 PAGE 7 • from Hull, suggested Top left: torries with chicken over their wire windscreens are loaded at Neap House Wharf, an could run this dock unregistered wharf near Scun- 250 men if it was com- thorpe, ( Lincolnshire. It is these i modernized. With pres- small unregistered docks and union maybe that eating into wharves are uld get 1,000 jobs. That's Hull's conventional cargo. Above: the 4,600 who used to Alexandra docks, Hull. here ten years ago. Well 2,400 dockers here gress, then the capitalist system will have to go. It's standing the employers are way of progress.' in the at faces the dockers is The Hull dockers, who face there either has to be an the biggest battle for their rial revolution with the livelihoods, could make a great the national the benefit, contribution to will be all out killing struggle. If their militancy and find principle political ex- they could the capitalist system can- be pression, ive us the fruit of pro- decisive force.

HULL'S INLAND PORTS

1. Trans European Pallet Services (GB) Ltd, Win- colmlee. (Operators World Transport Agency Ltd and Armfields International also use depot.) 2. Panalpina (Services) Ltd, Valetta St. 3. McVeish Transport. Liver- Laporte St. pool St, also immisham. 4. Ferrymasters Ltd, Great- 2 field Lane. 3. Edwardes of Hull. National Avenue. 6. Key Warehousing Ltd,

KING GEORGE DOCK

Marfleet Avenue. 7. Hull Euroscan Ltd, Brigh- ton St.

OUEEN ELIZABETA DOCK

8. Baxter and Hoare, Bank- side. 9. LEP Transport, Valetta 10. MAT Transport, Spring- field Rd. 11. Humberside Storage, Springfield Way. 12. Tower Shipping, Wincolm- 13. Gelders (UK) Transport Ltd, Wiltshire Rd. 14. Spear Warehousing and Transport Co Ltd, High St. These are all frms which have advertised groupage. Or handling of container part loads. There are more.

PAGE 8 Workers Press, Tuesday August

BY MICHAEL NOLAN

Anyone interested in see- ing • where the road of middle-class protest leads would have had a great deal to learn from the National Anti-War Con- vention held at the Los Angeles campus of the University of California on July 21-23. Since so many years of 'mass mobilizations' have failed to Vietnam stop the war con- tinuing with all its genocidal ferocity, it might be thought that the futility of such activi- ties would have dawned on those involved. But not a bit of it. It was clear that most cf the 500 participants in the convention, dominated by the ex-Trotskyists of the Socialist Workers Party, had learnt nothing and forgotten nothing.

They have not yet woken up to the fact that gone forever are the balmy days of three or four years ago when tens of thousands marched down Fifth Avenue and every campus was aflame with protest. All the sections of the American left present at the convention - from the McGovernites to the sectarians y August 15, 1972 of the Spartacist League-had their policies to measure against changes that have taken place since that time.

Not only have the diminish- ing anti-war protest stunts failed to do anything to arrest imperialist barbarity, at the same time they have become increasingly remote from important developments in the American working class. Efforts to keep down wages in order to allow the Ameri- can capitalists to compete in the growing international trade war have resulted in recent months in sharp struggles by dockers on both coasts, by groups of public employees, and many other workers. The policies of Nixon have forced even some of the most reactionary trade union leaders to resign from the National Pay Board when attempts were made to introduce a wages freeze. The selection as Democratic candidate of presidential George McGovern, not noted in any way for friendliness towards the trade unions, has forced many union leaders to adopt a position of neutrality the two main capi- between talist parties for the first time since 1940. In this situation the political independence of the working class is posed more sharply than for a generation. The struggle for a Labour Party in the United States through a national congress the working-class movement can thus have a significance that it has not had for many years.

Despite the presence of a good number of trade unionists at the convention, however, such considerations were vir- tually absent from its pro- ceedings. The SWP, which dominated all the votes, thought that the most im- portant problem was how to have yet bigger and better demonstrations, more campus protests and much more everything else that has hap- pened so many times before.

foreign What struck the visitor about such activity was not simply its futility; but also the assumption that everybody in the world was waiting for it to take place. Not only was it true, said , that the President the SWP and his friends quaked in their time they knew shoes every there was going to be a demon- stration, but the heroic libera- tion fighters of Vietnam depended on these protests to keep up their spirits. Such views are a most degenerated form of American 'particular- ism' ', showing a negation of real form inter- any nationalism. But the policies of the SWP are worse than this. Their vice-presidential candidate Andrew Pulley spoke at the convention itself and at a number of campaign meetings beforehand. He spoke about the discrimination against against homosexuals women, and against racial minorities.

