BOILERMAKERS CALL TORY BLUFF

BY DAVID MAUDE Our Industrial Correspondent THE 1,200 BOILERMAKERS at Govan Shipbuilders, have decisively pushed back the plans of the Tory government, the union leaders and the Stalinist-led shipyard stewards' co-ordinating the upper Clyde.

This became clear yesterday when company chairman Lord Strathalmond, oil tycoon and friend of Industry Minister John Davies, was forced to announce that the operating date of the government-backed firm is to be put back.

After meeting representatives of the Boilermakers' Society, whose members have stood out against a procedure agreement which would allow the company to start, Strathalmond told press'I am letting the liquidator Mr Robert Smith know that Monday is too tight a date for us to start operating. It will be delayed a little bit. We should be able to start operating no later than a few days after September il' While Strathalmond and the union men with whom he had been meeting summoned all the geniality they could muster in making their various statements, the boilermakers' stance against the agreement since last Thursday had clearly taken its toll.

It is the first time in the entire 15 months since jobs at Upper Clyde Shipbuilders first came under threat that the naked power of the shipyard workers has been brought to bear against their employers.

But if the delay is a setback for Strathalmond and the Tories, it is a humiliating defeat for the Stalinists who foisted the disastrous 'work-in' policy on the yards and who have already presided over the loss of 2,000 jobs.

Speaking from Brighton, where he has been in talks with Boilermakers' Society president Dan McGarvey, Stalinist stewards' leader James Reid has hit back spitefully against the boilermakers.

Yesterday's 'Morning Star' approvingly quoted Reid's statement that the Govan men had brought 'the rat race' into trade unionism.

This is not only a slur on the boilermakers. It ignores the cast-iron case they have put forward for a pay rise to bring them in line with the £1 an hour being paid by Marathon Manufacturing at Reid's own Clydebank yard. The backdatink shane made sea to so him the want packeatne increase The time signing of the deal by the other unions September 1-surely a reasonable enough demand.

Today the boilermakers will face renewed pressure from their union leaders to sign.

James Murray, Scottish executive officer union, said after yesterday's meeting that a document had been jointly discussed with Govan Shipbuilders.

He said: 'In our view it will require to have the very serious consideration of our members and consequently a mass meeting will be arranged as quickly as possible.' (See story this page.)

But what is involved at Govan is far more than a few shillings pay.

The Govan Shipbuilders' deal gives no cast-iron guarantee of jobs, almost carbon-copies the no-strike agreement signed by Reid at Marathon and may mean an earnings ceiling.

If the boilermakers have been forced to wage a sectional struggle to raise these issues, the fault lies entirely with the union leaders and the Stalinists.

In the meantime their ultimatum to Strathalmond is clear: pay up or you won't lay your hands on a penny of the £35m the Tories are prepared to pay for the break-up of UCS. RD Architect misses first flight for US AMERICAN Embassy officials in London were yesterday trying to return to the United States a Taiwanese architect has been extradited Sweden.

At one stage he was booked on to the 3 p.m. Pan-Am flight to New York but never checked in by departure time and the plane flew off without him.

Tzu-Tsai Cheng arrived at Heathrow airport on Monday night unconsciøus on a BEA Alight from Copenhagen. He was CHRYSLER carworkers and miners from Scotland joined trade unionists from Kent and London in lobbying the TUC yesterday. (See report p.3.)

CONFEDERATED COMMITTEE ACTION TALMS LOUDER THiN Go Ping BY PHILIP accompanied by York detectives.

Cheng had earlier left Stockholm following an extradition agreem ent between the US and Swedish governments.

It is alleged that Cheng fled the USA after being convicted of a conspiracy to kill the son of the Chinese nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek.

The incident with Chiang Ching-quo, who is now Prime Minister of Taiwan, took place when he visited New York in 1970.

The Swedish Labour government, which is mainained in office by comnunist Party MPs' votes, had granted the US government's demand for Cheng's extradition and refused him political asylum.

About 100 demonstrators clashed with police at Stockholm airport on Monday morning when the 35-year-old Cheng--who denies the conspiracy -was taken aboard a PanAmerican airliner bound for New York.

He was only semionsciouș at the time and on hunger trike for over a week while his wife and friends fought the extradition order.