The Newsletter, vol. 7 no. 329

Port Talbot, Wednesday AS the fight continues in Port Talbot, it becomes more and more clear that, for the Steel Company of Wales management at least, there is much more at stake than the pay rise of the craftsmen.

The reorganisation of the plant which the management hope to steamroller through will effect not just the jobs of craftsmen's mates but hundreds of the craftsmen themselves.

Already installed in the works is a new Continuous Casting Plant, built by the British Iron and Steel Research Department.

It is not yet in operation. The management say it is still having "teething troubles. Perhaps the teeth they speak of are the unions in the SCOW, for the use of this new plant would involve a major shake-up in the works and eliminate from 600 to 1,000 jobs.

No longer required At present when the steel is tapped out of the furnaces it is "teemed', that is, it is swung in a large ladle from the furnaces to where it is poured into moulds for cooling. The moulds are transported to another shop where the steel is stripped from them.

The ingots are cut into slabs, before passing on to be made into sheets.

The Continuous Casting Plant will eliminate all processes between the tapping from the furnace and the slabbing.

Those now working in teeming, transporting, stripping and slabbing will no longer be required.

In the mind These thoughts are obviously in the mind of Mr. W. F. Cartwright, managing director of SCOW. He is fond of entertaining shop stewards during joint meetings with glowing descriptions of a Pittsburg, USA, steel firm which has the same production as SCOW but employs 8,000 fewer workers.

These prospects are so attractive to Mr. Cartwright that he has sent Mr. Gerald Dennis, chief personnel officer of SCOW, by Peter Arnold to the USA for several months to study their methods. The presence of the Continuous Casting Plant shows that Mr. Cartwright is serious in his desire to emulate the American firm.

The importance of this dispute to the employers as a whole is shown by the government's intervention and the meetings with the Minister of Labour.

Seriously consider

Talk of agreement on a 'national level' shows how seriously the employers consider the dispute. The steel barons themselves forced the management of SCOW out of their federation ten years ago, as the less efficient firms were afraid that SCOW would accept wage rises which would drive them out of business.

This change of policy shows how the employing class as a whole is organising for a showdown with the working class nationally.

The government are not the impartial witnesses to the affair that the press make out, for it is their ministry which is refusing to pay unemployment money to the non-AEU craftsmen. The ministry argue that these men are on strike, but this is nonsense.

Locked-out

Only AEU members are on strike. All the other unions are locked out.

In fact, all the members of at least one union, the ETU, who are now refused unemployment money, received telegrams from the company on December 28 saying: 'Do not report for work until further notice'.

Here is proof that the order not to work came from the management. The role of the ministry can only be seen as that of putting pressure on the men from yet another quarter.

The manner in which the state is backing up the employers shows just how 'impartial' any arbitration would be.

The ETU held a large demonstration last Friday against the ministry's decision. About 800 turned out with banners saying 'Locked out but not Knocked out' and 'Give us our dole'.

The lesson of this lock-out becomes clearer every day. hose members of BISAKTA, the TGWU and the other non-craft unions who see the fight as none of their concern, except insofar as it means a loss of wages during the dispute, are being dangerously short-sighted.

The management's demand for the right to reorganise and sack the craftsmen's mates is meant simply to establish a precedent and to help divide the unions.

All threatened Today it is the mates who are threatened (and it should be remembered that AEU men's mates are members of BISAKTA), but if the management win now, they will turn on all the other unions in the months to come.

BISAKTA men and furnacemen will be involved in the redundancy threatened by the Continuous Casting Plant and members of all unions will be affected by the speed-up which is just beginning.

Must divide

'For the dictatorship of the proletariat' reads the banner at the head of a mass demonstration by the German Communist Party. But a few short months later the entire working class was sufferGermany, winter, 1933.

Six million unemployed. Street fights between workers and Nazis.

Desperate problems facing ruling class and no apparent prospect of forming a stable government.

Massive votes still clocked up by Social Democrats and Communists.