The working class was usually mentioned, if at all, as just another group in society with grievances which needed to unite with the others in a mass movement to overthrow the present order. Such a view of capitalist all society clearly abandons consideration of the serious struggle between the classes to impressions about the reaction- ary character of the working class. It is little wonder that SWP member tried to one explain to the conference that dialectical materialism was the science of starting from con- crete reality. just If he really believes this, then it is hardly surprising that his party bases its work on its surface impressions of American society. The degeneration of the

SWP

well beyond its goes abandonment of Marxist philo- sophical positions. The con- vention made it clear how such attitudes lead directly into the camp of the bourgeoisie. hard- The most active and working group at the confer- was one devoted to ence securing support for McGovern. Their argument was simple. McGovern has said he will end the war. The SWP and their friends have argued that the war is the 'single issue' that unites them, so why could they not then support this anti-working class candidate? Why not indeed? Although the SWP does not openly attack those who will not support McGovern, as the Communist Party does, they can present few answers to arguments of this kind. Work- ing with the Stalinists in the same milieu of 'progressives' it is little and protesters, wonder that their policies have come to represent a similar adaptation to certain sections of the ruling class. Although they have candi- dates of their own in this election, the SWP does not turn them seriously towards the working class. They say virtually nothing about the need for the political indepen- dence of the working class, and it thus becomes more and more difficult for them to maintain any of their own few tenuous links with political independence. Perhaps the clearest expres- sion of was in this the separate discussion among the trade unionists at the conven- tion. Here those union mem- bers who supported the SWP were the most pessimistic about the possibility of the working-class movement doing anything to end the war. Workers, especially those in industries in some way con- nected with the war, were too fearful for their jobs. The call for a Labour Party, it was said, was only 'the music of the future'. Even those who sup- ported McGovern had a • more positive message than this.

It was left to the Workers League and the Young Social- ists to fight for the only policy that would give the anti-war

Top left: the Vlatnam mer which MaGo stop. McGovern Is noted for his anti-wor SWP candidate, Andrew Pulley-calling useless 'mass mobilizations'. Above righ In 'vote for me' reformism struggle any real meaning-the political independence of the working class. With even some of the most reactionary trade union leaders to admit the being forced possibility of a Labour Party, this the tendency towards independence is clearly a factor into that has to be taken capitalist account by every politician in the United States.

Not, however, by the SWP and its friends. Thus they not only turn away from the working class, they turn away from any poli- cies than can mean success for the anti-war movement which they lead. The astonishing amalgam of political forces at the conven- tion included many critics of one-time the

SWP.

The Maoists of the Progressive Party were Labour there, utterly unable to come to terms with any of the prob- bl Ich McGovern (right) has said ho will Is antl-working-class policles. Above left: y calling for ever more vast and more Above right: Panther Bobby Seale-sunk lems raised by the anti-war movement. Because of their cavalier rejection of the his- tory and theory of the inter- communist move- national ment, these people seem un- able to do more than repeat sterile slogans about racialism and genocide which do nothing to aid the struggle against the Bobby Seale of Present Also was the Black Panther Party. He has now become so in reformism that he sunk could do little but try to be present the glorious prospect that will be opened up when he becomes mayor of Oakland.

He did not care how people voted in the meantime so long as they voted for him at the right time. Such a perspective can win nothing for the work- ing class, black or white.

