The Newsletter, vol. 7 no. 331

THE pathetic story of - young West Indian in Wormwood Scrubs highlights the serious repercussions of the Tory Immigration Act.

Neville Allen, aged 19, is serving three months' imprisonment and has been recommended for deportation - for stealing bread and a bottle of milk.

Since coming to Britain in 1960 he has committed a series of minor crimes, mainly through misunderstanding. He has already been to prison for obtaining dole money by false pretences, which he drew after getting a job.

Neville has a 'record' so the British public— including his family who live in one room— must be protected from him.

The labour movement must campaign for the repeal of the Immigration Act which employers, who are openly waging attacks on the working class, can use against immigrants joining strikes.

The 'Act will be used to rid capitalism of coloured militants, and frighten others into scabbing.

The Parliamentary Labour Party must be shown that its scandalous retreat on the Act will not be tolerated by the POSTMEN READY FIGHT Post Office workers are preparing for action to defeat the atiempts by the Tories and big business to deliver advertising material along with ordinary mail.

Opposition to this move to increase their work for no extra pay has increased with the news that the employers - sponsored 'Aims of Industry' organisation wants an anti-nationalisation pamphlet distributed.

Supplies of these are already at GPO sorting offices, but postmen are refusing to handle them. The Postmaster-General says he intends to press ahead with the scheme, but the North-west London District Committee of the Union of Post Office Workers said they would fight the plan. management today agreed on a blueprint to break the five-week-old dispute.

They agreed on a proposal, to be put to a mass meeting on Saturday, that there should be an immediate return to work and a working party be set up, consisting of one representative of the AEU, one of the management of SCOW and one 'independent' member.

The AEU leaders suggest that this 'independent' member should be 'an industrialist drawn from another technologically advanced continuous process industry.

Throughout the whole of this dispute, we have pointed out that what lies behind the management's actions is the desire to break up union organisation in the works, in order to install new process equipment, of which the continuous casting plant will only be the first to be put into operation. The installation of this plant will involve large-scale redundancy.

The management are afraid to put it into operation until they are reasonably sure that they will meet with little or no resistance from the workers themselves.

This accounts for their stubbornness on the wages question, their demand that any wage increase be linked to › 'reorganisation of labour', together with the moves to ensure that the unions stay divided.

It is in these circumstances that Sir William Carron suggests that an industrialist (not a worker, of course, as in Sir William's eyes only industrialists can be independent) who has successfully installed such plant in his works should arbitrate in the present dispute.

What could such a man do except advise Cartwright, SCOW managing director, on the hest Carron: no sleepless nights way in which to impose the new processes on the workers and cut down on the labour force?

Although such a solution may save Sir William some sleepless nights, what can it offer to the workers of SCOW except the prospect of inter-union struggle and the dole queue?

Dismissals

If the AEU rank and file are persuaded to accept this offer, it can only lead to worse conditions in the long run, whatever short-run benefits it seems to give.

The first dismissals when the new plant is put into operation will be from among BISAKTA members, but experience warns that once the management have succeeded in imposing their will in this manner, all the workers in the plant will suffer, whatever shop they are in.

The AEU-SCOW proposals should be decisively rejected at the meeting on Saturday.

With solidarity still mounting throughout the country, the AEU workers can confidently fight on to victory ONE WEI edition of in its present format.

Starting next week , the paper will appear twice its I resent size. Up-to-date printing machinery will enable us to use two colours, but the price will remain at 4d.

Our new staff of young journalists are already at work, preparing the first issue of this exciting venture.

This is a tremendous advance not just for The Newsletter, but for the Marxist movement and the working class. ployers and officials of the Transport and General Workers' Union for its operation on Merseyside is an immediate threat to all dockworkers, confirming all the warnings which The Newsletter has made over the past two years.

RESISTANCE

With resistance to the scheme growing amongst Merseyside dockers, The Newsletter approached Mr. Bill Johnson, Area Secretary of the National Amalgamated Stevedores and Dockers for the opinion of his union, which represents thousands of portworkers throughout Britain.

We print his statement below.

"The scheme which is now being proposed in Liverpool is not a new idea. Since the introduction of the National Dock Labour Scheme in 1947, the employers have always cherished a hope that some day it could be broken.