Berlin, January 1933.

Incessant bargaining and manoeuvres between Hitler and the right-wing politicians of the old parties.

Consultations with representatives of employers, many of whom now backing Nazis to the hilt, and talks with army chiefs.

January 30, 1933.

Hindenburg summons Hitler, whose party had only 37 per ent of the votes at the previous des Proletorias ing the dictatorship of the Nazis. working class by the tactic dictated to the German Communists from Moscow. In 1932, for example, they were able to carry a large part of the working-class electorate into support for Hindenburg's. presidential candidature, that is, for the man who was to pass over the keys of power to the Nazis.

But however far it went in support of bourgeois institutions, the Social Democratic Party remained a working class party. Nazism set out to destroy all independent organisations of the working class on behalf of finance capital.

UNITED FRONT

Trotsky pointed out years before 1933 that, despite the rottenness of the Social Democratic leadership and their unwillingness to fight, the correct January 18, 1964964 Hitler: smashed labour movement questioned the wisdom of the Party's tactics in the period 1930-33 found themselves in prison camps or before the executioner.

Only the yes-men were left to fly into East Germany after the victories of the Red Army in 1945. But the once proud German Communist Party could

WEEKLY JOURNAL OF THE SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE 7, No. Saturday, January

Fourpence

In order to impose these new conditions the management must divide the unions and deny them the right to fight for their members.

Every worker at Port Talbot must understand the company's motives and plans before it is too late and stand by the AEU men despite all the provocation and pressure which is being brought to bear by the management, the government and the TUC.

IN THIS WEEK'S ISSU When Hitler came to powe Wilson's ominous move page Zanzibar and Panama page Denby strikers turn down ' back' plan; busmen's champion expelled page Boyd, the Executive Council member of the Amalgamated Engineering Union, knows what he is talking about when he speaks of 'a fight to a finish' with the Steel Company of Wales.

There are hints in some quarters that the right-wing leaders of the AEU are utilising this dispute as an electionwinning issue. Amongst others, Sir William Carron comes up for re-election shortly as the union's president. This might well account for the most unusual militancy coming from Sir Bill and his buddies.

Whilst this may, or may not, be the case, it would be extremely dangerous to underestimate the Steel Company of Wales, who have behind them all the great monopoly steel masters. They know that a Labour government is pledged to re-nationalize the steel industry and their tough line is designed as a warning to Harold Wilson and a future Labour cabinet.

COMPETITIVE

The strike has, therefore, very important political implications.

The extremely competitive role of steel in the world's markets is a vital factor to take into account.

In his chairman's address this week, Sir Julian Pode of the Steel Company of Wales remarked that a year ago he had ended his statement on a note of restrained optimism. But since then, he says, changes in the trading situation have tended to reduce the profitability of the company.

Principal changes include the ending of the famine of flatrolled steel, of which there is now a world surplus, particularly in Europe. This has The big day draws near TREMENDOUS interest has been aroused in the labour movement by our announcement that The Newsletter will appear from February 7 twice its present size.

The paper is now being produced on one of the most modern presses available. Readers will appreciate its capabilities when the enlarged paper appears in two colours, but still at the same price of 4d.

As the clashes on the industrial field begin to hot up and the date of the general election draws near, The Newsletter will need to pay more attention to all the struggles of the working class.

The extra space will enable Carron: election coming caused a dramatic' fall in export prices, and the company, as an exporter, is heavily involved.

Had export prices been maintained, Sir Julian Pode says, the trading surplus before depreciation would have shown a satisfactory increase.

Here is one very good reason why the steel kings will not have a Labour government meddling in their business. They have, as well, too much capital investment tied up in new plant to allow their industry to be placed at the mercy of the state planners, even if compensation payments are generous.

No matter what Sir William Carron, Governor of the Bank of England, which has very considerable interests in the SCOW, might be thinking, the shutdown at Port Talbot is a very real one for his members. To win will require the full mobilisation of all the trade unions engaged in the steel industry.