Among other groups at the convention were homosexuals, women's libbers, and assorted black nationalists, as well as • the Spartacist League of James Robertson. A large group of Robertson's warriors had been sent from as far afield as New York. Their feverish activity involved presenting enormous motions, numerous quotations trom Trotsky, and a long list of slogans and demands. First among these was the call to expel the bourgeoisie from the anti-war movement- incomprehensible rather a notion since hardly anybody else is in it. This was combined with a call for a Labour Party based on the trade unions which was not related in any serious way to the trade union movement that exists. This group of confusionists com- bines an idealist approach from the utterly separate actual movement with an avoidance of any international perspective or any real turn to the working class. The small group of Workers League members and sup- porters fought to turn those few serious students and trade towards a unionists present struggle for the political independence of the working class. Only in such a way will it be possible to defeat both the war and the system which lies to behind it. The SWP and their friends have gone much too far from such a perspective to be other than an impediment to such developments. They began long ago on the slippery slope of protest politics, and they have slithered down to political impotence, capitulation to pro- capitalist forces, and the tired repetition of the call for ever more vast and ever more use- less 'mass mobilizations' Workers Press, Tu Lady Kate Vestey, the 27-year- old wife of Midland Cold Storage's proprietor, the multi- millionaire Lord Vestey, is on holiday at Nice on the French riviera. But tragically, she's all on her own. She told the 'Sunday Mirror': 'Sam (Lord Vestey) was going to come with me, but he couldn't because of all the trouble at Midland Cold Storage. 'I didn't want to go on holi- day either, but it looked as though I should because we were staying with friends in a villa outside Nice and it would have been rude if neither of us had turned up. We had planned to stay two weeks, but now that's not possible. I'll be going home next week.' In a memo obviously directed at the grasping dock- ers who have ruined poor Lady Vestey's holiday, the 'Mirror' ‹ "Home" adds: is a town house in Belgravia and a 65- mansion near Chelten- room ham? Garment workers currently eng: ged in a bitter pay fight with the will be employers interested to see how their bosses are making out financially. This week Illingworth Mor- ris, the Yorkshire-based wool- handed len textiles group, round bigger dividends and free shares after announcing higher carnings. With pre-tax profits up from £1,022,000 to £1,378,000 in the 12 months the end of March, shareholders drew divi- dends totalling 12} per cent compared with ll per cent last year. The directors have also de- cided to make a free bonus issue of one new non-voting share for each two shares already held. They also promise to pay at least the same dividend on the in- creased capital next year, which means shareholders are already assured of another in- come boost. That takes care of the well- heeled shareholders, thank you very much, but what about the workers? Meanwhile, Montague Bur- ton, the tailoring giant, is not satisfied with the profits it is making in the rag trade. It Press, Tuesday August 15, 1972 PAGE 9 has just formed a new com- pany called High Street Trans- port Limited to handle distri- bution of its own goods as well as outside road haulage.

All the existing Burton group fleet, including Ryman office equipment vehicles, will eventually wear the new High Street Transport livery. Just to keep the business connection as obscure as pos- sible, the High Street Trans- port vehicles will not carry means of identification with the Burton companies. Struck with horror at the prospect of an all-out con- frontation between the work- ing class and the Tories, the Church of Scotland, no less, is moving into action. who preach pre- The men destination have just brought out a new book of services and prayers for public worship.

prayer intro- One special duced for the first time, asks for God's help in strikes and is called When There Is a Strike' It is not yet clear if the Church of Scotland will press for God to be called in to act in abitrator as supreme disputes. Muskie Any suggestions that Sargent Shriver is the greatest political opportunist since Lazarus are untrue. Or are they? It has just been revealed that Shriver, a Kennedy clansman, has been dential race before McGovern. He gave $2,000 to of the candidates. help one No: Edmund McGovern? Muskie.

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PLEDGES BROKEN AS NO-STRIKE DEAL IS IMPO

CLYDE WORK-IN FAI

SCOTTISH JOBLESS I

PAGE 10 Workers Press, Tuaaday August 15, 1972

BY JACK GALE

THE STRATEGY of the Tory government is to create widespread un- employment and then to use this to weaken trade union organization and drive down living stan- dards and conditions of work. new orders of which there is no Above all, the Tories want When two exist- sign whatever. to take away the basic right ships completed ing are to strike. Without this right, month, there is nothing left for established over 200 years of these men. labour struggle, the working Meanwhile Marathon had an- class will be unable to resist that it could employ nounced of intolerable 2,000 workers at the most-and the imposition that not for another two years.

working conditions. In fact Marathon undertook This is the central purpose of to employ only 151 of the 176 the Industrial Relations Act.

