The Newsletter, vol. 9 no. 391

DR. VICTOR ALLEN, Leeds University lecturer, and at least one of the three Nigerian trade unionists jailed for a year on three charges of sedition by a Nigerian court have been freed - after serving four months of the sentence.

Their appeal on two of the charges—drawing up a scheme to overthrow the government and being in possession of seditious documents—was upheld.

They were found guilty of a conspiracy charge but, as they had already served four months, they were freed immediately.

It is understood that Dr. Allen, who has recently been on hunger strike against the delay in the appeal, and was moved to a more temperate climate after sentence, because of his health, was not in court.

THE appeal by the Alexander Il', jailed in South Africa for periods of five to ten years for alleged sabotage, was dismissed by the Supreme Court in Bloemfontein after a hearing on March 4.

The 11, Dr. Neville Alexander, Dorothy Alexander, Fikele Bam, Lionel Davis, Dulcie September, Doris. Elizabeth and Leslie Van der Heyden, the Rev. Don Davis, Marcus Solomons and Gordon Hendricks, were arrested in July 1963 without charges under the 90-day detention law and charged in November with violations of the Suppression of Communism Act and the General Law Amendment Act.

The prosecution made no attempt to prove any act of sabotage, insurrection or disorder, but the 11 were jailed in late 1963. Since December of that year Dr. Alexander and the other male defendants have been imprisoned on Robben Island and, according to notes smuggled from there, they are all now in solitary confinement.

In May last year, the defendants were refused leave to appeal. In August the Chief Justice of the Republic rejected a substantive appeal.

However, on the basis of alleged irregularities in the pretrial procedure, permission was granted to appeal to the supreme court.

Death of Michael McCreery leader of the pro-Chinese Communist "Committee to defeat Revisionism and for Marxism-Leninism', died last week in New Zealand, where he had gone to consult a famous cancer specialist. He was 36 years old.

A member of the British Communist Party since the aftermath of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, he remained a Stalinist despite breaking from the Party with a small group to form his pro-Chinese group.

A small number of Communist Party members who had been critical of the party line on the colonial liberation struggle followed McCreery and his associate Evans along the line of the Chinese and Albanians. In fact, this effectively ended any prospect of their arriving at Marxist positions.

McCreery and his associates accepted the Chinese Stalinists' attacks on Trotsky and remained always opposed to the Marxist policies and programme of Trotskyism.

Consequently, the Committee to defeat Revisionism, set up in 1963, has found no road whatsoever to the working-class movement and has made no advance in Marxist theory. It has been rent with divisions almost from its beginning. future. The Sino-Indian border

THIS WEEK The f.s.&pence of the 'package deal' The best treatment George Brown French Communist Congress STOP PRESS:

HE heroic liberation struggle of the people of Vietnam is in grave danger of being sold out by 'friends. While the White House pretends to defend 'freedom' and to hold out the prospect of a thousand million dollars in economic aid (the Mekong River scheme), the Russian and the Chinese governments are both seeking to use the Vietnam war for their own purposes.

This is the meaning of the current intense diplomatic activity.

Wilson lands in the U.S. to make speeches about everything depending on the Chinese agreeing to come to the conference table.

Gordon Walker for Britain and Cabot Lodge for the U.S. are making separate tours of the Far East, to 'find out the facts'—as if that were the problem!

The Russians have now suggested a Geneva Conference to 'discuss guarantees of the neutrality of Cambodia' (the state next door to Vietnam and one of those which would be affected by the U.S. aid project).

Secret

settlement?

All the while, Johnson orders more intensive attacks the Vietnamese people, pausing only to make speeches about peace, and the amount of defence aid from China and the USSR remains a mere trickle.

Mike Mansfield, U.S. Senate majority leader, welcomed the Russian suggestion about a conference on Cambodia as 'of great relevance to President Johnson's plan for South-east Asian development'.

Considering the innumerable statements of Soviet leaders in recent years about the desirability of joint enterprises for economic development and military security in the backward countries, Mansfield's statement is ominous: there is clearly a prospect of secret diplomacy to settle the fate of the people of Vietnam without their being consulted.

'Pacification'

The Chinese, for their part, are afraid of such a deal because of the dangers to their own economic and military by The Editor sians, comparing the situation in Vietnam with that in Cuba during the missiles crisis of 1962.

He expressed the fear that 'this will end in a RussoAmerican negotiation to decide the fate of South-east Asia without the people directly concerned being consulted'.

The comparison with Cuba is nonsense from the military point of view, though certainly the overall strategy of Stalinist betrayal remains.

The Cuban missiles affair was an adventure by Khrushchev from start to finish, a provocation intended to prepare the way for a diplomatic deal in which Cuba was sacrificed.