It needs immediately …a statement on policy for the steel industry by Mr. Harold Wilson and a pledge that if Labour wins the election it will settle accounts with the steel masters once and for all.

The claim of the AEU craftsmen at Port Talbot is a just one and should win the full support of the whole trade union movement.

us to publish a much fuller round-up of the important news which most other newspapers, despite their considerable resources, prefer to omit We plan, too, to publish regular reports from our correspondents round the world so that we can more effectively combat the lies and hysteria of the "popular' press as the masses in the colonial countries struggle against imperialism.

The new paper will be an exciting and memorable venture in socialist journalism. The response to our appeals has been most heartening, but we again ask all our readers and supporters to rush donations to us to ensure the paper gets off on a firm financial footing.

election, and asks him to form a government as Chancellon of the Reich.

THUS, without strikins a . blow, the leader of the German fascists was vested with the full legal powers of the capitalist state.

In the next few months, with the support of the ruling class and the great mass of the middle class, he proceeded to smash the working-class organisations, killing or imprisoning many of its leaders.

Many books of all kinds which opposed Nazi racialism and nationalism were taken out of' the libraries and burned. The regimentation of German youth began and the whole propaganda apparatus was turned over to Goebbels.

EXTERMINATION

Persecution of the Jews began, prelude to the wholesale extermination of eight million European Jews which was to be carried out ten years later.

Watched benignly by many of the politicians of Western Europe, Hitler began to turn the German economy into an instrument of total war. Hitler had crushed socialism at home; many hoped that he would then go on to crush it in Russia and throughout Europe.

Most of all the events in Germany in January 1933 and the following months, signalled the defeat of the German working class, the most advanced and best organised working class movement in Europe.

In 1932 the two working class parties had 221 seats in the Reichstag against 196 for the Nazis; the latter had actually lost seats between the elections of July and those of November.

How had Hitler been able to Read Trotsky nany: Key to the national Situation, Marxist on Germany ...

Publications Ltd., 186a Clapham High St., London, pamphlets vital for an of the turbulent 30s.

Available from:

smash what mighty force?

An easy answer is to say that it was because the class was disunited. In this way the Social Democrats have an alibi by blaming the defeat on to the Communists and they in turn can blame the Social Democrats.

What were the facts? Who bears the major responsibility for the defeat of the German workers?

First of all, from the time of the downfall of the Kaiser in November 1918, the Social Democrats had been a main force in opposing revolution in Germany. They stood for the 'democratic', capitalist republic and social-democratic leaders co-operated with the catholic centre, the bourgeois liberals and the most reactionary elements in the army for this purpose.

'SOCIAL FASCISTS'

The Weimar republic could not have survived if the Social Democrats had withdrawn their support from it.

The Communist Party denounced the Social Democrats as 'social fascists'. According The Only Roac Only Germany, I/6 nany, inderstanding to Stalin the Nazis and the Social Democrats were 'not antipodes but twins'.

On this basis the Communist Party was instructed to fight the Social Democratic Party, which meant, in practice, its working class supporters, as well as the opportunist leaders. At times the CP made tactical alliances with the Nazis for this purpose, though not negotiated alliances, it is true.

HELPED BY MOSCOW The Social Democratic leaders ere immeasurably assisted in taining their hold on the OMINOUS MOVE BY WILSON FOR SECRET TALKS asked for a secret meeting with the Tory prime minister in order to take 'defence' out of party politics.

His request is made at a time when the British government is hard put to defend its imperialist interests.

From Malaysia to Aden, to Cyprus, in Europe, Asia and Africa its forces are stretched to a 'thin, red line' CRISIS The War Office expects 1964 to be a year of crisis, said 'Peterborough' in last Saturday's 'Daily Telegraph'. It is no accident that Wilson chooses such a time to ask for private talks with the Tories.

It is a natural tendency for Labour leaders who are nationalists first and socialists a poor second to rally round the flag when imperialism is in difficulties.