Clydebank workers sacked in the And nowhere is this strategy first days of July. carried ruthlessly being more than in Scotland, where the out It must be stressed- -and the figures 138,544 latest show Communist Party's •Morning unemployed registered people Star' has been completely silent When

UCS

(6.5 per cent). went about this these 151 - that liquidation 1971 the into in workers are the ONLY men that figure was 114,600 (6 per cent).

Marathon is uefinitely committed Over 24,000 workers have to employing immediately.

joined the Scottish dole queues Marathon has promised to take in the last year. 500 end on men by UCS settlement can only The September, but it has signed no be understood in relation to this agreement to this effect.

Tory of creating strategy The company has said it will break employment in order to employ 2,000 men in 18 months' the unions. to two years' time, but, again, it When the Stalinist-led work-in has signed no agreement to this began July 30, 1971, there on So the 'Morning Star's' effect. were 8,500 men employed in the claim on July 21 that there was yards. There are now about to be 'a smooth transition with- 6,000. And neither the newly- out fear of temporary redundan- established Govan Shipbuilders cies' was totally false. Wayne Harbin's concern nor Manufacturing Not only will there be plenty Marathon of redundancies - they will be pany will save these jobs.

permanent. 27 steward On June shop Gerry Ross leading Com- And early promises that Govan — a Party Shipbuilders would be able munist member an- Clydebank nounced details of the planned take on any labour not required by Marathon rapidly of labour from the transfers Marathon. worthless as a dearth Clydebank yard to proved revealed that the fate of orders for the new complex was These 1,000 depends announced. workers upon Fill in the form below and send to NATIONAL

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Amount enclosed £ Indeed Govan Shipbuilders, far from being able to absorb more labour, was to start trading with no confirmed orders whatsoever.

And this was at a time when for new ships in British orders shipyards fell by one-third in the 12 months ending in June 1972.

Thus unemployment haunts the Clyde once again. Despite all • Stalinists' talk of 'victory' the the Tories have been allowed to get away with their strategy of increasing unemployment. Repeated pledges by James Reid and James Airlie were displayed in the prominently 'Morning Star' that no settle- ment would be accepted that did not preserve all four yards and every job. But precisely such settle- ment has now been signed. And succeeded in creating having widespread unemployment in the yards the Tories are now press- ing ahead with their onslaught against the unions. have had their union signed away. When Trade Minister John Davies announced government backing for the new Govan Ship- builders consortium this did not, as the 'Morning Star' claimed on July 1, 'set the seal on the UCS victory'. as the 'Star' reported For without comment, this backing was based on 'an agreement on working practices acceptable to government. As worker knows the government is seeking to working base all practices on the Industrial Rela- tions Act. And John Davies made it clear that further backing for Govan would be dependent upon productivity increased and a reduction of restrictive' practices.

But the agreement signed with Wayne Harbin of Marathon went even further than this. This was exactly the type of agreement that the Tories would wish to impose on workers every- where. It is the Industrial Rela- tions Act in practice. Workers Press warned as early at January 28 that Harbin four-year wanted a no-strike guarantee before he would buy Clydebank. And that is exactly what he has got. The cannot be agreement described more explicitly than it was by boilermakers' president Danny McGarvey, one of the signatories to it: 'There is no going back. The boilermakers have done some- thing here that they would do for no other employer. 'Everyone knows what this means. There will be no strikes during the term of the agree- ment [four years]. We have agreed on this.' It was on this basis that Marathon was able to announce that bonuses would be paid every six months and would be for- feited completely if more than one and a half weeks' work was lost within that period without legitimate cause'. This means only one thing. Strikes are outlawed at Clyde- bank. And this is what the Industrial Relations Act is all about. The trade union leaders, Com- munist Party stewards and their so-called Liaison Committee have opened the door to the applica- tion of the Act in practice. No amount of one-day protests can cover that up. This is a victory for the Tory government. But it is a victory the Tories need not have won. For hundreds of thousands of workers followed and con- tributed to the UCS fight.

Trade unionists throughout the British Isles sent thousands For many shipyard workers the work-in h of pounds to maintain the struggle. Russian shipyard workers had contributed £15,000 by the end of 1971. The Irish Transport and General Workers' Union sent a large donation. Actors, folk-singers and other enter- tainers staged concerts and films to raise funds. UCS stewards received hun- JONES-ALDINGTON solves nothing-that is the feeling of most port shop stewards and rank-and-file dockers at Hull.