But the docker has always opposed the method of working which is contained in these proposals. He sees it as danger to his working conditions and his freedom as an individual worker.

The aim of the employer is to get the maximum work with the minimum of labour, through the insistence of a greater mobility of labour, increased TO GO It is a step towards the publication of a daily Marxist paper in Britain.

The enlarged Newsletter will be able to play a much more effective role in all the struggles of the labour movement throughout the world and we ask our readers and supporters at home and abroad to keep a constant supply of material flowing in.

Our appeal for increased finance to get the paper off on a sound footing has met with a fine response. Please make every effort to step up sales and donations in the coming weeks.

Let me make it quite clear. We have never opposed decasualisation if, by that, we understand it to bring better security. Nor are we opposed to mechanisation provided there is no detrimental effect upon the labour force.

We do accept that changes are inevitable in dockland just as they are in any industry. But what we do not accept are the sort of consequences of the changes which have occurred in the coalmining and railway industries, i.e., large-scale redundancy.

Already the total labour force in the docks industry has decreased in the last five years by 20 per cent from 70,000 to 55,000. This reduction has occurred with only a limited use of mechanisation, with full resistance of dockers to the sort of mobility of labour the employers have been demanding, and with no co-operation in the flexibility of manning scales.

It is clear to all that the introduction of the scheme as envisaged will have a collosal impact on the labour force resulting in large-scale redundancy.

DEMAND

The employer is concerned only with increasing profits, and that all the benefits from such an increase should return to him. We demand on the other hand that any benefit from reOrganisation should apply to every man at present employed in the industry.

We intend to fight for the following policies. 1. The retention of the Dock Labour Scheme. We are opposed to the suggestion of the employers that they should have complete control of the labour force and working conditions in the docks. 2. Retention of the present continuity rule. This rule protects a worker from dismissal before completion of the job to which he is allocated.

Under the grading scheme (Cont.

A Harold immediately after E NEWSLETTER

January 23 fascist sectionleaders from York, Durham, Doncaster, Middlesbrough, Leeds, Bradford, Barnsley and Huddersfield met the secretary of the National Socialist Movement John Tyndall to prepare plans for big campaigns in the north of England.

It was decided that Leeds was to be 'drenched' in anti-Jewish propaganda and literature would be distributed in Bradford calling for all non-whites to be expelled from Britain.

At the meeting Tyndall said: 'We have now arrived at the point where we have sufficient strength for groups in these areas to begin quite extensive campaigns.' Some members from Yorkshire had already received training in London and it was possible that a training centre would be set up in the North.

'INFILTRATE'

'The movement intends to infiltrate into local organisations, Tyndall added.

It was made clear that a number of businessmen in the area were already giving their support.

The fact that fascist groups are developing in the area is no accident.

In order to safeguard their profits the ruling class finds it necessary to launch large-scale attacks on the working class and in the fascists they find willing tools who are only too anxious to assist in the dirty work of dividing and smashing the labour movement.

All the problems which face the working class-bad housing, Harold Wilson spoke at Swansea of proposals for taxing dividends more heavily, the London Stock Exchange went into action.

Share prices of most large companies fell heavily and paper losses running into millions of pounds were made.

Here we have an example of the kind of blackmail which a Labour government can expect from big business.

The 1931 Labour government fell as a result of the conspiracy between the American and British banks in their efforts to reduce the unemployment pay.

It shows how completely ineffective a Labour government under Harold Wilson will be unless it comes forward with a socialist programme to nationalize all the major industries.

So long as control and ownership of property remains in the hands of Tory businessmen, the labour movement will go from one defeat to another.

Of course, one can appreciate why the City gents are so cocka-hoop in their attitude towards Harold Wilson and the rightwing Labour leaders. They take heart from Wilson's retreat before the Steel Company of Wales.

The Labour Party is officially committed to the re-nationalization of steel. It is no secret that part of the struggle being waged by the Steel Company of Wales is a warning by the Steel masters to a Labour government to keep their hands off steel.

Yet in all the speeches by leading Labour spokesmen not a single mention has been made of the re-nationalization of steel since the dispute began.

