Langston gives AUEW a 30-day ultimatum New court threat: Engineers keep up strikes over fines

dience. NEW CLASHES betwee lations Court loomed at for strikes today against costs.

In Coventry Joseph Langston, who is trying to break the closed shop at Chrysler UK's Ryton car factory, said he was giving the union a 30day ultimatum.

He wants the union to declare in writing what its policy on membership at Ryton is. If it fails to respond, he told a carefully-staged Press conference in the back garden of his home, he will go to the court.

Langston said he wants to be allowed to return to his normal job at his normal place of employment, but added: 1 am not prepared under any circumstances to become a member of a trade union.' He has written to the Ryton works committee asking to be allowed to return to work. The former car body welder, who has been suspended on £44.70 a week, has also asked the committee for a policy statement.

'It is now up to the officials of the union to make their position clear to me,' he said. 'If they do not I will proceed in the NIRC He added: 'If they make their position definitely clear I will take action accordingly. What I am asking for is a statement from the union in writing.' SHOP STEWARDS at Thorn Radio Valves and Tubes, Sunderland, have decided that an overtime ban against two nonunionists will continue.

The convenot, Barney McGorrigan, said: 'I'd like this to be the first firm to take on the NIRC:

The 1,700-strong workforce at the factory are demanding the sacking of Terence Canavan and Joseph Young, who left the Hull lorry strike called off TODAY'S 24 hour-strike of Hull lorry drivers has been called off after the intervention of union officials.

About 350 drivers took the decision to postpone action yesterday when Transport and General Workers' Union and United Road Transport Union officials told them that talks with employers would begin today.

This is a puzzling decision since the strikethe second in a series of one-day protests--was against a government freezing of a f10 wage increase agreed by employers in the city. The haulage firms can do nothing about the government order.

The lorry drivers have received support from docks shop stewards. They have instructed dockers not to handle any lorries at the porta measure which would block any attempts to break the strike with blackleg vehicles.

The dockers are also continuing their black on two Goole haulage firms, Williams and T. Meadows, who, they say, are using nonregistered dock labour to break down loads. the engine e weekend 1e €61,000 Apprentices join north-east action INDUSTRY throughout the north east will shut down today as an expected 47,000 workers strike in protest against the £61,000 in fines and costs taken from the engineering union in the Goad case.

All the major engineering plants seem certain to close and the Tyne and Wear shipyards will be badly hit as boilermakers and labourers join the engineers.

The "Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers has taken a tough line over the Engineering apprentices have been called out for the first time and stewards report a 100 per cent response from the youngsters.

One of the biggest engineering plants the Tyne, Reyrolle's at Hebburn, will be badly hit.

General and Municipal Workers' Union and the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers respectively.

After the stewards' meeting, the convenor insisted: 'We are asking that these two men be sacked. There is no alternative. It is quite impossible to have them back in the unions, let alone in the factory.

'We consider that this factory is a 100 per cent closed shop so we cannot allow them to be employed here any more.' The two men-like Langston they are both suspended on full ers' union and the National , while more than 50,000 wo already imposed the Machinists have voted to strike along with the engineers and they will put up a strong picket in a bid to close the plant.

At the Bushing Co next door the strike will be total with all sections of workers backing the engineers.

At the Middle Dock ship-repair yard, South Shields, engineers have passed resolution demanding a national strike to defeat the Industrial Relations Act. Boilermakers, too, have pledged their support. gineers» Donkin, Bill entest was not enough.

'Now is the time to force a show down between us and the government. The executive should take the decision for all out action.

'We want rid of the Industrial Relations Act —not one section, or Indu strial Re•kers in proposal, should be left intact.' Mr Donkin said many workers backed. the stand taken by the Sunderland engineers at Thorn Radio who are demanding sacking of two anti-trade unionists. 'Our Sunderland brothers are taking the right attitude. This action will bring things to a head.

We should be ready to back them all the way?

Tyneside's ultra-Tory newspapers will be closed for the day. They have been conducting a campaign against the strikers centered on the call to bring out the apprentices.

Bill Jobson, a General and Municipal Workers' Union member at Brigham and Cowan, has been featured widely in the Press complaining about the decision which affects his son - an apprentice engineer at Cowan's.

pay-have said they will take action in the NIRC if the firm sacks them or the union stops them from going back to work. WITH 17,000 others on Wearside, the Thorn workers will be on strike today against the fines already imposed on the AUEW.

Also on strike will be 30,000 engineers on Tyneside, where shipyards, several big factories and the local Tory Press will be hit.

Union members in Glamorgan, South Wales, will be out. The big industrial estate at Bridgend is likely to be severely affected.

Next week engineers on Merseyside are expected to stop for their second 24-hour protest against the fines.

WRITING IN the AUEW journal, which is published today, union chief Jim Conway says last year was one of disasters and that 1973 promises nothing better.

The Industrial Relations Act, he claims, has been 'stopped in its tracks by the concerted effort of working people'. But he warns that it has not been completely destroyed.

The Act, Conway goes on to suggest, is being 'used' by 'small reactionary employers, disaffected BY OUR INDUSTRIAL CORRESPONDENT DAVID MAUDE Jim Florence, engineers' shop steward at the plant, said he had been round and asked every apprentice if they would respond to the strike. Some were not union members, but all decided to join the union.

I think this lad is under a lot of pressure.

If he does not respond to the strike he will not be victimized. It is not his fault.' Other workers involved in the protest are questioning its limitations. Bill Connolly, an engineer at the Bushing Co, said he was ready to stand by his union leadership. 'But we must go beyond this. The TUC should be recalled and stop talking with the Tory government. They should prepare a General Strike. The TUC will not stand up and fight this issue.

individuals and cranks'.

What the AUEW secretary would like, it appears, is for industrial relations to be dealt with away from the emotional atmosphere of legal coercion and politically motivated courts'.

But he comes close to admitting that this search for a bolthole is futile and dangerous.

He forecasts that during 1973 he government will continue its attack upon working class people and their unions'.

Says Conway: 'Members should be aware that measures are being planned to make strikes almost impossible by inflicting hardships on strikers' families.

" pick similaris ashiery to lae to be changed in a way which will make picketing virtually useless.' JAMES GOAD, of Sudbury, Suffolk, whose claim to be a member of the AUEW has been upheld by the industrial court, is keeping quiet about his next He would not say if he would try to gain entry to the Sudbury branch meeting of the union on Friday.

If he goes and is excluded, he could take the AUEW to court again for further contempt.