YOU HAVE 'A DUTY TO WORK, SAY EMPLOYERS

The Port of Liverpool At ority are making a serious to take the lucrative Fiat import trade away from Pi ton. Last week it was repor that the Mersey Docks : and Harbour Company is in middle of negotiations with the French organization C Car line to win the Fiat imp trade for Liverpool 'on a F manent basis'.

The move has caused great deal of consternat ion among Preston dockers, » have seen their jobs decima ted in the past few years. The 1 OSS of the Fiat trade could ca use even more unemployment il town which can little affi ord it.

About a month ago Carline's car carrier 'Monza' was diverted to Liverpool's new Seaforth dock because of a lack of deep water at Preston at the time. Since then two other Carline ships have berthed at Liverpool.

Managing director of the Carline agents in Liverpool, Mr C. W. Harrison, said the firm was concerned at delays of two or three days at Preston.

However, he doubted whether Carline would use Liverpool permanently. 'Costing as well as berthing comes into this. Liverpool is more likely to be used as an escape valve when ships can't get into Preston."

A spokesman for the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company has insisted that Liverpool is going all out for the development of the economic and political crisis that what were once thought views of the extreme right now become the views of leaders of British industry.

Two weeks ago it was the Aims of Industry attacking the right to strike as 'morally indefensible'. Now Michael Clapham, deputy chairman of ICI and president of the Confederation of British Industry, has joined battle with an almost identical speech.

Aims of Industry, the rightwing group of businessmen who give most of their money to the Tories and fight like mad against nationalization, recently produced a pamphlet on the *Right to Work and the Right to Strike.

Increasingly worried about the prospects of an open confrontation with the organized working class, they wheeled out learned professor of moral philosophy, Harry Burrows Acton from Edinburgh University.

His job was to show, with the use of the best bourgeois concepts morality, which derive from the sky and alre presumably God-given, how workers were ruining the country with strikes.

Morally, according to Professor Acton, there is a duty to work, and no commitment to some better society of the future can absolve us from it'.

Of course, the other side of the 'duty to work' is the duty Professor Acton does not let us down on that. score.

First, he COHeS LO the astounding conclusion that strike is a collective cessation of work by members of a trade union or SOme more looselyorganized group'.

Quite correctly the moral philosopher says that if the employer can get other work during the dispute, the strike must fail.

If they are to be successful, the strikers must be able prevent anyone else from doing the work they are ceasing to do.' That is nothing new.

But what Acton says next coincides with the views of Michael Clapham.

In this way [by making the strike effective] they limit his employer] choice of workers to those who strike or are threatening to strike, and this means they establish a monopoly.' (My emphasis.)

He then concludes that on that basis, large-scale strikes *to make the government make the CHIDIOVEL give strikers' demands' MUSE 'conSETUTe an unacceptable drain upon the economic, and moral resources of the nation. It is ridiculous to claim there is any fundamental right to engage in such activities.

Last week Michael Clapham told the CBI Welsh Council that 'unfortunately, people as yet are only beginning to glimpse the abuses that may result from excessive monopoly power in the labour market — especially if is wielded as irresponsibly as over the past few years. (My emphasis.)

*The public in general have long been aware of the potential abuses of monopoly power over the supply of goods and services. Quite rightly, government efforts to curtail it have always been received with strong public support.' All this from a man who s deputy chairman of the fourth largest concern in Britain, ICI! This group has • near monopoly position ir nany helds, including chemials, paints and explosives ICI's turnover is a stagger ing £1,500m a year. Profits reaped from the combine's 190,000 workers amounted to E190m last year.

Most significantly of all, however, is the formation at IC no te first staff associations in industry which has registered under the Industrial Relations Act. Undoubtedly Clapham will approve of that.

Clapham, who the other week attacked the Tory government's feeble economic policies and demanded a drastic shift of resources from consumption to investment, called for a return to market forces, echoing in that sense the economic policies of Enoch Powell.

It is a weakness of our present society that market forces, the price mechanism and the profit motive, are so little understood. No other system of economic organization performs so well the fantastically difficult task of co-ordinating the efforts of the millions of individuals and firms that constitute a complex economy, , he said at Cardiff.

The monopoly of the labour market, so-called, by the unions and the competition of the product market' were an 'ideal recipe for inflation, Clapham added. "The disciplinary forces of the market had to be restored, Clapham's speech and the outburst from the Aims of Industry show that big business is coming to see that nothing short of an all-out offensive against the working class to destroy the trade unions will save their dying The monopolists, represented by men like Clapham, say they cannot work while the trade unions remain intact, defending the interests of the working class and still able-despite the passage of all the Tory laws-to use the strike weapon when necessary.

Capitalists throughout Britain now know that it is one thing to pass the laws and another thing to enforce them. That is the task for which they are now preparing. BUY A BOOK FOR XMAS LOT THON BAY Leon Trotsky 01838-0 UCRADS OF LEDN TROTSKY TROTSKY Six volumes of Trotsky's writings during £8.00 includes postage Please tick those you req Name Address..

Complete form and post to:

the huge IC consortium, whose speech warns (cessive monopoly power' in the labour market.

New Park Publications. 186a Clapham High Street. London SW4 7LIC CRITICAL OF HEATH The Heath government has more than the attacks of the working class to contend with. The sniping is now rampant in the ruling class itself.

Take this month's issue of The Director', the journal of the Institute of Directors.

The editorial is a sharp attack on the government's economic record. And it comes from a powerful quarter of the Tory Party.

Summarizing the economic position the editorial says: Inflation in the UK has been slipping out of control. The pound has been under attack. in a month's time Britain enters the EEC and must History of Russian Revolution -special gift pack of three volumes £1.70 includes postage uire. Amount enclosed shoulder the burden of the common agricultural policy. "The Director' offers two cheers' for the temporary state pay plan, but goes on:

•Many businessmen, nonetheless, believe not that the government has acted wrongly, but that it left action too late. The Prime Minister should have made his dramatic U-turn a long way back along the road. Inflation has been moving at such speed that even last month's far-reaching measures may do little to restrain it.

In its closing paragraph the journal sums up the sort of feeling which was expressed in the by-election at Sutton and Cheam: 'Business will show itself during the coming months a very critical partner of government."

Trotsky—a documentary Francis Wyndham and David King £1.65 includes postage