Big builders' huge profits

TWO giant building companies who refused to concede the recent £30, 35hour week pay claim, turned in record profits yesterday.

John Laing announced pretax profits of £3,173,000 for the first six months of this year more than double those for the same period last year.

The directors forecast endof-year profits of more than £6m and yesterday paid an interim dividend of 4 per cent.

Meanwhile the Higgs and Hill building group also doubled profits to £798,000 for the first six months against €345,000. They expect a total profit of more than £1.3m and paid an interim dividend of 10 per cent. COLD STORAGE BY IAN LEADING ROYAL docks group shop stewa ong. at Hackney's Midland Cold Storage could be called off.

The news came only 24 hours after news that cold store owner Lord Edmund Vestey has twice written to Transport and General Workers' Union secretary Jack Jones asking whether the pickets were official or unofficial.

Although the August 16 decision of the national port shop stewards' committee to continue the recent dock strike was reversed at mass meetings of the men, London's Royal group dockers voted to continue blacking container and cold store operators not using registered labour. yesterday were unconcerned by They planned to take on one operator at a time, and a victory at Midland Cold Storage would be followed immediately by picketing another depot nearby.

After three months there is no sign that Lord Vestey intends to give way.

On the contrary, his letters to Jones would appear to be aimed at eliciting union acceptance of responsibility for the unofficial pickets, which are costing the company £3,000 a week in lost business.

If they succeed, the company hopes Jones will take steps to have the pickets called off.

If they fail, it is understood it may once again apply to the National Industrial Relations Court for a restraining order. (It was Midland's last action in the courts which led to the jailing of the Pentonville Five.)

LATENEWIS PROTESTOR John Patrick O'Toole pleaded not guilty at the Old Bailey yesterday to soliciting people to murder policemen, inciting people to commit arson to buildings in Whitehall and having an offensive weapon during an Irish political demonstration at Downing Street February 1971. He pleaded guilty to another charge of unlawful and riotous assembly with other people and assault of a police officer. The disturbances occurred when the demonstration tried to deliver 13 coffins to Downing Street to commemorate the Bloody Sunday killings in Derry.

- 42 ids in blackPickets on duty at the store either possibility.

If Vestey took legal action against the T&GWU, they said they would be happy to see Jones himself go to jail. As one picket put it: 'See if we go to Pentonville to get him out.' Both pickets and Royal group shop stewards cold-shouldered the idea that Jones was in a position to take disciplinary action against them in order to get the picketing called off.

They pointed out that even if they were suspended from the union they would work without cards and represent their men unofficially.

But behind the tough talk of leading stewards, members of the shop committee there is a firm belief that there might yet be circumstances in which the picketing could be called off.

Although there has been no contact between members of the WEATHER ENGLAND and Wales will have • mainly dry day. It will be nostly cloudy in the east but there will be some sunny periods, more especially in the west.

Scotland and Ireland will also be dry. There may be some mist or fog patches early, followed by sunny periods.

Temperatures will be near normal in most districts, but it will be rather cold near the east coast of England.

Outlook for Wednesday, and Thursday: Little general change.

Tronaph High Street. (TU), High Street, London, SW4 7UG. PRE-CAST GOODS PICKET committee and the T&GW it senior stewards feel that Jones could prove a basis exists for negotiations with Lord Vestey the store might be allowed to reopen.

In Hull, T&GWU shop steward Ernie Wardle commented on his union executive's decision to discipline dockers alleged to have been involved in incidents outside Transport House on August 16.

'As soon as 1 heard that Jack Jones was going to discipline the dockers for so-called violence at Transport House I went down to Bevin House [T&GWU headMANHOLES. Socialist Labour LECTURES THE THEO PRACTICE given by (SLL national Liverpool Historical materialism toda Tuesday September 26 AEU HOUSE Mount Pleasant Liverpool 1, 7.30 quarters in Hull! 'he said myself to be disciplined 'I said that I would not pay any fine, and that if they expelled me from the union, the men would see that I continued as an unofficial shop steward. If I was kicked off the dock not one single docker would go in to work.

*I also wanted to know if Jack Jones was going to set up committee to inquire into police violence at Neap House Wharf and into the whole way the strike was run.

'T&GWU full-time official George Andrews told me to forget it.' an offer of £1.75 a week on their present basic rates of £17.30 for unskilled men and £23.35 for craftsmen. The 1,200 employees at the Nottingham factory have voted to carry on the strike indefinitely, but the Chilwell workers plan to go back today.

PRODUCTION has been resumed at the London Brick Company's Ridgmont, Kempston and Hardwick yards in Bedfordshire.

About 2,000 workers were sent home last Thursday when forklift drivers and belt setters had refused to return to work after a nine-day strike over pay. At the height of the dispute more than 7,000 men at various plants were involved. FITTERS at Chartham, near Canterbury in Kent, sacked 14 weeks ago by concrete firm William Griffiths, picketing the gates yesterday. The firm dismissed them after they struck for a pay rise. Although the dispute is officially backed by the AUEW, pickets are severely critical of the union leaders' role in the strike. • For full story see