Instead, Mr. Wilson has called for an inquiry. He places the gramme and statutes of Why stocks fell after Wilson's speech The Stock Exchange: losses running into millions of pounds were made after Wilson's Swansec speech.

This is the sort of blackmail a right-wing Labour government can expect from big business.

Such a government will get the worst of both worlds. They will neither satisfy big business nor the working class who elected them.

Wilson's government will government of crisis.

That is why it is so necessary now to build an alternative

unemployment, dead-end jobs and pegged wages are the creations of landlordism and big business.

It is the fascists aim to divide the working class along national or racial boundaries and let the real enemy escape unscathed.

Anger Mosley visit Max Mosley, son of Sir Oswald Mosley, has been invited to speak to the debating society at the Glasgow College of Commerce on February 12.

He will be speaking on the policy of the British Union Movement and has accepted two conditions for his visit: that he will have no personal bodyguards and that he will not mention anti-semitism.

It seems that he is not restricted on the question of racialism.

Jewish students at the college have protested and are organising a petition against the visit. Members of the staff have also protested to the debating society.

But the society's chairman, Mr. Denis Mitchell, has been reported as saying, If Mr. Mosley is attacked, it will be up to the college, as hosts, to protect him.' the French Communist Party to be presented to its forthcoming Seventeenth Congress are clearly intended to prepare the way for joint action with Mollet's Socialist Party.

Mollet's recent meeting with Khrushchev is now bearing fruit.

The Thorez: small alteration parties retain many of the phrases employed by the Communist International when they were founded. that Tom Kemp

br WSL ThI

French Communist Party propose new rules;

pave way for joint action with Mollet Labour position.

Surely one of the main reasons behind the policy of re-nationalization is that the Party is completely satisfied that such a step is necessary. For Wilson to talk about an inquiry now is to suggest that the Party did not know what it was doing when 'it made its decision on steel. time they were intended to be revolutionary parties on the Bolshevik model.

To be a party member meant to accept definite obligations as part of an international working class movement.

Under Stalin, although the content of the party changed and leadership fell into the hands of men totally committed to Stalin's methods, many who joined the party still felt that they were joining a revolutionary movement.

Reality

Since 1945, and especially since the CP leaders have gone over to unconditional support for Khrushchev, the need has been felt to bring words into line with reality. No doubt only the need to retain the confidence of the most militant sections of the working class have prevented a fundamental re-wording of the rules.

The changes have begun, starting with the basic condition of party membership. A small alteration in wording, similar to that which began the division between the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks, has now been made.

The member now undertakes to accept its programme and its The Labour leaders are in full-scale retreat before the Steel Company of Wales. If they cannot take a stand against the steel masters now, how will they be able to tackle the City of London on the question of profits.

For Labour to retreat today on its policy is to run away tomorrow when it is the government. statutes, to belong to one of its basic units in which he takes an active part and to regularly pay his dues'. • Previously he 'undertook to take an active part ("militer activement").

A specific undertaking is presumably no longer required. In the small change in wording, accommodation is made for those who take only a slight part in the work of the party.

In the programmatic preamble to the rules, emphasis is laid on the 'national' character of the party and its adherence to a 'French Road to Socialism' The formulae used are intended to leave no doubt that the French party faithfully follows the Khrushchev line and has no truck with the sort of phrase which might cause anyone to think it had any connection with the Chinese.

Incestuous

At the same time, the emphasis on the 'national' character of the party and talk about 'the security of France' are intended to clear the way for the incestuous relations with the Socialist Party which are now in view.

The changed rules recognise more fully than before the non-revolutionary character of the Wilson: retreat before SCOW leadership within the Labour Party and trade unions pledged to take over all the major industries. Such a leadership must prepare the working class to meet the capitalist attack which will inevitably follow such an action.

This is the of the task Socialist Labour League French Communist Party. At the same time, it brings it closer to the needs not of the French working class but of the labour bureaucracy, of which the party officials form a constituent part.

Many militant workers have long since ceased to look to the Communist Party to lead their struggles. But still more continue to support the party, if only at elections, because they see no alternative.

Concessions

The question is whether the new rules will at last open the eyes of those who still see the party through the glow of the Russian Revolution and regard its opportunist twists and turns as merely tactical concessions on the way to the overthrow of capitalism.

