RELYING ON UNIONS TO BACK RENT REBELLION BARNSLEY RENTS FIGHT BUILDS UP

AT 9 a.m. on Monday October 2, Barnsley Corporation rent collectors will fan out on their rounds of the town's 11,000 council houses.

At hundreds of homes on Barnsley's three sprawling estates instead of the usual greeting they will get an icy reception.

As the tiring week goes cers will know the extent rebellion against increases week levied under the Finance Act and they will counter moves.

The first step will be to send letters advizing all tenants refusing to pay the increase they are in arrears and warning them to pay up.

The Athersley Tenants' Association, with 700 members drawn from 9,000 homes on the estate, is by far the largest in Barnsley. On all three estates already 1,000 families are expected to pay no more than their normal rents on October Faced with accountability to Tory auditors, housing officials dare not allow such large sums of money to remain outstanding for any length of time. According to deputy town clerk Mr R. Dickson the first move is likely to be court orders against all those wilfully in arrears. If these were ignored the Labour council would be asked to consider putting in bailiffs.

SEPTEMBER FUND £422.19 STILL SOME WAY TO GO WE KNOW we can change the present position. Not a month has gone by where you, our readers, have ever let us down. This month we know that there is even more support for Workers Press. Sales continue to increase all over the country.

Our September Fund still needs £1,327.81 to complete the target. We are asking you all to make the biggest effort possible over this coming weekend to help us raise it. We know you will do your best. Post all do. nations immediately to:

September Appeal Fund 186a Clapham High Street London SW4 7UG on housing offiof the tenants' of up to fl a Tory Housing be considering Strike may continue on Monday Builders planning mass opposition to deal TORY Environment Minister, Peter Walker, has warned BIRMINGHAM city council of 'serious consequences' if they refuse to implement the Housing Finance Act.

In a letter to Councillor Stan Yapp, leader of the Labour-controlled council, Walker repeats his order that the city's council house rents must go up by 55p a week.

Leader of the 32-strong Labour group on the 40-member council Alderman Brian Varley left no doubt what the council's actions will be now that they have voted to implement the Act.

He told me at the lieve in the principles in a democracy we all to obey the law' Despite the fact that some of the Labour councillors vowed on August 16 they would go to jail rather than implement the Tory Act, in the crunch vote all but three raised their hands for implementation-the others abstained.

Said Ald Varley: It is now our duty to implement the law. Once you break down respect for the rule of law democracy is finished. *If we had not implemented, rents would have been handed over to Tory commissioners and the tenants would still have to pay the increases.' Committee yesterday de the capital on Monday to tinue the strike.

Others went to Transport House to see Les Kemp, Iransport and General Workers' Union national building officer, to tell him the two-year agreement should be thrown out in its entirety.

A mass meeting of 300 Camden, North London workers, decided without a vote to fight to continue the strike until the full claim was met immediately.

In a two-and-a-half hour meeting, speaker after speaker demanded the Union of Construction, Allied cians: Allied Trades and Techni.

sign.

'It's still £30 for 35 hours. We stay out,' Frank Westerman, T&GWU militant from the Gleason's, Essex Road site, told 'No one wants this bonus agreement and we're right against holding on until November 1974 before we can fight again. The cost-of-living is just going to soar.' John Howard, UCA!! steward on the same site described the terms of the deal as 'pathetic' 'Smith as chairman of the TUC general council talked about a shorter working week to help unemployment.

'Now he turns round and tells us there can be no reduction in hours. None of the lads want to go back on this basis. Town Hall: 'I beof democracy and have the obligation lobbied the London Action nanding a mass meeting in reject the pay deal and conWalker's letter to Birmingham came before the decision by GLASGOW's Labour-controlled city council-59 votes to 43—not to implement the Housing (Financial Provisions Scotland) Act.

Councillors in favour of non-implementation are now liable to a heavy surcharge, estimated at around £5,000 a month for 'It seems we have to get 40 branches organized to get a special meeting of our general council when we can demand their resignation.' Others in the meeting thought it no accident that the deal was signed the same day as the TUC was discussing wages' norms with the Tory government.

Camden direct building workers came out 650 strong in support of the claim, even though they have separate negotiations with local government employers.

Twice they have rejected attempts to get them back. Yesterday, they too condemned the settlement.

'There's no offer on hours and we don't want a two-year agreement, said T&GWU steward Billy Gerrard.

BIRMINGHAM building workers yesterday occupied the offices of the Midland Federation of Builders in protest at the deal.