Gaitskell first supported path for the Communists was to offer at every opportunity a united front against the common danger.

Successful resistance by the working class would have permitted the Communists to strengthen their position and extend their influence over larger sections of the class, ready to move over to the offensive.

COMINTERN FINISHED The insane policy foisted on the German Communists by Stalin made this impossible. Trotsky's supporters were too weak to deflect the German CP from its course.

The disaster of the German working class in 1933 was decisive for the whole of Europe; it was from the role of Stalinism in this disaster that Trotsky drew the conclusion that the Third International was finished and that it was necessary to begin constructing the Fourth.

Few at the time gauged Stalin's responsibility for the coming to power of Hitler. The prestige of the Russian Revolution, as well as the devotion of the communist workers themselves, covered Stalin's crimes.

Those German communist leaders who, in exile in Moscow, BILL the Tory attack on Suez until the reaction of Labour's rank and file pulled him out of Eden's arms.

Similarly ignoring the party members, Wilson is anxious for Tory-Labour unity when capitalism is in extreme difficulties.

The Imperial General Staff have far too few British workers in their armed forces to protect their interests in all the many places where they face, or will shortly face, trouble. Service advisers and some MPs are pressing for return to conscription.

Tory denials that they plan to bring back the call-up are sheer humbug. But deny it they must with an election to fight.

Wilson, with a probable Labour government only a few short months ahead, is similarly anxious that conscription will not be an issue at the general election. He doesn't want any never recover.

ALL AND SUNDRY As for Stalin, he always knew how to take over, in a deformed way, the programme of his opponents. At the Seventh (and last) Congress of the Communist International in 1935 the policy of the united anti-fascist front was proclaimed.

Within a short time Communists were being urged to unite with all and sundry into 'Popular Fronts', not only with Social Democrats, but with middle class liberals, radicals and 'progressives.

PAVED THE WAY

The Communist Party of Germany, even when putting forward the apparently intransigeant slogans of the pre-1933 period, had neither the means, nor the intention, of waging a serious struggle for power. Now, with the open revisionism of the Popular Front period, Stalin imposed on Communist Parties everywhere an outright renunciation of such an aim.

A tremendous process of miseducation was begun which prepared the way for further betrayals in France and Spain in 1936-37 and throughout Europe in 1945-47. feelings on the subject stirred up in Labour's ranks which would make it more difficult for his government to carry out the measures which the Imperial General Staff find necessary.

Even before the votes are cast, let alone counted, Labour's leaders are preparing the way for steps against the working class. But, as Wilson will quickly find out, Labour will not carry through measures like conscription without great opposition.

CONDEMNS

Young workers, in particular. already in the forefront of the fight to throw out the Tories, will not welcome any attempt by Labour to marshal them into the forces to fight in jungle and desert for the interests of the monopoly capitalism which has flung many thousands of them on to the dole and condemns countless others to sweat away their lives in automated factories and mines.

EW

HE African people of Cape Town and district, famous for their march on the city following the Sharpeville massacre, have done it again.

This time, however, it was not for open political reasons. They simply wanted to make the most of the two-day holiday they had for the New Year.

To enjoy this period of 'goodwill and friendship to all men the Africans descended in their thousands on the exclusively white holiday resort of Muizenberg, near Cape Town, and camped in the town itself. It was as if they had taken Verwoerd at his word the previous night when the premier, in his New Year's message, had made a plea 'for friendly coexistence as neighbours' between whites and non-whites living in South Africa.

So, for two memorable days whites and non-whites lived in co-existence. They used the same facilities together, ate or bought food from the same cafes, shared the beach, used the roundabouts, the carnival cars, the trampolines and other holiday facilities.

During those two days apartheid was practically suspended According to a Cape Town councillor, to enforce the laws would have been to risk an explosion.

