Mr Fitt and Mr Craig

picket cold REPORTS. in Monday's. 'Evening Standard' that picketing at Midland Cold Storage, Hackney, had been called off were vigorously denied by dockers on duty at the depot yesterday.

on Monday, * bit late arriving Monday,' said one picket. 'But there has been no change of policy. As far as we are concerned we will be here for ever?

Press

THE LATEST crisis Northern Irelandcaused by the absence of revolutionary leadership and the growth of sectarian trends — has created havoc among Ulster politicians.

The Rev lan Paisley will hold an emergency meeting with Tory premier Heath tomorrow. He is worried about being outflanked on the right by Ulster Vanguard leader Craig Sit-in leaders 'astonished' by officials move THORNYCROFT engineering workers at Basingstoke, Hants, will this week again face attempts by trade union officials to call off their ten-week sit-in.

The Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers' executive council yesterday decided to send Bill John down to the factory on Thursday.

He will try and force through British-Leyland proposals made at York two weeks ago. These were decisively thrown out on two occasions last week by the occupiers, the second time after a 90-minute plea from John.

The Thornycroft men remained firm in their opposition to Leyland's hiving-off deal with the Eaton Corporation.

Leyland's guarantees were considered to be of little worth considering that Eaton's only have a three-year lease on the tactory.

Strike-committee member Tom Lewis said he was 'astonished' to hear that John would be bringing the same proposals down to Basingstoke again.

'It was a very decisive majority that turned them down at the last meeting. It's not as if it was a close vote, " he said.

TWO HUNDRED Hull Corporation workers are continuing their unofficial strike for a basic wage of f25 for labourers and £28 for craftsmen. The dispute is keeping Hull's bus fleet off the road.

At a meeting on Monday night officials of the Transport and General Workers' Union and the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers failed to get the men to agree to a return to work. THE 100,000 strong National Graphical Association has voted by a majority of 2,000 in national ballot not to de-register as a trade union under the Industrial Relations Act.

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Craig's declaration for a rightwing pogrom in the North has even caused panic within ranks of his own movement.

The reactionary Orange Unionsts, who have long oppressed ›oth Catholic and Protestant workers in Ulster, are terrified that. Craig's call to arms will disrupt the close relationship they have always held with the British Tories and every capitalist and landowner in the north.

But nowhere is the confusion and fear greater than in that most miserable and cowardly group of reformists-the Social Democratic and Labour Party.

Gerry Fitt, the SDLP's man in Westminster, is the best example of this. Fitt has always run from Fltt 'There's been no change since in the opposition of the membership here as far as I can tell, and I really can't see the proposals getting through on Thursday.' Leyland's proposals 'guarantee' three years' work at the factory, 'As you were' pay offer to steelmen CRAFT workers at the British Steel Corporation's Port Talbot plant are meeting today to consider a management pay offer almost identical to one rejected four weeks ago.

Then management offered a rise of £1.92 in return for national time conditions being worked. The workers rejected this and gave 28 days' notice of strike. That deadline falls due today.

Last Wednesday, the joint crafts' negotiating committee met the management after deciding without consulting their members to lift the strike notice.

The management made basically the same offer. The only difference was that they would accept a time average of 52 hours instead of the national time conditions average of 48 TORIES AND THE POWER MEN'S CLAIM walk over the working class without great class battles. It is these battles which are decisive.

Even though the Tories won the last election, they could not have imposed Industrial Relations Act, the 'fair' rents' Act and entry into the Common Market on the working class except through the collaboration of the Labour leaders.

And a few months ago when enormous working-class solidarity brought victory to the miners, the Tories were on the edge of collapse. They were saved by the great issues that face the Irish working class, particularly the Protestant section.

After the most recent violence in Belfast he is running taster. The direction is always towards the foulest kind of Tory reacIn his latest speech in the Republic of Ireland he made two very revealing admissions.

Firstly he abandoned the principles of Irish unity under the guise of attacking the 'Green' Tories in the south. Fitt said he would rather stay in the north than enter a Republic dominated by Fianna Fail-the Tory party of Eire.

Secondly he made overtures to Craig - undoubtedly Ireland's most reactionary and anti-working class politician.

Fitt said he would join with 'Bill' Craig and 'Ian' Paisley to resist any move towards unity. He ended with an appeal to build the Labour movement in the north.

So after years of devotion to middle-class campaign to improve Catholics' civil rights, Fitt and the SDLP offer a deal to the Protestants. Not of course the Protestant working class, but its most reactionary Tory oppressors.

They also use the dominance of Toryism in the south, which is largely the result of a failure of the Irish reformists to challenge the Tory nationalists in any way, as an excuse for abandoning the key demand for a united Just exactly with whom, one might ask, is the Irish labour movement to be built?

Presumably with 'Bill' Craig but they are conditional on such factors as the state of the market and economic trends.

Mr Lewis said the proj osals were 'useless without some kind of monitoring from • the union side'. hours. But the pay come to £1.92.

But the negotiating committee did not reimpose the strike notice and today its chairman, Tal Lloya, an official of the Engineers' Union, will attempt to get the men to accept this deal.

The only union body to reject the proposal is the AUEW shop stewards' committee.

But they have decided that the status quo shall operate, that the 28 days' strike notice be deferred and that the unions go back to negotiating a pay increase which does not include national time conditions.

This means that they have decided to drop the claim, put no opposition to the official trade union leadership and returned to the same conditions as they have been negotiating over the past six months.

Feather and his friends.

Now the Tory strategy is to cook up a 'voluntary' package deal with the TUC leaders, seek a repetition of 1970 with the power workers and frighten the middle class into line for an election.

The union leaders' retreats assist this Tory plan.

A. united labour movement, rallying round the power workers, could pull large sections of the middle class into opposition to the Tories.

In any case some middle-class groups, like the teachers, are themselves in conflict with the government over pay.

The working class is more and 'Ian' Paisley? These men are the defenders of capitalist property in the north. They uphold the system that has made the workers in Ulster the most exploited section of the working class in the British Isles.

The issue that Fitt and his band of reformists have always ignored is the Tory government Never once have they called for the removal of the Heath regime. On the contrary they have co-operated with its imperialist manoeuvres at every stage of the Ulster crisis.

By doing this they also ignore the Protestant working class.

There is no other basis for working-class unity in the north outside a campaign to bring down the Tory government together with workers in Britain. With the Unionists, the SDLP have conspired to keep this truth from Irish workers.

Now Fitt has taken one more step along the road to reaction.

He is trying to stop a sectarian war by relying on imperialism and appeasing Craig. In doing this he is only ensuring the inevitability of such a conflict and the permanent division of the Ulster working class. This in turn will strengthen Toryism What 1s the answer politics of the SDLP?

Not more Republican terrorism but the building of a revolutionary party throughout Ireland, north and south. This would unite the Irish working class with the British workers to smash Toryism, withdraw the troops and construct a united Socialist Republic of Ireland. powerful than the Tory government. It is held back only by its leaders.

The power workers' claim now poses the question: either united action to bring down the government or capitulation before the plans of big business.

This is the issue before today's meeting of the TUC General Council. It involves not just one wage claim but the whole question of wages, unemployment, rents, prices, trade union rights and the Common Market.

The working class is facing the gravest decision in a year of momentous struggle. A power workers' victory can mean the end of the Tory government.