No doubt the party leaders are counting on being able to put over the changes without serious opposition in view of the nearness of the presidential election and the attractive pulling-power of 'working-class unity.

Nevertheless, a new opportunity is offered to break some of the best communist supporters from the Thorez 'leadership'.

The math throug troops army Kenya The tive of left in British 11 • 1 TANGANYIKA's president, Julius Nyerere swept the country's leading trade unionists into jail on Monday following the army riots last week which were quelled by British troops.

Nyerere declared that the trade unionists were organising a general strike as a follow-up to the soldiers' mutiny.

Nearly all the chief figures in the Tanganyika Federation of Labour are being held. They include the federation president, Victor Mkello and Chief Msabila Lughusha MP, who is a member of Nyerere's ruling party, the African National Union.

UNREST

arrests came as the afterof a wave of unrest lout East Africa. British were called in to quell mutinies in Uganda, and Tanganyika. disturbances are indicathe hardship and misery the wake of decades of colonial rule. Economically the countries have been bled dry, hitched to the chains of the City of London and put in hands of local nationalist leaders who, despite militant socialist phrases, are loyal to their former masters.

LAURELS

Jomo Kenyatta is a case in point. A one-time staunch anti-imperialist fighter who was jailed by the British after the Mau Mau uprising, he is now content to rest on his laurels, mouth the odd left-wing phrase and conduct the country's affairs on behalf of capitalist interests.

When trouble arose last week in the army he outstripped Nyerere in the race to ask for British troops.

Throughout East Africa there is a general desire to kick out all the last remaining evidence of colonial rule. Soldiers in all three countries demanded that their British officers be sacked and replaced by Africans.

HARSHLY

In Uganda, Kenya and Tanganyika the "trouble-makers' have been dealt with harshly and British officers are either back in the saddle or have been replaced by Africans whose loyalty to the status quo is unquestionable.

As television on Tuesday showed pictures of mutineers being rounded up or shot by British troops, a commentator remarked 'We have seen this week what the Commonwealth really means!

The status quo in these areas embodies, for the great majority, intolerable hardships. The erosion of the Kenyan Kenyatta: holding operation economy alone has left a very high rate of unemployment and conditions are scarcely better in Tanganyika, hailed by some 'lefts' as a workers' state of a 'special kind'— the speciality being that it is ruled by one of the most faithful lackeys of British imperialism.

In Uganda the Premier Obote has tried to play down the unrest by forbidding the press to mention the fact that British troops are in the country!

Kenyatta's plan to deal with unemployment is to recruit 4 out of 5 jobless into the army. This seems as good a way as any of ensuring frequent mutinies.

NO PLANS The socialist leader has, of course, no plans to nationalize the existing industries, monopolise foreign trade or. give the land to the people.

The rule of the Nyereres and Kenyattas are merely holding operations. One-party rule and the ruthless weeding out of militants cannot hold off for long the needs of the masses for real independence and the socialisation of the economies.

The rumoured moves by Britain to impose an East African Federation on the area could well be the spark that will blast colonialism and its hangers-on to kingdom-come. for

Ta plas of a traitosuch is a pleasant one. . Duch 1: the experience of 50-year-old Hermanus Beukes, who was, until his recent defectior to the South African police, one of the leaders of the Baster community at Rehoboth, in South-West Africa.

Beukes was instructed last year by the Baster Council to accompany Dr. Kenneth Abrahams during his flight to the British 'protectorate' of Bechuanaland, when Verwoerd's gestapo tried to detain him.

OUTCRY

But, within a few days uf being granted asylum in Bechuanaland, Beukes and Dr. Abrahams were kidnapped by members of the South African police and imprisoned in the republic. Public outcry in Britain forced the Tory government to make diplomatic representation to the Verwoerd regime.

Verwoerd, who needs the support of his Tory masters very much to bolster his neo-fascist regime, gave in. The prisoners were then released on the border of Bechuanaland and made their way to Francistown, where they stayed with other political refugees from South Africa.

Abrahams flew to Dar-esSalaam. Left on his own, Beukes was unable to get on with the other refugees.

