FLINCHED

F IGHTING docker Albert Timothy will lead no more unofficial strikes. This 65-year-old veteran of countless struggles died at his Beckton home on Monday. * The death of this thickset and quickwitted cockney leaves a big gap in the ranks of dockland’s unofficial A crane-driver in the Royal group and for a number of years a member of the main council of the National Amalgamated Stevedores and Dockers, “Timmo’ was one of the seven men arrested in 1951 under the emergency strike-breaking regulation 1305S.

During his trial Timothy caused a gust of laughter to sweep round the Old Bailey when he addressed the judge and court as ‘brother chairman and brothers’.

WHY HE LEFT. A member of the Communist Party for a year, Albert Timothy left its ranks because of its opposition to the entry of the northern dockers into the NASD.

Like Wally Jones, a close friend of his who was killed on the dock two months ago, Timothy could proudly claim that he had never scabbed in a strike. His death will be felt not only in London but also in the provincial ports, where he was well known as a leader in the Canadian seamen’s strike and the 1954 overtime strike.

He leaves a wife and eleven children and stepchildren, and The Newsletter extends heartfelt sympathy to his family in their loss.

things? For that is the only way you will get them.’

In some areas, as in Salford, shop stewards have already come together to organize a fampaign.

Campaign committees linking factories A flood of decisions should go from factory meetings and branches urging the executive to implement the national committee decisions.

But without waiting to see whether the executive moves or not, campaign committees of shop stewards, linking factories on an area basis, could begin to campaign at once.

Those who still bemoan the ‘apathy of the workers’ should ask themselves: ‘Were the 4,000 workers at Handley Page apathetic? Or the Harland and Wolff workers who stuck it out for fifteen weeks without strike pay and repeatedly refused

to go back until they finally won?’

Are these workers so different from the rest of the three million engineers? The ‘apathy’ is only at the top—and ‘apathy is not the exact word for it, either.

MILITANT

———.

But what really happened was this:

Thirteen men had their union cards taken away from them, which in a closed shop industry means driving them out completely.

Nine others were fined £5, to be paid before they started