In Vietnam there is a real and pressing need for military assistance, which could finish off the Americans in a few weeks. Material support So long as the Chinese, as well as the Russians, do not provide this help in the necessary quantities, they are both gullty of leaving open the door imperialism retaining its hold, either through military force, or with the assistance of Soviet diplomacy:

The only answer is working-class internationalist support for the armed struggle of the people of Vietnam. The role of revolutionary workers and students in the USSR, Eastern Europe and China is to press for material support in this struggle.

In Britain, and throughout the capitalist world, there must be the maximum movement of protest and demonstrations for the withdrawal of all military forces in Southeast Asia.

VIETNAM and the EASTER MARCH SEE PAGE 3 In Vietnam there is a pressing need for assistance which could finish off the U.S. forces and puppets in a few weeks, and end the misery of the peasants. SUBSCRIBE TO

An article in the French journal 'Jeune Afrique' says that this interview was arranged through Ben Bella on behalf of the UN Secretary-General as a way of sounding out the Chinese, and that Chou travelled to Algiers from Bucharest, where he was attending the funeral of Mr. Georghiu-Dej.

Chou is reported to have insisted that only the Vietcong had the right to negotiate with the U.S. He added, however, some remarks about the Rusril

dispute, and the Cuban crisis, showed them that the Soviet bureaucrats would not hesitate to risk the Chinese revolution for the sake of 'peaceful coexistence'.

From this point of view, the reported interference of the Chinese in the transit of Soviet military aid to North Vietnam across Chinese territory falls into place.

The Chinese probably fear that a semi-permanent Soviet military installation in that area would be a base for joint 'pacification' of South-east Asia by the USA and the USSR, at their expense. Chou en-lai is reported to have expressed just these fears in his recent interview with Ben Bella in Algiers.

right AS Julian Amery, Tory MP for Preston North and former Aviation Minister, spoke to over 1,000 workers at a meeting outside the British Aircraft Corporation factory, Preston, last Friday, Young Socialists demanded the nationalization of the aircraft industry as the only guarantee against sackings.

Over 3,500 men will be sacked from various factories in Preston following the cancellation of the TSR2 project.

As the Young Socialists heckled Amery, a man evoking support for Hitler, openly boasting membership of a fascist organisation and shouting obscene anti-socialist phrases, attacked the Young Socialists National Committee member for the area. Mike Farley. Other workers quickly pulled the man off.

Amery challenged Simon Mahon, Labour MP for Preston South, to resign and fight a by-election over the TSR2 issue. He claimed that Mahon's majority of 348 was probably a result of his election pledge that Labour would not cancel the TSR2.

If such an election was held, a Tory would probably be returned.

This would be the price which the labour movement would pay for the policies carried out by Wilson on behalf of capitalism.

Before the October election, Wilson and company knew full well that the armaments industry is a gigantic racket-time after time the Exchequer has been drained of millions of pounds of taxpayers' money to pay for projects obsolete before completion.

The whole industry is run to ensure massive profits for the armaments bosses.

Only if the industry is nationalized and put under the control of the workers to produce useful goods-not war planes and armaments — will the working class regain its confidence in Labour.

The Young Socialists were making these demands last Friday when the press played up the incident involving the fascist and Farley in an attempt to give the impression that the youth were isolated from the workers.

Without a real struggle for socialist policies against the betrayals of the Labour leadership, a situation can rapidly develop in which there will be an audience for such men.

Only the Young Socialists and the Socialist Labour League are fighting for an alternative, revolutionary socialist leadership to answer these betrayals.

tion of hundreds of square miles of forest and incessant napalm bombing of villages on both sides of the I7th parallel, and despite the presence of over 30,000 American and South Korean troops and marines, the Vietnamese people continue to fight undaunted.

And there is little prospect that they will be intimidated either by the presence of the Seventh Fleet or the bellicose threats of capitalist generals and politicians in Saigon or Washington.

In fact, the 'retaliatory' raids of the U.S. and South Vietnamese puppets have proved to be a complete flop.

The Vietnamese people, who single-handedly defeated one of the biggest expeditionary armies at Dien Bien Phu and drove the French out of Tonkin and North Annam, now feel confident that, given time and space to manoeuvre, they can throw the Americans and their allies out of South Vietnam.

Armed liberation is the only way to the eventual unification of the country.

Rejected offer

This obvious fact has now, it seems, begun to penetrate the thick skull of President Johnson.

In a speech at the John Hopkins University in Baltimore, the President intimated that he was ready for 'unconditional discussions' on Vietnam. He also proposed to raise 1,000 million dollars towards an 'aid' programme for Southeast Asia.

But in case any of his listeners thought that he really meant what he said, he then went on to guarantee the independence' of South Vietnam and specifically excluded the Vietcong from any such talks.

Peking and Hanoi have rightly rejected this offer as a formula for carrying out the war while prating about "peace'.