He acquired a ticket from the local authorities and boarded a From Our Special Correspondent train bound for Mafeking, in the Cape. On his arrival Beukes delivered himself to the South police with a view to asserting his 'patriotism' to the Verwoerd regime by 'revealing' the 'secret sabotage and guerilla-warfare plans' of five political organisations in the republic and S.W. Africa.

The organisations alleged to be involved in the plot are the Pan-Africanist Congress, the 'Yui Chiu Chan', the South-West African People's Organization and the South-West African National Union.

Later in Pretoria Beukes made a statement which led to the police and the defence force officials keeping a close watch on Russia's 'mystery' fleet of fishing boats operating off the coast of S.W. Africa.

Among other 'revelations' made hy Beukes were the existence of plans for a full-scale outbreak of sabotage and guerilla-warfare in South Africa during the first three months of this year.

Beukes also alleged that his former companion, Dr. Abrahams, is closely connected with sabotage plans and is a member of a 'Chinese guerilla organisation, Yui Chiu Chan'.

He also alleged that saboteurs were to be smuggled through the Caprivi strip, where S.W. Africa, Bechuanaland and the Rhodesias have common frontier and that arrangements have been made for Russian ships to land weapons and explosives in the event of a general uprising in South-West Africa.

Beukes' 'patriotism' has given Verwoerd the opportunity to step up the repression of the people of South-West Africa and create 'Bantustans' and 'Colouredstans' concentration camps there before the International Court gives judgment on the future of this former German colony in about 18 months' time.

BETRAYED

Beukes's family and the Baster community have not been impressed by his patriotism. The immediate reaction of his family was that Beukes had betrayed the oppressed people living under the Verwoerd regime.

The revulsion among the members of the Baster community against Hermanus Beukes is so intense that when the police deposited Beukes at Rehoboth no one, not even his children, turned out to greet him. At first even his wife ignored him and walked away into another room when Beukes entered the house.

The streets of Rehoboth were deserted. People looked at Beukes from behind the windows of their homes, but no one spoke to him.

He is biding his time and awaiting the election of an amenable Labour government. Before his death, Harold Wilson and George Brown had Jack Kennedy's ear far more frequently than either Macmillan or Home.

The United States is angry at Britain's take-over bid in SouthEast Asia, accentuated by the formation of the puppet federation of Malaysia. The US is rapidly losing ground in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos and is now anxious to build a new bridgehead in Malaya, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Make up ground

In fact, all the Western imperialist powers are turning their attention to the area. De Gaulle's recognition of the Peking regime shows that he is anxious to make up lost ground in Asia.

Kennedy, on behalf of American big business, is determined to smash the British-built Malaysia federation. To this end, he is; prepared to back Sukarno to the hilt, though he must be well aware of the dangers inherent in Indonesia, where militants are stepping up the struggle for workers' control of foreign industry and where the leaders of the huge Communist Party battle to damp down the energies of the rank and file.

Of immediate interest is the attitude of the Labour Party in Britain. Will they agree to US proposals to disband the federation and give America hegemony in the area?

shot Tread Atticanse Sou sert dead by the Southern Rhodesia police and more than 60 arrested in Highfield township, near Salisbury, on Tuesday afternoon.

Riots were sparked off when supporters of Joshua Nkomo, the African nationalist leader, attempted to organise a strike in protest against his appearance in Umtali magistrates court.

In Umtali Nkomo was found guilty of attempting to expose the police to contempt, ridicule or disesteem. He was sentenced to six months imprisonment but three months of his sentence was suspended on condition that he was not convicted under the same law within the next three years.

He had accused using violence.

WORLD + + NEWS + ROUND-UP gry, Mr. Robert Kennedy, the US Attorney-General, left London on Monday after his talks with Tory leaders on the South-East Asia situation.

It was possible to detect a note of grimness on the skelatal face of the prime minister, as well, which indicated that the statesmen had not quite seen eye to eye on the division of the spoils in that turbulent part of the world.

Parting shot

'You can either get the parties round the conference table or let them stay in the jungle and shoot one another, was Kennedy's parting shot to journalists at London airport. As he is keen to get Sukarno of Indonesia and Abdul Rahman of Malaysia to talk over differences, this was an obvious dig that Britain is prepared for war to crush Indonesia.