Three of their leaders told Workers Press reporter Stephen Johns why. Terry Geraghty, shop steward, Hull and Humber Stevedoring: There is nothing for us in the Jones-Aldington report unless all the unregistered ports are going to come inside the scheme. This is the most serious threat to the dockers in Hull and this is what all the picketing is about. We have seen this problem coming for eight years now. We have tried to get the unions to do something about it with no success. All they were interested in was membership, membership at almost any cost. wasn't This helping the docker and it didn't help the in the unregistered ports men under either. They work very poor wages and conditions.

Really the issue in these ports and modernization National Dock Labour Scheme.

The employers have been un- able to get rid of this directly so have been going round it with the development of unregis- tered ports and container depots.

In other words the whole of the dockers' gains are at stake in this struggle. I do not look on the con- ditions we have obtained under the Scheme as some kind of special privilege - they are a right. The right of stopping workers thrown right out on the being dole is an important right. It is one that should not be eroded but extended to all workers. The fact that the unions have never • work-in has led straight to this Clydebank d dreds of invitations to explain their fight at meetings all over the country. Students, old age pensioners and schoolchildren sent in dona- tions. And workers were prepared to show their support in action.

When the closure was first an- nounced 100,000 Glasgow workers joined a one-day strike fought for this-particularly the T&GWU-is completely baffling.

under the The guarantees Scheme are important for the development of militancy as well.

In struggles like Pilkington's, whole groups of workers, men who fought so hard for wages, were able to be thrown out of the factory; they were isolated and victimized. is why we supported This them down here on Hull docks.

Without the guarantees the em- ployers just wait and strike out when the time is right. cart stress enough that this behind struggle is the Scheme and the rights we have won. The other big issue is the way we are drawn into conflict with some of the lorry drivers.

This worries me because it might make relations bitter. The dockers have always backed the lorry drivers and tried to help them by 'blacking' firms who were giving them trouble.

This shop stewards' committee I am on is the most socialist I have ever had experience with.

And the dockers will respond.

Their past in Hull shows this.

We backed the Pilkington men, the council workers, the postmen and of course the miners. I hope the drivers realize this.

The other thing to stress is

on June 24, 1971, and 50,000 marched. On August 18, 200,000 Scottish tools and workers downed 80,000 marched. needs The working class to know why this enormous sup- equalled by the port, only strike, support for the miners' was dissipated. The fight was lost because the that these men going through picket line are not the majority. confrontation This should not be necessary. The men who are prepared to hide behind the police like this must have no principles at all. The way the police go at you is a shock at first. Then you they realize what to: are up defending the law-but that law is the Tory government's law and capitalist law. This is Conservative policy- to keep cracking down on mili- intimidate them, arrest tants, them, throw them in jail.

This is what we are facing in Hull. We know it and accept it. Roy Garmston, deputy chair- man, shop stewards' committee: The Devlin report broke the dockers up between em- ployers. It split up the ports as well. Now the Industrial Rela- tions Court has welded us together again. supposed to offer Devlin was us employment and security. But it has led to none of these things; we have disaster staring us in the face and all the growth is taken by these unregistered ports. Now we have the Jones- Aldington report. If some of these ideas had come at the leadership remained in the hands of the Communist Party mem- bers at co-ordinating com- mittee and their collaborators, the reformist trade union leaders. These people refused to link the fight for jobs with the fight to bring down the Tory govern- ment. Reid and Airlie explicitly stated that they were in business to save jobs on the Clyde, not to bring down the government.

When the workers turned out in their hundreds of thousands, who did the Stalinists place at their head? They chose: Vic Feather of the TUC, who had recently left the postmen isolated and open to defeat; engineers' president Hugh Scanion, who was to retreat from the national pay claim; Anthony Wedgwood Benn the Labour Party's NEC which had refused to nationalize shipbuilding when in office; and Wolfe of the Scottish William Nationalist Party, who argued that the closure was a 'Scottish' problem and not a class problem.

Amidst this welter of con- fusion the Stalinists organized a work-in which workers not only produced ships for the liquidator but handed them over as well.

The Stalinists did not call for occupation of the yards and call on other workers to join them.

