Despite blatant discrimination in Loughborough hosiery mill strike Inquiry chief turns attack on striking Asians

met Minister prosident Engineers' strike a test of leadership The bankruptcy of protest THE BITTER FIGHT of the engineers against the £50,000 fine imposed by the National Industrial Relations Court has been an important test of leadership.

The executive of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers were obliged to stand firm on the union's policy of total non-co-operation with the Industrial Relations Act.

But their prevarication over the question of all out strike action did weaken the ranks and allowed the right-wing to make some gains in the early days of the dispute. Hence the original decision of Birmingham to ignore the call to action and the return to work at the Sudbury CAV plant.

The other movement which underwent a political trial was the Communist Party. Here a discernible weakening and swing to the right was noticeable. It was illustrated vividly when Kevin Halpin, leader of the Party's Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions raised his hand against a call at a London delegates' meeting which committed the AUEW leadership to national strike action in future battles over the Act.

This is a decisive shift to the right by Halpin, the man who said earlier this year at a Scottish Liaison Committee meeting: 'We must tell the Tories and th ose right wing trade union leaders that if this Act Following the publication yesterday of the government inquiry into their dispute, strike leaders met Harold Gibson, general secretary of the National Union of Hosiery and Knitwear Workers.

Gibson tried to persuade them to accept the findings of the report drawn up by former Labour Minister Kenneth Robinson and return to work.

But the inquiry report-which follows a two-day hearing in Nottingham last week-guarantees the strikers absolutely nothing and in fact whitewashes the company and most particularly the union for their roles in the strike.

Robinson-now personnel chief for the British Steel Corporation -declares that the 41 trainee, non-Asian knitters taken on during the strike should not be dismissed.

walk-out The Asian workers walked out for the third time on November 27 when they discovered the 41 workers had been recruited during their strike.

Union leaders have admitted they knew a great deal about the firm's recruitment, but did not tell the strikers. But the report fails to make this fact in any way clear.

Now Robinson recommends that the 41 job opportunities for trainee knitters' should 'be placed in a pool of vacancies. Then the 41 taken on during the strike and the Asian workers should compete for the vacancies!

The union leadership-which has all along refused to fight all the way for the rights of Asian workers, as l for makimits, are takes in handling the dispute'.

course, fact is not withdrawn we will stop the country.' ('Morning Star', June 21). Halpin in June did not shrink from the General Strike. But now he considers it impolitic to call on the engineers' leaders to launch national strike action if they are challenged once more by the NIRC!

The malaise was not just confined to Halpin. Another noticeable feature of the London stewards' meeting on Monday was the general gloom and despondency spread by Party members. They considered the creditable turn-out in London and the south east a 'poor response, to quote George Anthony, president of the north London district committee. He was quite rightly challenged over his pessimism from the floor.

One could in fact have been forgiven for assuming that Party members did not have their hearts in the struggle, especially since it was yet another reminder that class confrontation is inevitable and the Tories-despite pleas from the 'Morning Star'-just do not seem to be responding to pressure.

It is also noticeable that in factories where Stalinists have some influence on shop stewards' committees the campaign COMMENT BY STEPHEN JOHNS Some leadership refused to back the strike until literally forced to by an occupation of their headquarters, is not mentioned.

Robinson, a Labour bureaucrat, is now in the top management in a corporation which plans to sack tens of thousands of workers in the coming few years.

So it is not surprising that his most hostile remarks are reserved not for union bureaucrats who have studiously avoided leading any major strike for years, but for the strikers and their supporters.

'Misguided'

'In my view the Asian workers,' the report says, 'were misguided in failing to pursue their claim through the established procedures within the industry for settling disputes and in spurning the assistance of their union when it should have become clear to them that this assistance was being sincerely offered.' What is conveniently omitted is the fact pointed out by fact no procedure contained within the National Joint IndustSCAB THIS IS YOUR the Loughborough strikers Trial Council agreement ting a strike in motion.

And for years and years, Asian bar-loaders at the mills have found it impossible to be trained for highly-paid, skilled knitting jobs.

Few laughs Now Robinson talks touchingly about union 'assistance being sincerely offered That should cause a few laughs in Loughborough.

Strikers are accused of pursuing the atside leadership, naively.

, including the strikers' agreed spokesman, sociology student Benny Bunsee, are alleged to have worked for the rejection of return to work agreements presumably to keep the strike going for the joy of it. what approaches witch-hunting techniques, Robinson talks of the 'fringe elements' who 'attached themselves to strikers' and in the next breath of 'picketing which had at the outset been peaceful being 'intensified'.

Any striker could have Robinson that if picketing to mobilize the membership was a failure -Heathrow airport is an example.

One could contrast this with the Oxford demonstration centred on the Cowley car complex where stewards have consistently fought for the political policy of mobilizing the working class in industrial and political action to force the Tories to resign. This fight-which the Stalinists claim is way ahead of workers' thinking —produced one of the best actions in defence of the engineers. Most industries in Oxford came to a halt and hundreds of Transport and General Workers' Union members marched with the engineers demanding removal of the Tory government.

But perhaps the most bitter lesson of all came on the Clydeside. It was the Glasgow district committee of the AUEW that called off the one-day action on Monday, dodging behind the very policy that Halpin had rejected—a demand for national strike action!

This was a manoeuvre carried out behind leftist phrase-mongering Clydeside officials. A call for action is right, but this in no circumstances can be used as a means 1 • evade the primary responsibility to mob ilize the on their told suddenly became a little more violent it was because of the intervention of extreme right-wing elements at the factory gates. In the absence of leadership, openly racialist groups intervened to create confusion among white workers at the mills.

All the report can recommend is a new training agreement between the union and the company and training courses English for the Asian workers and a shake-up in management at the mill.

Unity plea The whole document is virtually a plea for unity between right-wing union leaders and a militant rank-and-file trying to find its voice.

What this strike has shown beyond all doubt is the need for a new principled leadership in the National Union of Hosiery and Knitwear Workers.

Only on the basis of construction of such leadership can the strikers make any gains out of their struggle and prepare for a real fight against the hosiery bosses and their backers in the Tory government. ranks for united action, no limited such as a one-day strike. AUEW leaders on the Clyde did just this.

Clydeside really illustrates the rotten end of reformist tactics. At one time the Stalinist-dominated Liaison Committee in Scotland could mobilize 500 stewards from all the major plants.

On at least two occasions they have called on the whole of Scotland to halt if any worker, union or trade unionist is penalized under the Act. On August 20 the Scottish Liaison Committee proposed specifically strike action if any union faced sequestration.

But now Clydeside is silent, and Scottish Liaison Committee appears incapable of meeting its promises. Stalinists, meanwhile, drift further their gloom and further to the right.

This is an indictment of protest politics —which in practice protect the bureaucrats who lead the unions and demoralize the rank and file.

The engineers have put up a heroic struggle against considerable odds. They have come out in their hundreds of thousands and shown this government the working class are stronger than ever. But many will return wiser men. The days of protesting against this government are over, the big political battles lie right

Thursday