Kennedy's talks with DouglasHome and R. A. Butler were brief. Like his late brother, the president, he is wasting no time on the discredited Tories.

Had the ear

From M. SHAW A attempt to frame four men, including a shop steward and member of the Transport and General Workers' Union, was exposed last week in the Sherriff's Court at Linlithgow.

Henry Mulligan, an employee at the BMC factory, Bathgate, was jailed for six months on two charges of attempting • to pervert to the cuurse of justice.

Pumps

Mulligan obtained a job at the factory with the assistance of Chief Security Officer John Clark, a former police inspector.

From time to time Mulligan had meetings with Clark in the factory. After one meeting he asked his assembly line inspector for two rotary pumps.

When the inspector mentioned Mulligan's request to the chief security officer, Clark said Mulligan was acting with his approval.

Searched

In the court Mulligan was accused of concealing two fuel injector pumps in a vehicle owned by a contractor to BMC and then telling security officers that the vehicle should be stopped and searched.

On another occasion a shop steward of the Transport and General Workers' Union and two other men were stoppi ed at the gates by security men after the gulley-cutter vehicle on which they were working had been left standing in the yard during the lunch-time b reak. Two pumps were found in a sack in their vehicle.

No comment At the close of the court case neither the chief security officer nor Mr. Keith Sinnott, managing director of BMC Bathgate, would make any comment.

A regional officer of the TGWU, Mr. William Scholes, said the union would raise the matter with the management. On the factory floor workers are demanding that Chief Security Officer Clark should be sacked.

Certainly something more than consultations with the management is required. Even the sacking of Clark will not prevent employers planting narks and informers to spy on workers in order to frame militants and so-called 'trouble-makers'.

Registered at the G.P.O. as a newspaper Published by The Newsletter, 186A Clapham High Street, London, S. W.4 Printed by Plough Press Lid. (TU). r.0 180 Clapham Hizh Street. London. yW 4 support the locked-out members at William Denby's works, near Bradford.

At a meeting in Shipley on Saturday, attended by 600 members of the National Union of Dyers, Bleachers and Textile workers—including the lockedout 240—members of the executive were continually interrupted as they spoke from the platform.

RESOLUTION

Finally, the microphone was wrenched from the hand of a speaker and, amidst cheers, a worker called for 'All of us to be called out throughout the industry.' It was made quite clear that everyone wanted to defeat Denby's this way and a formal resolution was proposed. After refusing to vote on this the executive were eventually forced to call a special meeting to consider spreading the strike, banprostration before the Denby management. In the course of the struggle a new leadership equipped to fight in the interests of the members must be built.

ACID-TEST

The issue at stake is more important than wages, hours and conditions — the real issue is whether trade unions are to continue to exist.

Denby's is the acid-test for the employers through the whole industry. If Denby's win through, there will be increasing attempts to smash the workers' organisation.

While financial aid and messages of support pour in, AEU and ETU members still scab at Denby's.

It is vital that the whole labour movement comes to the aid of Denby's workers in their splendid fight, and help them to defeat the Denby bosses. Industria ewsletter

NGRY Yorkshire dyeworkers fought with their union's executive last week-end to bring out 30,000 workers in the industry in Yorkshire and Lancashire to ning overtime and raising strike pay.

There is now no doubt that a tremendous struggle is developing inside the union and that the rank and file are totally dissatisfied with the executive's

Sir John Brocklebank. chairman of the Cunard line, viciously attacked the 'left-wing element' in the executive council of the National Seamen's Union who have refused to go to arbitration over their pay dispute, which has led to the threat of a strike from February 17.

Speaking at Southampton this week Brocklebank accused this 'element' of causing disruption instead of securing the welfare of their members and the 'good' of the industry.

Leaders of the seamen's union told the Ministry of Labour officials that they would not agree to arbitration but they would consider a government inquiry into their wage structure if one was proposed.

They stated that they were only prepared to settle the dispute on an all-round increase of £2 10s. a month and a cut in the working week of two hours in January 1965.

The employers have offered to raise the basic rates by f2 a month with another 10s. for men with four years' service and to reduce the working week in two stages; to 43 hours at the beginning of next year and to 42 hours in 1966.

