Heath threatens the trade unions

Gasmen and civil servants defy pay law GASMEN and civil servants today enter full scale defiance of the Tory government's state pay laws.

Under the new laws, trade unions and sections of workers can be fined or even jailed for taking industrial action in support of higher wages.

There are now more than 3,000 gas workers on strike while another 7,000 have introduced unofficial overtime bans and works to rule.

Shop stewards representing 3,000 gas workers in the north decided at Newcastle at the weekend to ask the national executive of their unions to call a PRIME MINISTER Edward Heath has given the clearest warning yet to the trade union movement that 1973 is going to be different from last year-the government is not going to give way at all in its dealings with the working class.

His weekend speech to Conservatives stating that the government cannot afford to allow exceptions to the wage-cutting policies contained in the Phase Two wage control laws ought to remove any lingering illusions among trade union leaders.

There has been if the government hard as it was by 1 The Tory Press has begun a most scurrilous campaign against the gasmen. Yesterday's newspapers were full of scare stories about gas explosions.

The wretched liberals of Age Concern have also joined the bandwagon. Yesterday this body said that the lives of half a million old people will be put at risk from cold'.

In the dustmen's northern regional strike from Wednesday.

Mr Eric Easey, the northern district organızer, sald the men wanted the strike to last a fortnight and they speculation that was pushed as le miners' strike Iso demanded backing. during last year's wage restraint, it would give way as it did then and make a 'special case'.

dangerous.

The international trade and currency crisis is now so deep that the slightest hesitation by the Tories in carrying out their long-standing need to tame the trade union movement would cause a disastrous deterioration in Britain's interThe Tories now have their backs completely to the wall in their dealings with the working class. No more compromise is possible. Either the ruling class brings the labour movement firmly under dictatorial control, or Britain's capitalists lose out in the world trade and currency war. 'If we accepted strike the Tories said Britain would be swamped with garbage; in the powermen's strike they raised the spectre of patients dying in lung units in hospitals; in the miners' strike they said that thousands of pigs and battery hens would freeze to death.

All of these lies were completely rebutted by events.

In the north-west there are 1,400 men on strike while 170 are working to rule.

BY ROYSTON BULL OUR INDUSTRIAL CORRESPONDENT Such illusions are national financial standing.

want action back to the US.

periences of his 'captive'.

Close all their 'privileges' and intelligence officers.

North Vietnamese camps. which is now being. put forward, we would quickly find that policy gains inflation was desroyed,' Heath declare Admitting that Phase Two would be bound to cause cases of great hardship and unfairness, he added that nevertheless 'their existence can highly be no reason for trying to frustrate, by the use of industrial power', the government's policies.

This clear declaration that the Tories will not weaken climb down can only mean one thing tor the working class. Either it must defeat the government that is threatening it or it will have to live under dictatorial controls from the monied class.

All that lies ahead is confrontation, nothing else. And the outcome will be defeat or victory. For the trade union leaders at this late stage to still be talking about resuming negotiations with the government' is criminal betrayal in the face of an enemy ready to go.

The government armed with punitive legal powers to use on defence of their basic rights.

Scottish stewards all-out strike from next week.

• Three civil servants' unions representing some 272,000 members back will be hampered have called for national overtime ban starting today. reports which can be alleged to The unions-the Civil and Public Services As- will be outlawed. sociation, the Society of Civil Servants and the Customs and Excise Group-have also asked members and branches fight trade unionists | are putting to 'withdraw co-operation' which means a work to rule.

The civil servants' sanctions will culminate in a one-day national strike-the first ever in the civil service - on February 27.

POWs to be completely useless.

brainwashed mobilizing a by their defeated section by section. own side leadership are crucial.

WITH THE first batch of bent on selling out. American prisoners of war due for release by North Vietnam and the National Liberation Front today, the authorities are leaving nothing to chance.

Each returned prisoner has a ing to Tories and employers over ten-man team to look after his decades now makes them a every need. They will be rushed from the hand-over point to the threat to the working class. seclusion of a camp on the Philippines where they can be 'debriefed' before being shipped Each prisoner is to be given his own personal escort who has been thoroughly briefed about the family background and exabout Phase Two which never All the released men will sternly warned not to speak decide to do anything. the Press unless they want to prepare the transformation of class stole to build dep ive To prevent any embarrassing disclosures about what life under US bombardment in North Vietparty _ the Socialist Labour nam was really like, the prisoners are being completely segregated from the media and at the same time subjected to a relentless the labour movement. brainwashing from psychiatrists its democratic rights and its The prisoners' families have also been brought in on the act: made to sacrifice everything to they have been instructed not to the British capitalists' desperate encourage the prisoners to talk about the experiences in the way.

A TORY Minister has warned that the government will intervene with an Order in Council if British Road Services pays a £2.50 bonus being demanded by 1,300 Midlands lorry drivers.

Mr Robin Chichester Clark, ment of Employment, has issued the warning in a letter to BRS management and Mr Alan Law, the Transport and General Workers' Union's regional officer.

The two-week-old dispute has created havoc in the car and car components industry. There are now 15,000 Midlands car workers laid off at nine BritishLeyland factories.

The men are asking for the £2.50 bonus which is already paid private road hauliers and to men working for a BRS subsidiary.

But under the state pay laws, the payment of wage-or bonus —increases is outlawed. And unions or sections of workers who defy the laws can be fined or even jailed. trade unionists and any section In a speech at Oxford on of the working class which organ- Friday night, Mr Kenneth Cook, izes defiance of the Tories in the BRS managing director, said the transport union was trying Heath and his Cabinet are preparing to fine or imprison the head of a state-owned enteranyone who speaks out or takes prise, would openly oppose the action to defy their new and government's declared policy. arbitrary laws, whether by It is my considered opinion Simultaneously, the free report- striking, picketing or rent strikes. that Mr Alan Law and the T&GWU is fighting not just Miding of the working-class's fight ernment, Cook added.

Under the pay laws, Press 'incite' workers to resist them In the general reporting of the mounting opposition to the laws, the capitalist Press editors have already agreed to play down the In related fields, such as the Poulson case. which reveals the