Police bid to break site picket

PHILIP

FOR THE second day running police yesterday tried to break up a building workers' picket line outside the new Stock Exchange building in the City of London.

Pickets were out early in the morning to try and persuade electricians not to cross their line. But the police moved in swiftly, allowing only four men to man the line.

ALL TRADES. UNIONS ALLIANCE MEETINGS TUC MUST BREAK OFF TALKS WITH HEATH!

MAKE THE TORY GOVERNMENT RESIGN!

CENTRAL LONDON: Wed, August 23, 7.30 p.m. The builders' fight Small Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, Holborn. GLASGOW: Wednesday August 23, 7.30 p.m. Partick Burgh Hall (nr Merkland St underground). UCS and the docks. NEWCASTLE: Wednesday August 23, 7.30 p.m. Hotspur Hotel, Haymarket.

COVENTRY: Wednesday August 23, 7 p.m. Hertford Tavern, Junction Street (adjoining The Butts). 'The builders' strike and the fight against the Tories!

AYLESHAM: Thursday August 24,8 p.m. The Legion, Burgess Road. Speakers include Cavanagh Weaver, steward from Wm. Griffiths, Canterbury. SHEFFIELD: Thursday August 24. Western Works, Portobello. 'The builders' strike' • Chairman: Tal Clarke (UCATT branch secretary) : Speaker: Sean Coulston (Sheffield strike committee member). Both in a personal capacity.

FOUR LECTURES THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF MARXISM given by (SLL national secretary) 1. Marxism as the theory knowledge Tuesday September 5 2. Development of Marxism through working-class struggle Tuesday September 12 3. Nature of the crisis Tuesday September 19 4. Historical materia Tuesday September AEU HOUSE Mount Pleasant Liverpool 1, 7.30 01-622 No explanation was given as to how the number of four was arrived at. Police officers said more would be considered intimidatory.

Under the threat of arrest pickets moved away and the electricians went under police escort In a few minutes they were out, however, saying they refused to work while building workers were being intimidated by police.

On Monday, police had arrested a picket outside the Stock talism and speculation itselfapi.

Police had approached the pickets and asked who was in charge The federation steward stepped forward and was promptly arrested for obstruction and assault of a police officer.

'The police deliberately taking away our right to picket, a Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians steward from the Fleet Street 'Sun' and 'News of the World' site told me. He had been in a fierce argument with a police sergeant.

"They are making laws of their own where it 1S our constitutional right to picket. Police have no right to say we can only have four pickets. It is union policy that this site is shut.

'The police are moving in now after the docks strike is finished. Their hands were a little tied then. But it is also part of the ployet federation y counter-offensive the emPickets produced leaflet out by the National Federation of Building Trades Employers. 'Building Wages. The Facts, it screams.

And the last sentence provocatively says: 'Police protection may be requested if you want to work and are prevented by pickets.

The UCATT steward told me: "The employers are deliberately encouraging the Lump among building workers. When men go for a job they are told they can work self-employed without cards or tax.

'This fight has brought everything to a head, the question of Lump and trade Union recognition.

'What the union leaders don't understand is that this is a fight against Social Security cuts and attacks on the unions like the fines the Transport and General o Workers' Union.

•Yet some officials seem too embarassed to really lead workers to understand this. What's involved 1S the future of any trade union to go into a struggle.

'Nationalization would solution, by although it has been shelved our union. With the nationalization of land, it would work for the benefit of the public.

'But it has to socialized it is today old management tike nationalization and not controlOther pickets voiced their demand for a national strike.

Said Joseph Elias, UCATT steward at the Cubit's, Arch. way site: No one should be allowed to work in this strike. gether they're harder to break, aren't they?

'The only way I think this can be done is by a national strike. But at the moment some sites AN IMPRESSIVE demonstration of about 1,500 building workers marched through Birmingham yesterday to a rally at Digbeth Civil Hall.

UCATT regional secretary Ken Barlow and Communist Party member Peter Carter outlined plans to stop all building and civil engineering in the region.

All supplies and cement depots were to be stopped and Birmingham made a 'no go' area. Coach loads of pickets would leave after the meeting to enforce this policy.

Road-blocks would be set up if necessary to stop any cement entering Birmingham.

Barlow insisted that their demands could be met by regional action, despite cries from the floor for a national agreement.

Rank-and-file workers were unable to make a call for a national stoppage from the platform as the meeting ended with a song led by Peter Carter.

The regional stoppage will not be complete, however, as council builders were told to remain at work to finance those who were out.

2,000-strong marched through Manchester city centre yesterday to chants of Heath out.

The men, trom Bolton, StockBurnley and the greater Manchester area, went on to a meeting at the Haldsworth Hall, 'THIS IS the paper which tells the truth about our strike,' a docker involved in last week's lobby outside Transport House said.

He waved a copy of Workers Press in front of television cameras and said: Why don't you say what this paper says?

Why do you put lies over to the public?' This was but one of the endorsements which Workers Press received during the dockers' struggle over the past few months.

• We were the first newspaper chaired by Bert Smith of the Manchester action committee.

A resolution was carried unanimously supporting the call for a total stoppage of all building workers throughout the country.

Communist Party member Jack Henry speaking on behalf of the London action committee said he hoped that when the strike finished it would be successful-there would be an end to the Lump and malpractices on building sites.

If any changes were to be made, he said, it was in the hands of the rank-and-file: 'Never mind the executive committee.

sked: Why don't Jack Jones nd George Smith (T&GWU and UCATT leaders) stand up and say it's a national strike.

'I propose a joint shop stewards' committee like on the docks.' A union official replied that Jones had sent a message saying the strike would 'escalate become a national stoppage, fo Preston building workers will join other sections in Lancashire in a march through Bolton tomorrow.