AUEWE LEADERS CALL

the country to action union.

A CALL to action was issued yesterday by the leaders of the 1.2 million strong Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers when they re. minded all members that it was policy to fight the anti-union laws-with strike action if necessary.

The message came in a circular to all the AUEW's 2,800 branches drawn up by the executive council at its meeting yesterday. It represents one more step towards a showdown with the Tory government.

The circular reproduces the union policy decided at the last national conference which urges the leadership to 'develop mass campaign at district and national level, including strike action if necessary, to defeat the Industrial Relations Act.' It attacks the right wing which argues that the £55,000 penalty arising out of the Goad case should be paid to the Industrial Relations Court.

This argument, it says, "ignores the most important principle of the trade union movement in general-and our own rule book in particular namely that inviolate right of branches, subject to the approval of executive council, to accept or reject applications for membership of the union'.

It warns against people spreading confusion in the ranks by persuading members to break the democratic policy of the union.

'Executive council are at one,' it states, 'to ensure the operation of our union's policy decisions, particularly in the field of retaining and encouraging free collective bargaining in all establishments where we have members involved.

'We do not know what further attempts will be made to financially cripple the union, but the executive council believes that our members will not stand idly by and allow unworthy individuals such . as Mr Goad-apparently supported by organizations and individuals who certainly have no sympathy with the trade union movement—to bring our organization to ruination.' It ends with an appeal to officials and members to take NEWS of action against the £55,000 fine on the engineers came in from Oxford, the Midlands, north London and Manchester yesterday.

The MANCHESTER Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions plan to call out 200,000 engineering workers next Wednesday and the OXFORD district committee of the AUEW is calling out its members on Monday. The strike will halt British-Leyland's complex at Cowley, Oxford.

In BIRMINGHAM shop 'steps they consider appropriate to defend the policy of the union and to maintain and develop the AUEW:

The statement is certain to be interpreted in all engineering centres as a call for strike action against the threat of destruction the unions face under the Tory laws.

YESTERDAY saw the campaign grow stronger with the decision of the Manchester district Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions, to call a one-day strike next Wednesday.

Manchester has probably the largest concentration of engineers in the country. Last spring they were in the vanguard of the fight over the industry-wide pay claim.

The resolution will be put to mass meetings of shop stewards in Salford and Stockport tonight and in Warrington on Thursday.

wards from British-Leyland's Longbridge works have asked the district committee to call a meeting of all shop stewards to decide on a campaign of action. Similar moves are under way in SHEFFIELD, COVENTRY and LIVERPOOL.

All engineers in the NORTH LONDON district were yesterday called out for a one-day strike against the £55,000 fine next Monday (See p 12).

Though a proposal for all-out indefinite action was defeated at a meeting of about 100 shop BUT at a CAV-Lucas shop stewards' meeting in Birmingham the right-wing got the upper hand and violated union policy.

Stewards from the -12 Lucas plants in the Birmingham area voted three to one against a call for a 24-hour strike.

Apart from helping to isolate the Sudbury CAV workers the right wingers violate principles of trade unionism.

Instead. of fighting for the rights outlined in the AUEW circular, they prefer to run to the Tories and deliver their organization to the corporate state under which no worker or union will have the right to take independent action.

These men line up with the extreme right of TUC, represented by Victor Feather, who on Monday made it clear he was ready to make his peace with the government if they made 'major changes' to the Industrial Relations Act.

stewards from the district, representatives from the 'Daily Express' and 'Sunday Times' branches made clear there was considerable support for it on Fleet Street.

CENTRAL London branch of the National Union of Journalists, representing 4,000 Fleet Street journalists yesterday condemned the $55,000 fine and expressed full action taken by any industrial Lakel the engineers to defend their trade union.

NECK

THE NEXT key move in the Lucas combine-which employs James Goad, the Sudbury engineer who took the AUEW to the NIRC-will come today.

Stewards from the Lucas group in the south east will be meeting at Sudbury to discuss a proposal for strike action.

Yesterday the AUEW unveiled Goad's record in the union. He has been expelled three times since 1963 for arrears, has written letters to newspapers hostile to trade unions and has worked while his fellow union members were on strike.

It is the principles of men like Goad the Tories and the NIRC want to establish in the trade union movement. Yet so far there has been complete silence from other union leaders over the battle the AUEW is facing.

Jack Jones the so-called leftwing leadew orkers Transport and General Workers® Union done nothing despite the fact that thousands of his members work alongside the engineers in industry. Jones and his executive were responsible for the historic retreat before the court when they collapsed in the face of a £50,000 fine.

ON FRIDAY the engineers will face the attempt by commissioners to seize funds or property if the fine is not paid. By then, however, many more workers may have come out on strike to defend their basic rights.

Workers everywhere must mobilize behind the engineers now. If £55,000 is taken from this union it will be a blow to the whole working class.

MONEY WORLED Wednesday December 13, 1972 Students out