General secretary of the union Mr. Bill Hogarth has described the owners' attitude as 'most irresponsible.

The difference between the union and the management, he said, was only a 'few bob a week' . Originally the union suggested a 40-hour week with an increase of f4 a month for men in foreign trade and £6 for those serving in home waters.

He claimed that seamen take home less than £10 for a seven-day week. To earn more they have to work overtime. Blue union will fight docks plan page proposed, Grade A workers will have preference over Grade B and so on, meaning in practice that once Grade A have completed their job they immediately replace Grade D, taking over any overtime working, etc., Grade B replace Grade C and so on.

Consequently the 'blue-eyed boys' and those who are fit enough to slog their guts out will constantly fight for promotion to the highest, most privileged grade. 3. The individual's freedom to choose to accept or refuse weekly engagement. 4. A guaranteed basic wage equal to the national average in industry, i.e., f15 per week. 5. An adequate sick scheme. 6. A pension scheme which would bring the present government scheme up to the basic wage of £10 per week. 7. The reduction of the retirement age to 60. 8. Manning scales to remain as at present based on all previous experience of safety and workability. 9. Mobility of labour to be based on past experience, rejecting any attempt to secure mobility within' gangs, from hold to quayside, or from hatch to hatch.

We We are opposed to any attempted package deal which tries to tie 'decasualisation' to acceptance of changes in present working agreements. They can and should be negotiated separately.

The reader should be reminded that the employers have said that with the introduction of this scheme the rule book will have to be completely rewritten. That we say is not for them to decide.

REJECTED

On the scheme proposed for Liverpool, it should be remembered that better proposals were made by London port employers and were completely rejected by the London men. Where the employers failed in London they hope to succeed in Merseyside.

If they achieve this it will strengthen their hand to come back to London and other ports and undermine the resistance of other dock workers.

Almost inevitably they will probably try the old manoeuvre of raising their offer in Merseyside to something approaching the offer already rejected in London. Any such move should be treated with the contempt it deserves.

We are opposed to the scheme as it stands on principled grounds. We feel quite sure that any such tactical moves won't work and that the policy must be applicable to all ports.

We shall continue to fight for a national scheme acceptable to the dockworker.

These are the lines on which our union is campaigning in Merseyside. Already we have received overwhelming support at mass meetings last week on the docks.

Dockers can now see that the scheme about which we have warned is a reality in the plans and strategy of the employers. Now they can see that the NASD has been correct. But this is a dockers fight. That is how all dockers see the issues and not at all as a skirmish of one union or another. We are holding a mass meeting this Sunday in St. Georges Hall to which all dockers are invited.

We are confident the scheme will be rejected in Liverpool.'

SHADOW Defence Minister Dennis Healey invited big business to the North-east as the answer to unemployment there, when he spoke at a rally organised by the area's Federation of Trades Councils in the St. James' Hall, Newcastle, last week. Ployed; Problem of the unem- 'The declared Mr. Healey, "is that they need jobs.' But he had very few solutions to offer.

After briefly mentioning 'human rights' he suggested that the North-east should clear its derelict areas and make the country beautiful 'so it is attractive to the private investor Investment Labour would plan, he said, because long-term plans would give confidence to businessmen. A National Industrial Planning Board was needed to 'channel investment' into the area.

Not once did he mention nationalization or the need for shorter working hours. Instead he showed his contempt for the working class by commenting:

'Our problem is not the Tories; it is the telly. The working class is too fond Coronation Street.' No mention was made either of the forthcoming youth lobby by Young Socialists in London on February 11 on the vital question of unemployment, although members on the platform were well aware of the efforts made by the youth in the area to make the lobby a success.

Sites

In a leaflet handed out by the Federation of Trades Councils, the area was commended to any prospective employers of labour as one of skill, an excellent industrial relations record second to none and 'good industrial site provision'.

This sort of leadership can never solve the problem of unemployment. Already the great potential for struggle is being frittered away by these men.

Only 150 people took part in the march and the hall was more than three-quarters empty.

Fortunately, the youth in the North-east are fighting to build an alternative leadership which will really show how to fight the Tories and Mr. Healey's businessmen friends.