Big dollar selling on Frankfurt exchange Germans battle to defend the mark

Stalinists want compromise on Italian claims NEARLY 25,000 Fiat workers halted Turin car plants yesterday in the struggle for the renewal of their wage contract.

The Communist Party leadership of engineering workers is calling for a mass demonstration in Rome on Friday and later three-hour General Strike as part of their pressure campaign on the engineering employers.

Negotiations have been proceeding since October.

The main difficulty is the workers' resistance to the latest 160,000-lira-a-month offer and accompanying productivity measures.

La Malfa, the employers' representative, is demanding more flexible shift working and rigid controls over 'absenteeism'.

He welcomed some of the proposals from CGIL union leader, Lama, who said that the question of the better use of plant, the rationalization of holidays and higher productivity could provide 'the terrain for a possible compromise. Durban strikes spread:

Police standing by About out of council's offer.

National Pretoria stoppage fluences. THE WEST GERMAN government yesterday instructed the Bundesbank to intervene on the Frankfurt foreign exchange market to support the rate of 3.15 marks to the dollar.

The instruction came as more dollars flooded into West Germany despite tight currency controls imposed on Saturday in a determined effort to keep them out and prevent a revaluation of the mark.

After only an hour's trading yesterday morning the bank bought in an estimated $1,000mequivalent to the amount it bought on Thursday and Friday to hold the mark at its existing parity.

In Bonn, social-democratic chancellor Willy Brandt held a crisis meeting with Finance Economic Helmut Schmidt and Economic Minister Hans Friderichs. A government spokesman said they were determined to defend the mark parity.

In Switzerland, the dollar fell two centimes against the Swiss franc as soon as the foreign exchange opened in Zurich yesterday. And there was a similar fall on the Paris market. In Brussels, the dollar was being quoted at its floor level and the central bank was forced to intervene.

In London the pound floated smartly upward, reaching a parity of $2.3895, 90 points up.on Monday's closing: price. Gold was; also in DURBAN city in South Africa was crippled yesterday by a total stoppage of black municipal workers, who have joined 20,000 workers in private industry on strike for higher wages.

4,000 municipal yesterday rejected hand the city 15 per cent pay At present their wages average about 13 rands (£6.50) a week. The strikers want 10 rands (£5) a week more.

striké spread as ist Ministers in attributed the to outside inThe need to remain competitive in the Common Market was the employers' reason for rejecting the unions' demand for a 38hour week, The employers' 160,000 lira offer would represent a 12-per-cent increase.

The Italian Communist Party and its trade union leaders have not repudiated this policy of economic nationalism.

They are pursuing a policy of compromise.

The Stalinist daily, •L'Unita' urge he Around the woriid FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT Police carrying batons and tear gas stood by as army helicopters circled the city engineer's department's labour office where strikers chanted and waved sticks.

City engineer Cecil Hands told them their refusal to go back to work was illegal and appealed to them to put their demands to the council through the central committee for Bantu (African) Liaison.

They invaded the offices of the city's Bantu (African) administration and called out all the black : workers in the building. The acting Town Clerk, E. J. Goodwin, said essential services were being kept going by white staff.

Strikers also invaded the greens of the local golf course and drove African and Indian workers-and Andreotti government to help small industry and step up state participation in industry.

And it is all on behalf of the strengthening of Italian capitalist democracy.

The dead weight of Stalinism is heaviest in the struggle of engineering They are held back when the fascists are moving forward with greater confidence and with the support of the same employers with whom the Stalinists seek a compromise. heavy demand. The price rose $1.30 to $68.90 on the London market yesterday morning. And at continental centres there was heavy demand for gold coins.

The renewed eruption of dollar selling on the international money markets demonstrated the impotence of the German government against the might of the Euro-dollar market. In fact, it is beyond the powers of any. European government to control the $70,000m outside the US and no longer convertible into gold.

In addition to the movement of dollars into Germany, the Brandt government is facing direct demands for mark revaluation from the US administration. George Schultz, Nixon's Treasury Secretary, made an unprecedented direct request for revaluation on Saturday. His intervention undoubtedly provoked further pressure on the mark.

Not only would another mark revaluation worsen the competitive position of West German industry, it would also disrupt currency relations within the Common Market, which have already been upset by the sterling float and the weakness of the Italian lira.

It would be a mortal blow to the plans for establishment of a Common Monetary Union, the first stage of which is due to start, appropriately enough, on April Fool's Day. The last such scheme (dubbed 'the snake in the tunnel') collapsed after six weeks when Britain floated sterling.

white golfers-into the clubhouse. The non-white workers were later sent home.

The situation is extremely bur also in Pretoria, cape Durban Town, East London, Pietermaritzburg and other cities now affected by the strike movement.

Sir de Villiers Graaff, leader of the parliamentary opposition, said in a debate on the situation that labour unrest among blacks was a greater threat to the whites' privileged position than terrorism on the borders.

He was assured by Marais Viljoen, the Minister of Labour, that the government was not prepared to experiment 'in this reckless way with the future South Africa' by allowing trade union rights to the black majority.

Fascists of the 'National Vanguard' group have blown up the headquarters of the Socialist Party federation in Brescia.

The attack was led by Alessandro d'Intimo (20), a Milan student and regional head of the fascist group.

In November 1972 d'Intimo was arrested for his part in an attempt to murder_left-wing students at the Cattanee Institute in Milan.

He was quickly released because of 'lack of evidence' against him.

The monetary union scheme is an attempt to construct a European currency bloc in opposition to the dollar. The American government is determined to nip any such plan in the bud, and the easiest way is to force Germany to revalue.

Behind the German resistance to US pressure is the anti-US position of the French government, which is adamantly opposed to any scheme which involves European capitalism paying off America's huge $6,000m balance-of-payments deficit. * The crisis ripping through the money markets makes the British Tories' efforts at conciliation between the embattled parties look puny and ineffectual.

In Brussels on Monday, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, addressing the EEC Foreign Ministers' meeting, urged his colleagues to avoid upsetting the US over trade questions.

The Common Market, he said, must avoid aggravating protectionist Ten is an hensibe of Comes. elements Conger. point. Nixon has already made it clear that the Congress will be more of a cipher than ever during his second term.

It is Nixon who is the leading 'protectionist element' in the United States and Home's style of conciliation and compromise will serve only to increase his appetite for further concessions from Europe. The situation graphically demonstrates the subordinate position of European capitalism and its inability to combat the US.