Shop stewards have 'totally rejected' the new wage agreement. Their spokesman, Peter Carter, said:

'We decided unanimously to reject the agreement, and called for the resignation of the officers and general secretary of lost revenue, if the disobeyed.

Paisley tenants whose council has implemented the Act voted to take part in today's demonstration through Glasgow against the Rents Act which has been organized jointly by the Glasgow Trades Council, the city Labour Party, the Scottish Tenants' As sociation and the Glasgow AUEW district committee.

He added: "My sources say that all machinery was ready for this. We did not intend to hand over this town to Tories so that they could achieve by back door what they could not do at ballot box.

If any of my electors don't like what I'm doing they have the remedy next time. But let us remember that is was a considerable section of the working class who were foolish enough to put in this reactionary government in the first place.' Asked why he had not resigned rather than implement the Act Ald Varley said: I don't think it would have succeeded if individuals had stood out against the "The general public should have the intelligence to know what would happen if we had voted against the Act. We would have been personally responsible for finding the money and it would not only have affected us but our families as well.' Frank Westerman SIXTY men representing strike committees from the north west unanimously passed the resolution from Skelmersdale (see page 1l for full text).

They also decided to send a telegram to George Smith and the UCATT district organizer stating 'We demand recall of regional council to discuss employers' offer before any resumption of work.' The national builders' delegates conference will be held at 2 p.m. on Thursday, September 21, at the Central Labour Club, Wigan. All communication should be to Wigan 47112.

'There will be no return to work here on Monday and we are organizing a mass rally for Tuesday to decide on our next The mass meeting of Birmingham building workers yesterday called for the resignation of George Smith and all the UCATT national executive who either voted for or abstained on the acceptance of the offer.

At the beginning of this month 42 Labour councils were pledged to defy the Act and many individual Labour councillors have resigned.

Just five miles away from Barnsley, at Hoyland, housing committee chairman Cllr Dennis Eaden has quit after 33 years because, he said, 'no one can sit on two stools at once.' Hundreds of Labour voters feel they have little to lose and everything to gain from opposing the rent rises and with the present rate of inflation few believe they can afford to wait, democratically, for the next Labour government to repeal Housewife and Athersley tenant Mrs Molly Wadsworth told me bitterly: 'They will not get voted for at the next election.

'For the first time in the Barsnley area the working class are beginning to kick. I am anything but political, but they are asking us to pay an extra fl a week and we just can't afford it.' In fact it is not just another fl on the £3.5 rent that Mrs Wadsworth and thousands of other tenants are facing.

She said: 'My husband's on £22 a week flat and we won't get a rebate. But with rent, coke, gas and electricity we will be paying £7 a week just for the house. They say these rents will double in three years.

Tenants know the law will be used against them. They will elect street stewards who will mobilize the neighbourhood if evictions are attempted and court orders will be ignored.

But, said tenants' leader Brian Sefton: 'We know on our own it is an impossible fight. We know it needs all the working class to band together.

If the police move in because we are withholding the increases we will rely on the unions—in this area the NUM.

I think we all realize better than ever before that an alternative leadership is needed and this leadership will come out of a Council of Action.' The rents movement has united different groups of workers in Barnsley as nothing else has, but with 20,000 men working in the l2 local pits many council tenants are miners. Miner Chris Stones told me: 'The unions have got to be brought into this. If industry is brought to a complete stop and there is a General Strike all the way through, the Tories will be forced to resign.' Barnsley panel of the NUM has backed the setting up of a Council of Action and there are resolutions before the Trades Council from two branches of the T&GWU and the AUEW.

The TUC is committed to oppose the rent Act and there is a resolution before the national executive of the NUM calling for industrial action to support the tenants.

However NUM executive member and south Yorkshire compensation agent Arthur Scargill made it clear at a New Lodge Club meeting on Thursday that the brunt of the fight against the Act should be borne by the rank and file. claimed that 'massive action' by the labour movement in a 'tremendous protest' could force the Tory government to change its mind.

Communist 1 Party member Percy Riley called for as many marches and demonstrations as possible to show the Tories how the working class felt and he suggested the setting up of action committees to co-ordinate these activities.

But all the protests of the past two years, however militant, have left the Tory government in power to press on ruthlessly with the task of creating the conditions for capitalism to ride out the present slump.

The necessity of building Councils of Action to defend the tenants and the rights and living standards of all workers by mobilizing the whole class in a General Strike to force this government to resign is more urgent than ever.