They organized work for the Tory government and kept the UCS men basically isolated from other workers, who were asked only for money, resolutions and participation in occasional demonstrations. In these circumstances men drifted from the yards and, as resistance weakened, the Stalin- ists moved towards a deal.

Despite a mass meeting deci- sion in November that no more ships should leave the yards without a firm pledge on the four yards and every job, Reid and Airlie persuaded the stewards in January to recom- time of Devlin they might have been worth it. But it's different in this period. The employers are just trying to get over a crisis by a few nice words so they can keep getting their pound of flesh. What we really want is a com- plete overhaul of the industry- docks, road the lot. transport, Nothing in this report gets down to the grass roots and it's not meant to. There is the question of nationalization. I cannot agree with nationalization the way it has been done in the past.

The British Transport Docks Board is supposed to be nationalized example. it means But nothing to the docker. They create courses for the bright lads in labour relations and a dozen things-but this is all jobs for the boys. Nationaliza- tion cannot work for the work- ing man so long as there is no workers' control. This strike has meant a big thing for the dockers. For the first time really since 1970 they standing up together and are fighting to save their livelihoods.

They have learned this is necessary from experience; not from schooling, but from experi- ence — of years of men taking Reld: pledges broken mend releasing the 'New West- minster City' in January because McGarvey had flown to Texas to seek a buyer for Clydebank.

In April two more ships were released order not to jeopardize the Marathon negotia- tions. The firm guarantee condition, and with it the pledge to save all jobs, abandoned. was month earlier Reid, who is on the NEC of the Communist Party, had assured the readers of 'The Times': 'We shall honour the agreement we reach not only in the letter but in the spirit.'

A few weeks later, James Fox, who being groomed by was Harbin for the presidency of Marathon Manufacturing (UK) explained what this meant: 'I am afraid there must some redundancies. It is inconceivable that this will not happen. Thus the Communist Party, despite the spirit of the men oi and despite the the Clyde magnificent response of the class, working has adopted a policy of accepting sackings and accepting employer - dictated terms, including no-strike pledges.

This is precisely what the Tories set out to achieve when Ridley's 'Axe Nicholas the Clyde' plot was first revealed.

The lesson of the Clyde is that it was through the agency of the Communist Party and the leaders that Tory trade union imposed on the policy was workers. By itself the militancy of the workers was not enough to pre- this. The crisis of the vent working class remains the crisis of leadership. It is the task of the Socialist Labour League, in constructing the revolutionary party, to resolve this crisis. severance, of firms going out of business-until we have nothing else to give. Tony Fee, Hull docks delegate.

< I voted against this report because it solves nothing. It tackles none of the problems facing the docker. Its real pur- is to create a temporary pose breathing space so the employers can get on with their plans.

The solution I think should be a far shorter working week. We must get a system where this is possible, where progress doesn't mean unemployment but shorter hours and better money. in this This will not work society, but this is what the battle is about: we are demand- different system in the ing a industry. Nationalization I am in favour of in principle, but what kind of nationalization? Ask the railway workers about nationalization, ask the miners about nationaliza- tion—it just brought the dole for thousands of them. Really when you are talking about nationalization for the working man you are talking about a socialist system. But how to achieve it, this is the question facing us in our struggle. Workers Press, Tue

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PAGE 12 Workers Press, Tuesday Augu

FROM STEPHEN JOHNS

LONDON dockers met in a militant mood yesterday and decided to step up their cam- paign to close unregistered ports in the South of Eng- land. They plan to organize a con- voy of coaches to strike at specific target ports in a bid to stop shifting employers cargo to break the strike.

The decision came after a series of mass meetings in Lon- don that showed the attitude the rank and file was among hardening. Men at the Royal group of docks heard Bernie Steer, secre- tary the London docks of stewards' committee, call for rejection of the Jones-Aldington report on the present terms.

'Don't take anything that will be a sell-out, he told a 1,000- at the dock meeting strong gates. 'If you do the next inquiry will be for a memorial for the industry on how they are going to bury us all.' He urged the dockers to stand firm until all the unregistered ports were brought under the National Dock Labour Scheme and jobs at container bases went to registered dockers by right.

'It is not just a matter of whether we win Midland Cold Store or Hay's Wharf or one or two individual places. It's a mat- ter of getting hold of all the non- Scheme ports that have been hiding away and taking our strength away for years. 'We say this to the employers: if you are offering 500 jobs and not the ports outside the Scheme, if you are offering us one or two container bases, you are not on --because we have just heard another report that has told us that there will be 10,000 jobs going out of the industry.