The coup, which was sparked off by the banning of the Umma (People's) Party, was carried out by that group along with the Afro-Shirazi Party, which, in spite of receiving a sizeable majority of the votes in last July's general election, was the main opposition party in the island's parliament.

During last September's independence conference in London The Newsletter carried an article which exposed the way in which the island's electoral boundaries, along with the country's feudal backwardness, had been exploited by the Foreign Office to ensure the return of a sympathetic regime.

'SERIOUS TROUBLE' It concluded that: 'observers in Zanzibar are certain that unless the Afro-Shirazi Party is allowed to form a government, serious trouble will break out. The insistance of the Tories in maintaining a stooge government in power will only serve to undermine imperialism's position in a very short time.' (21.9.1963)

The correctness of this can now be seen but although we have no sympathies for the deposed Sultan and his rightwing government, it would be wrong to have any illusions about the new regime.

In reality the revolt far from socialist. The comicopera militancy of the coup's 'initiator' John Okello is no more than a cover-up for the fact that the new government has no policy for the solution of Zanzibar's acute economic crisis and for the alleviating of poverty amongst its working and peasant classes.

DISARMED WORKERS Those who look to the 'communists' in the government (Peking-trained or otherwise) should remember that the first act of this same government was the disarming of all workers by a door-to-door police search.

Judging by Okello's methods so far, the appearance of a state à la Nkrumah does not seem unlikely. Fears of an 'African Cuba' were quickly discounted by the 'Daily Herald' which said last Monday that President Karume • ... is sufficiently effective as a politician to control the Communists in his Government'.

The island's limping clovebased economy was always more of a liability rather than an asset to British big business. This, seen along with the draining of army reserves caused by the Cyprus and Malaysia crisis, make armed intervention by the Tories highly improbable.

As they have said, they to 'wait and see'

Party at its meeting in late December voted overwhelmingly in support of the decision to send a message of condolence to Mrs. Kennedy.

Like all centrist parties the SWP, as it moves towards the right, hits out at the left.

James P. Cannon, the founder of American Trotskyism, remains silent about the betrayal of his party in relation to the Kennedy assassination.

At a recent birthday party in New York in honour of "The Militant's 35 years, his name was not even mentioned in the speeches. This festive, liberal occasion ended with the guests standing to sing 'Happy Birthday' to 'The Militant'.

In Toronto, Mr. Ross Dowson, who calls himself, amongst other things, editor of the 'Workers Vanguard, had this to say about the Kennedy assassination:

'All who, as ourselves, fervently believe that political differences within society should be settled in an orderly manner by majority decision after free and open public debate in which all points of view are heard, are saddened and angered over the death of J. F. Kennedy, and the death at the hands of an assassin of L. H. Oswald too.?

Mr. Dowson is 'on the line' with the SWP. He, too, believes that the problems of a class society can be settled 'in an orderly manner'.

Mr. Dowson, of course, is nothing more than a social democrat who has wandered into the vicinity of the Trotskyist movement.

The 'Young Socialist', a paper very close to the SWP. spoke about the assassination in its issue of December/ January 1963-64:

'One of the contradictions of our time is that these events, reminiscent of the days before the establishment of responsible government, were in great part telecast almost immediately to viewers around the globe?

The authors of this statement no doubt consider themselves 100 per cent real alive Americans who fervently believe that what exists in the United States now is 'responsible government'.

Responsible to whom, may we ask? The author of the article, one Barry Sheppard, is silent.

The theme of this so-called youth paper is its non-class approach to the basic problems facing the working class and in particular the youth of the United States.

Meanwhile, Pabloite circles in Paris are agog with excitement. Almost 26 years after the founding of the Fourth International, they have managed to scrape together enough resources to issue a duplicated hand-out called 'World Outlook' This enormous achievement in a jet-propelled age has so encouraged the SWP that they have appointed one of their New York members, Joseph Hansen, to act as their special correspondent for the paper.

Hansen is quick to see the weakness in the DobbsDowson line, so he hastens to introduce some new matter into the affair.

