SPANISH JAILED

On June 24, in the small town of Pozuelo, between Madrid and the Guadarrama mountain range, sun-bathing tourists were suddenly disturbed by the arrival of a van-load of Civil Guards.

The Guards had been tipped off-there was a clandestine meeting of the Workers' Commissions in the town. Within minutes, ten workers had been arrested.

The workers were fined 100,000 pesetas and 250,000 pesetas (£600 and £1,500) respectively and released on the same day.

On June 27, by order of the General Head of Security, they were imprisoned and within 24 hours a special tribunal ratified this imprisonment, claiming that these men were members of the National Committee of the Workers' Commissions.

They were described by the judge as 'habitual subversive agitators' who had 'stood out for a long time through intenSive activity as agitators, which represents more than a threat, a concrete reality against peaceful social harmony'.

The police, in fact, had no evidence against the workers, only their record of past militancy in struggle against Franco.

The men include supporters of the Spanish Communist Party whose record shows they have faithfully followed Party Porkers Commissions through elected positions in the fascist union.

Marcelino Camacho Abad was imprisoned, tried and camp from "1939 to 1943 after interned in concentration the Civil War. He escaped and reached Algeria. He returned to Spain in 1957. From 1967 to 1972 he has been fined twice, tried five times and had his positions in the state-run union taken away from him. An engineering worker for the Perkin's factory in Madrid, he has spent most of the last five years in prison.

Another of these militants, Eduardo Saboride Galan, has been arrested five times, fined twice, imprisoned for a year and deported-all in the last five years. He was removed president of the workers see. from his tion of the fascist union in Seville.

Now in the infamous Madrid prison Carabanchel, they have sent a letter via the Workers' Commissions appealing to workers in Spain democratic rights. ers Thes stconsen of these work. ened by the Spanish Stalinists liberal policies of looking forvard to a democratic Spain ir the democratic Common Mar ket. As the letter asks: How long can fascist forms exist in Spain which long ago Europe overcame?' However, 'democratic' Europe seems less real every day when the workers read regularly of Tory government policies British trade u nions and see that European capitalist governments are SO friendly towards Franco.

The other development nich sharpens the crisis in th Spanish Communist Party the continuous , presence • of east European delegations Madrid wining and dining with the architects of the fascist state which fills the cellars of Carabanchel with working-class militants.

Ơ'LEARY HEDGES ON COWBOY PORTS On Monday the so-called new era on the docks begins with the official abolition of the Temporary Unattached Register — hailed as one of the big reforms in the Jones - Aldington proposals that ended the recent strike.

The 1,650 men on the TUR were to be reallocated to the employers who would absorb the surplus and receive financial assistance as compensation.

In fact the move proved to be a fake. As militants forecast, the other provision of the report - the decision to increase the 'golden-handshake' dockers receive for leaving the naustry for good-has deall with he surplus and spared most employers any burden.

fact employers have benefited from their apparent generosity. response to the new severance payments has been SO that the surplus in the ports has been more than wiped out. By the end of last week 2,150 dockers had applied to leave the industry-500 more than on the TUR.

But despite the pious words about dockers not being couraged to end their productive lives and take severance, both union and employers were expecting this result.

employers, exodus from industry brings them nearer their longterm aim 50-per-cent reduction in the dock labour force. The 500 overlap is the first contribution towards banishing 4,000 surplus men the port bosses say they already carry and there will undoubtedly be more voluntary redundancies as more dockers pass the 55-year-old mark and qualify for the top severance The first fruits of JonesAldington, therefore demands one of the principal of the militant dockers- -that there should be NO further contraction in the indusot The second key aim employers has been to abolish the statutory safeguard dockers enjoy over jobs. By law no randum sent the Tory Minister John Peyton by Sir John Nicholson, head of Ocean Steam - one of Britain's biggest shipping lines.

This stated: 'For the Dock Labour Scheme the ultimate aim should be the substitution of normal industrial agreements and relations for the present statutory regulations of the industry (the circumstances of 1947 longer apply). This does not preclude work people's participation in the process which govern running dock aflairs, but such participation would be the consequence of agreement between the employers the union and would not be dependent on statute' The big shippers met, again in secret, and put these views to Jack Jones, general secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union, O'Leary, union's national docks secretary, almost two years ago to day in Liverpool's Adelphi Hotel.

meeting exposed exclusively by The idea was for the eventual end of the statutory basis of the National Dock Labour Scheme and the substitution of some agreed procedure controlled unions employers, supervised perhaps by a National Ports Council with enhanced powers.

The employers' leaders were able to report to their members that there was a measure of agreement. In a circular they Jones had warned there should be no change in the structure until phase two of the ill-fated Devlin scheme was established on the docks. employers accepted this advice.

Nicholson, president of the Employers' Association, told Peyton that Jones was not hostile to the employers' conception and would be prepared to discuss the idea of substitution the NPC for the National Dock Labour Board— the existing guardian of the scheme. and jetties.

The T&GWU proposals drawn up by O'Leary and submitted to the NPC, which is leading a government-backed inquiry into the issue, sound tough. But in fact they do not uphold this basic dockers' demand.

The document begins with this bald statement: 'The union appreciates that one of the main objectives of the inquiry will be to establish the facts as regards the impact of the growth of 'the smaller ports, and unregistered labour. The Council may wish to Quay should be left outside the scheme?

It is fine O'Leary claiming that they might pay rates and conditions similar to those at registered ports - which they do not-but they do not come under the statutory obligation of the National Dock Labour Scheme.

Significantly the union's detailed proposals on individual ports — produced as an appendix to the O'Leary memo —is still shrouded in secrecy.

Elsewhere O'Leary comes close to suggesting the type of revamped National Ports authority in each area which would effectively control employment. He writes on page 7: "Certainly, the port authority must be given effective control over the future investment, within the overall powers of the National Ports Council, to ensure that new investment is determined by the interests of the ports as a whole.' When it comes down to employers operating in the smaller ports, again there is no clear commitment to bringing them under the National Dock Labour Scheme. He talks of some firms employing registered dock labour 'by arrangeAbove: The ramshackle Gunness wharf on the river Trent. One of the score of tiny unregistered wharves and 'ports' eating into the trade of Hull, Goole and Grimsby on the Humber. Left: Aldington and Jones. One of their recommendations—the abolition of the temporary unattached register comes into operation on Monday; to the benefit of the port employers.

If this were the case, why not state bluntly that the unregistered ports should be registered forthwith and the coastlines and riversides in Britain be judged as part of the National Dock Labour registered dock employers or pay the levies connected with the NDLB scheme.

In fact this is no concession —it operates now at the Containerbase Federation's depots in Orset, London. The key fact is that the management at the base still has the unfettered right to fire a worker, even if he is a registered docker.

The other alternative is to employ men who have 'temporarily' left the register. The big question is—-suppose they want to get back.

notes tad Sports. more economic activity associated tional dock work is moving away from the shrinking registered areas.

Jones-Aldington and the union do nothing LO T combat this--on the contrary they encourage it. By co-operating with plans to reduce the number of registered dockers by more severance; by proposing a scheme that lets container depots the 'registration