'Do they really think they can 500 then take away offer us 10,000?' He accused the employers of hypocrisy. They promised jobs in the Jones-Aldington report, but that promise was when chal-

WEATHER

A RIDGE of high pressure across Ireland and Scotland is expected to move slowly southwards.

Southern and eastern England and the Midlands will have mist or fog patches at first, with sunny periods later. Wales and northern England will be mainly cloudy at first, becoming brighter later. Northern Ireland, South and Scotland will be rather East cloudy, but will aiso have some bright intervals. North and West Scotland will be mostly cloudy, with a little rain or drizzle. Temperatures will be near normal in the North-West, but it will be warm in the South- East. Outlook for Wednesday and Thursday: Dry and warm with sunny periods in England and but mostly cloudy in Wales, and Northern Ireland, Scotland with drizzle or rain at times, chiefly in the West, and near normal temperatures. 01-522 7029 01-720 2000 Registered lisa dews porkers e Pess.

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day August 15, 1972 with demand for lenged guarantees of employment there was a silence. 'Now there seems to be a sud- den reluctance on the part of the port employers to sit down and start talking, he said. 'But before the latest proposals there were a lot of them making noises and promises. "The report came out after at least nine major reports since the war. ing to solve or there and o away with unemployment. When Jones-Aldington came out they said take it on trust. We say to Jones and Alding- ton: don't let them talk to us about promises, let them put their money where their mouth is. Vic Turner, chairman of the London docks stewards, said this was the most important fight ever waged by the dockers. as well think we might realize it. This will be the last battle we will fight. If we lose this one they might as well fill that dock over there with con- crete,' he warned. 'We have been going round the country and it has been a shock. 'We have found all kinds of people at ports we never even doing registered knew existed dockers' work. The conditions are bad, the pay is bad. "These operations are slashing us to pieces, he said. Tilbury heard a men Jimmy Kelly

BY PHILIP WADE

LEADERS of the four build- ing unions representing over 350,000 workers, meet in Lon- don today under enormous pressure to call an all-out, for the £30, national strike 35-hour week claim. Resolutions from all over Britain national demanding a strike have been flooding into the headquarters of the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians. Pressed hard by the rank and regional officers are also in far- the majority of UCATT's our of a national stoppage.

For seven weeks union lead- ers have tried to restrict the selective strikes, campaign to only involving about 30,000 workers. The move for a national strike gathered pace after last week's attempt by UCATT to tell the the rank-and-file, they were pre- pared to accept an immediate basic wage of only £23 and a no- strike clause with guaranteed bonus payment. Now there are well over 100,000 building workers out, and work has stopped on every major site in Britain. In London, flying pickets were in action yesterday. Pickets from the World's End, Cubitts site, managed to stop number of places, work at a including that at Chelsea Foot- ball ground where a new stand is being constructed. UCATT militant Jimmy Kelly told me: If we can stop these little jobs, where all the racketeering goes on, we will be Vic Turner, London stomards' chakrman, i report on the Jones-Aldington talks by chairman of the shop stewards, Dave Marks. He said that what ones Aldington had come up with so far was completely unacceptable to the men. Picketing was dis- cussed and there will be an intensification of this work dur- ing the week. They have so far received £200 from Midland car workers with a promise of a further £800 this week. The meeting agreed to black all Vestey's work even after the strike was over. Preston dockers are more determined than ever to win their four points before they go to work. Phil O'Hagan, chairman of the stewards, Preston shop told Workers Press: 'We'll stay out for the four points. Our problem is still 30,000 jobs-though we'll still take Jones's 200? He thought a new delegate in a stronger position to win.'

'The union leadership should know by now what the rank and file wants. We are not going to swallow any sell-outs. 'We have to stay out as long as necessary to win the £30, 35- hour week claim. The call is now going out for a national build- ing strike. I was never one for this selective strike strategy, he added. 'Over the last few weeks the working class has been moving to get the Tories out and it could work' In Hull 400 strikers met at Bevin House to pass a resolu- tion demanding that the union leadership fix a date immediately for a national strike. chairman, Strike committee Stan Suddaby, told the meeting that all small sites in the city would be brought out this week.