'Dobbs,' he says, 'also issued a short statement to the press expressing personal sympathy for Mrs. Kennedy in her bereavement. Since Dobbs conducted a most vigorous campaign against both Nixon and Kennedy in the 1960 election as the nominee of the Socialist Workers Party and the only presidential candidate who defended the Cuban Revolution and denounced the projected invasion plans, his statement helped counter the poisonous witch-hunting effort to picture Marxists as unbalanced individuals who revel in bloodshed, gloat in the personal suffering of the class enemy and advocate terror as a means to cure the ills of capitalist society?

The conclusion to draw from this is that those of us who criticised Dobbs over the Kennedy assassination are, according to Hansen, 'unbalanced individuals who revel in bloodshed' and 'gloat in the personal suffering of the class enemy'.

One of the great authorities which Hansen quotes in his investigation of the Kennedy assassination is, of course, the 'New York Times'.

'The attitude of this powerful newspaper, he says, "is often of great weight in setting the tone for other newspapers in the United States.?

No doubt it is fully staffed by 'balanced individuals such as Hansen and Dobbs. The only slight difference perhaps is that it is a big capitalist newspaper, published, produced and maintained in the interests of US imperialism.

Of course Dobbs, Cannon, Hansen and company remain absolutely silent about the criticisms of the Socialist Labour League.

This is the new, modern, twentieth century way of replying to critics-just ignore them.

Fo WSL January

thrown. Karume is now President, is is expected to radically revise its existing programme. The doctrine that a state based on a single party is necessary to carry out a socialist revolution is to be abandoned..

The change will come as no great surprise, for the party have been eager to participate in coalition governments with all manner of political groups for many years now. Such manoeuvres were designed by Stalin, but now his faithful followers have rejected his views on the monolithic Communist Party structure.

'REJECTED'

The party states: 'The Com munist Party has rejected the idea that the existence of a single party was a necessary condition for the passage to socialism.

This idea, maintained by Stalin, constituted an abusive generalisation from the specific circumstances in which the October Revolution took place?

By DAVE A FTER only five weeks of so-called independence the pro-Tory Arab government of Zanzibar has been pwiftly and efficiently overmove by the African middle class to gain greater independence from Britain and a bigger stake in the country's Arabdominated economy, decrepit though it may be.

The Afro-Shirazi Party, whose leader Sheikh Abeid Amani WORLD + + SMEN + ti ROUND-UP made Washington brows sweat.

What started off as a dispute over whose flag should fly where, quickly blew up into a violent anti-American demonstration which could have threatened the whole US control of the Canal zone.

It also focussed attention on the blatant and forcible occupation of the zone by American imperialism.

CLOSE

Although government officials tried to write it off as agitation by Castroite agents, they fully realise how close they came to having a 'Suez' situation on their hands.

The pro-American Panamanian stooge government was as much perturbed by the incidents as was President Johnson. They will probably take steps against the students who initiated the original demonstrations and are still pressing for action to throw the US out of the country.

BLOW

At a time when she is trying to improve her overseas 'image' this was a blow under the belt for Yankee imperialism. Even more so was it for Johnson, who has an election image to think about.

In spite of the US's continuous anti-Cuba propaganda in the western hemisphere, this Panama riot is likely to have a big effect on the peoples of Latin America in their struggle against American big business.

PORTWORKERS in Liverpool are feeling extremely uneasy after reading reports in last Sunday's newspapers that an agreement is likely to be concluded this week between the port employers and the Transport and General Workers' Union for the decasualisation of the port.

What has particularly disturbed them is the way these latest moves have been made behind the backs of portworkers. The meeting between both sides is being kept a closely guarded secret.

'We have known for some time that the port employers, with the connivance of the Transport and General Workers' Union officials, intend to ram the scheme through. They are looking for the most convenient beach they can find.

'They are well aware that London, Hull and Manchester are tough nuts to crack. But if they try it here they will make the biggest mistake of their lives?

Walk out

These were the words this week of a well-informed Liverpool docker. He maintained that 10,000 men would walk out immediately any attempt is made to make them sign on as weekly workers.

The main proposals of the decasualisation scheme, strongly recommended last year by the Rochdale Committee of Enquiry, are for the replacement of the workers.

On Wednesday of last week the officials met the Denby board in talks which lasted all day. When the meeting broke up the workers who have been threatened by squads of police, vicious alsatians and one of the bosses armed with a shot-gun saw the touching picture of union officials and employers leaving together, wreathed in smiles.

The following day the officials met all those involved in the dispute to discuss the proposed settlement. The suggested agreement was that 20 of the scabs now employed in the works should be sacked and 40 union men reinstated.

VICTORY

Apparently Messrs. Sharp, Atkinson and Peel, the leading officials of the dyeworkers union, considered this a great victory for Philip Wright, the managing director, had originally proposed only 15 sackings and 15 reinstatements.

Man after man stood up and opposed this suggested settlement. In a meeting lasting five hours, not one man spoke in its favour.

One man summed up the feelings of all the strikers when he shouted:

I've been out ten weeks and I'll stay out another ten—or twenty. You're asking us to work with 40 blacklegs. I won't go back if there's only one!' Attempts to take a vote on the issue were continually A further meeting took place with the management but the agreement reached was unanimously rejected by the lockedout workers at a meeting held last Monday.

AGREED

They agreed to ask the craft unions whose members art : still at work in Denby's to call them out in support.

Having rejected all compromise, the men are back manning the picket lines. The menacing squads of police prevent them from attempting to stop the van-loads of scabs who are transported in and out of the works daily.

A few union men have gone back into the works after Wright visited them during Christmas and offered to pay their f6 a week strike pay plus normal wages if they returned.

FEAR

But none of the remaining 240 still out say they will return to work until every scab has been sacked. Some of the men fear, however, that it will be impossible to get every man his job back because of the great loss of orders which Denby's must be suffering.

There is, at the same time, a growing realisation that the only basis for a return to work is for every single man to be reinstated even if they cannot be guaranteed a full week's work at first.

It is vital that the present solidarity continues and victory for the closed shop and work-sharing won. N industria

old struggle against the William Denby dyeworkers management at Bradford continues despite a near sell-out by the union officials who represent the 240 locked-out fobbed off by the platform. Finally a striker stood up and said:

'Let's stop all this bickering. Is there still solidarity in our ranks?' As every hand in the room shot up Sharp and company realised their attempts at a sellout were doomed. Newsletter Reporter LAURA BRET. TELL, the only West the Labour Group, calling for the restoration of the whip to Mrs. Brettell and declaring that 'the improper use of of disci-

daily register by weekly employment with fixed employers, a rapid extension of mechanisation, a reduction in manning scales and a greater mobility of labour.

It is estimated in Liverpool that the labour force would be slashed from 11,000 to 8,500 if the scheme goes through, adding to the serious unemployment which already exists.

Compared to the present wage for a week's work of f9 14s. or £7 19s. fall-back pay, the proposed wage of £l1 a week is totally unsatisfactory, especially as work would become considerably harder as a result of reduced gang strength and increased speed-up. It has also been rumoured that night-shift working is to be included as an essential part of the new scheme.

All the signs are that any attempt to bring this scheme in by the back door will meet solid resistance. THE BBC television programme 'Gallery' on Thursday, January 9 featured the unemployment problem in the North-east.

Only during the interview with young unemployed workers and with members of the Newcastle-on-Tyne youth unemployment committee did any real urgency appear in the programme.

In spite of efforts by the producers to present a picture of steady improvement, there are still 53,000 out of work in the North-east. 7 per cent of the people in the Hartlepools area are without jobs.

One young lad from a pit village near Chester-le-Street— 17-years-old Donald Watkins— said he had been out of work 15 months. 150 youngsters sign on at Chester-le-Street dole every Friday.