He said the union's executive had 'swamped' with calls for been all-out strike action. MORE than 100 Preston build- ing workers assembled outside the Silent Shepherds Market Street site yesterday to hear Jack Tyrrell of the local action com- mittee report on progress of their national strike. 'In the Midlands and the South West it's snowballing,' he said.

I've seen it myself. We're not one isolated bunch here. Before eed it's finished we'll have every job out. Alan Moon, another member of the action committee, told the building workers of a dockers' statement supporting their strike.

A resolution supporting the dock- ers was passed unanimously.

Mike Gallagher,

UCATT

branch secretary from Aldington, attacked press bias. The editor of the 'Lancashire Evening Post' had slandered the stopping building workers for the Preston Guild. he said (The Guild is a festival, due to start September 23, on the his- tory of the town.) 'But how much haleman, adcrezaing Royal dockers yooterday conference could be a close vote, but saw no point in going work without jobs back to guarantees. Workers' control was more a long term demand, he thought.

'How going to get are we workers' control under these Tories? We need united action through the trade union move- ment to fight them. The dockers can't do it alone.' Preston Tomorrow the area of the Confederation of Ship- building and Engineering Unions is to be asked for its active and financial support for the dockers. At the unregistered port of Heysham dockers from Preston and Liverpool picketed in strength yesterday. They outnumbered by were police who have been assisting the continued operation of the wharf. At nearby Glasson Docks, grain was discharged from two ships. is the "Post" editor getting each week?' he asked the meeting.

at Luton's BUILDING workers large Arndale Centre site joined the strike yesterday. 'The 250 men here have come out without the union's backing up; because we're fed said T&GWU scaffolders' steward Les Walker. Arndale pickets were angry and Plumbing that Electrical Trades contractors had Union been given union permission to the site during the work on strike. COACHLOADS of Medway fly- ing pickets will launch a series of campaigns this week to gain per cent backing for the 100 building workers' strike in the Kent area. The pickets will be organized by the Medway action committee under the leadership of Jim Duffy. They will also make a drive for union membership on the various sites. Lambeth march for dockers LAMBETH Council of Action has called for a demonstration through South London in support the dockworkers' national of strike. At the Council's committee meeting on Sunday, secretary said that Vivienne Mendelson there had been a massive cam- paign launched by the Tory press to isolate the dockers in their fight for jobs. It was for this reason, she said that the Council of Action must mobilize all sec- tions of workers and tenants to support the dockers' fight.

The committee laid plans to contact building workers, tenants, engineers, print workers trade union branches and every section of workers in the area for a Saturday, demonstration on August 26.

ALL TRADES UNIONS

ALLIANCE MEETINGS

EAST LONDON: Thurs, August 17, 8 p.m. The crisis of capitalism and the docks struggle Festival Market Inn, Square, Chrisp St, E.14. and Support the builders dockers. Force the Tories to resign. PRESTON: Wednesday August 16, 8 p.m. Railway and Com- mercial Hotel, Butler Street, station. 'Support near railway the dockers building and workers.' COVENTRY: Wednesday August 16, 7.30 p.m. Hertford Tavern (Junction St, adjoining The Butts) . NORTH LONDON: Thursday August 17, 8 p.m. Co-op Hall, Seven Sisters Road, N4. LUTON: Thursday August 17, 8 p.m. St. John Ambulance Hall, Lea Road. Socialist Labour League

PUBLIC MEETINGS

End TUC talks with Heath !

Stop Jones-Aldington collaboration I Victory to the dockers! Nationalize the docks and transport industries! Make the Tories resign !

LIVERPOOL

MONDAY AUGUST 14

7.30 p.m. Stork Hotel St John's Lane Speakers: LARRY CAVANAGH (Liverpool dock worker) ALAN STANLEY (Vauxhall Ellesmere Port shop steward) Both in a personal capacity Chairman: BILL HUNTER (SLL Central Committee)

MANCHESTER

FRIDAY AUGUST 18

7.30 p.m. Milton Hall Deansgate Speakers: LARRY CAVANAGH (Liverpool dock worker) ALAN STANLEY (Vauxhall Ellesmere Port shop steward) Both in a personal capacity