'If I don't get a job soon I'll have to join the forces, he said.

Donald is only one of 5,000 young people out of work in the North-east. At Chester-leStreet dole there are 34 youngsters who left school last summer and have not found their first jobs.

at least, is fight you Callery, filmed a session of the Newcastle Youth Committee against Unemployment and interviewed some of its members. One young girl spoke frankly about the origins of the committee.

'Nobody seemed to be doing anything about unemployment, she said, 'or about the shabby treatment youngsters get at the dole and the dead-end jobs they get pushed into.' The main activity of the committee, she explained, was to campaign for full support for the Young Socialists lobby of parliament on February 11. The committee is preparing to send coachloads of young people to London.

But the programme soon fell off from this high level. Mr. Hudson, a youth employment officer, admitted that the future looks rather glum', but then brightened up and cheerfully announced that a new government training scheme was opening in Felling.

How many places would this provide? Why, 36. (Only 4,964 left out of work, now.)

Mr. Hudson felt that criticisms of the dole were unfair. Dead-end jobs? 'I would advise a boy to take a job to keep him occupied.' Then came some pompous windbagging from Labour councillor T. Dan Smith and Tory Minister Edward Heath. Smith's solution is a regional parliament (guess who for regional prime minister?).

Heath's solution, which differs little from Smith's in effect, is 'partnership between central government, local government and voluntary organisations, cultural organisations, etc?

This arid drivel is a thousand miles away from Donald Watkins on the Chester-leStreet dole.

It is in sharp contrast to the determination of the youngsters in the Committee against Unemployment.

Registered at the G.P.O. as a newspaper Published by The Newsletter, 186л Clapham High Street, London. S.W.4 Printed by Plough Press Ltd. (TU), r.o. 180 Clapham High Street. London. $ W 4

Bromwich Councillor who spoke up in defence of the busmen who staged a series of one-day strikes in the town before Christmas, has been expelled by the Labour Group for voting against their proposal to send each individual busman a letter threatening them with the sack.

A storm 1 oi protest has greeted this announcement. 'Appalling', 'unjust' and 'despicable' are words which have been used to describe the treatment she has received from the right-wing leadership of the Labour Group.

There is a history of witch-hunting by the right wing of the West Bromwich Labour Party against members with left-wing views. Much indignation is still felt in the party over the sacking from his office in 1962 of Mr. Philip Elliott, then President of the West Bromwich Trades Councit and Labour Party.

'NEVER SO PROUD'

On the occasion when Mrs. Brettell defied the party whip to protest against the sending of dismissal threats to the busmen, she declared I was never so proud in my life'. Her defiance was greeted by cheers and applause from busmen packing the public gallery.

Trade union officials and busmen rallied to her support at a packed meeting in the town, called by her ward party to protest against her sacking from the Labour Group. A resolution was unanimously passed deploring the action of plinary action against certain members of the party' was greatly harming Labour in West Bromwich.

Mrs. Brettell said it was one of the fundamental beliefs of the Labour Party that every man had the right to say, 'I will not work under those • conditions.' That was what the bus crews had said.

GIVEN SUPPORT

Tory and other reactionary associations had long tried to make strikes illegal and the Council's policy in sending out the notices had given them support.

'We cannot allow this kind of thing to be done in the name of the labour movement' she declared. 'There is something wrong both nationally and locally with a party that allows things like this to happen. I shall always work in, for and with the working class.' Mr. Jim Hawker, chairman of the West Bromwich branch of the TGWU, said, 'We at the garage are all proud of Laura Brettell and back her to the hilt.' 'BEING DESTROYED' Mr. Alan Pitt, former President of the local Labour Party, said: "This sort of thing is happening all over the country. The Labour Party is being destroyed from within and it is time we cut out the rot.

'It is driving young thinking people away from our ranks. The Labour Party belongs to all of us and we are going to stay inside it and change it. We are not going to allow the reactionary minority to drive us out.'