Johnson's economic

'carrot' has been shown up as a swindle.

Disenchanted

A similar plan of aid for Latin America - the Alliance for Progress-has resulted in increasing misery for the people and the installation of military dictatorships in Latin America.

The aid programme envisaged by Johnson will be a double-edged weapon. Not only will it prop up reactionary regimes in South-east Asia, but it will help undermine the positions of rival imperialisms, namely, British and French, in this vitally important region.

Next to the Vietcong, the administration's biggest worry is the American people, significant sections of which are becoming increasingly disenchanted with the cynical lie and the rubbish handed out : Presidential press conference This is why Johnson has produced his 'defoliated' olive branch as a gesture in the same way as he brought forward the Civil Rights Bill in 1964. He couldn't fool the Negroes then, and he can't fool the Asian people now.

At the same time as Johnson was going through his act, Patrick Gordon Walker, fresh from his defeat at Leyton, was skulking in South-east Asia hoping to get an audience with Mao—or at least Ho Chi Minh —in order to do some 'honest brokerage' Disastrous ambassador Whether the Chinese had advance information on Smethwick and Leyton is not known, but Walker's attempt at playing the role of roving ambassador for Britain has proved as disastrous as his attempt -to enter Parliament.

All he got from Peking and Hanoi was a loud diplomatic raspberry.

The Russian and Chinese leaders, while indulging in a war of words and promises, have so far done little or BSS.Gordon Walker: skulking arouni South-east Asia

nothing to obstruct the U.S. bombing of North Vietnam.

In Warsaw last week, Mr. Brezhnev, for the fifth time, said that the USSR was ready to help Vietnam 'with all means necessary to repel U.S. aggression'.

Why isn't the help forthcoming?

Do the Soviet leaders hope to bully the Americans into talks with threats of intervention?

If so, they are living in a fool's paradise.

The Soviet bureaucrats are playing the same cynical game as they did in Korea. They want to confine the war without letting it escalate. They want neither side to win.

They supply enough weapons to keep the war going, but not enough to finish it. At the same time, they try to make diplomatic capital out of it.

The Chinese leaders, too, are sticking scrupulously to a policy of 'non-intervention', although they have seven crack armies poised on the YunnanTonkin frontier.

The war against Vietnam is a war against independence and socialism. There can le no neutrality in such a struggle, not even a belligerent neutrality. Beçome a subscriber to THE NEWSLETTEE IN the fight for socialism, The Newsletter is playing a vital role. Do you get it regularly? Don't leave it to the chance encounter, fill in this form and send it to: Subscription Department, The Newsletter, 186a Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4. 8s. 6dl. for 12 issues Name Address

THE monthly trade figures for March, deep crisis of British capitalist economy even after the assistance of foreign banks and the imposition of the import tarifi. Once again we see underlined the inescapable dilemma of a Labour government A week earlier the Budget had made perfectly clear that the Treasury's concern over the desperate position of the pound now took precedence over last year's glorious messages from Wilson and Brown about 'the scientific revolution' and the FROM OUR ECONOMIC CORRESPONDENT published last Tuesday, confirmed the which will not break with capitalism. ¡ rapid expansion of the economy.

A feature writer in the 'Financial Times' of April 14 notes that the chances of the industrial expansion entrusted to Brown's Ministry, the Department of Economic Affairs, are now at rock bottom.

Brown has lost out to Callaghan, says this writer, who concludes, very unkindly, that *if the Department of Economic Affairs had never existed, it might not have been nearly so any badge for the political castration of Mr. George Brown'.

In March, exports fell by f3 million and imports rose by £28 million. Allowing for reexports, the trade gap widened from £38 million in February to f68 million in March.

This comes only a few days before the British government goes to the U.S. for another large loan. Wilson has made a special visit to Washington to give the political guarantees to American big business in preparation.

It is this constant pressure, arising from the backwardness of Britain's obsolete industrial and financial structure, which makes literally insoluble the problem of finding the resources for industrial expanSIOT long as . capitalism survives in Britain.

VICIOUS CIRCLE

The Labour government is thus in a vicious circle which can only be broken by the replacement of Wilson and Brown by a leadership with socialist policies.

The alternative is to attack the working class. Writing as spokesman for the employing class, the Financial Times' writes of the difficulties of Callaghan: . . . to hold back imports, the government will have to create a larger margin of spare resources in the economy. It will be then that the real test of political courage will come?

Above all, this means that a pool of labour must be created. All the measures for redundancy payments and the 'incomes policy' are a preparation for unemployment, in order to give capital more room for manoeuvre. This unemployment must be fought now, by defeating the income polic and the deals', and fighting for an emergency Labour Party Conference which will carry socialist policies. Reprieve for Ait Ahmed HOCINE AIT AHMED and Mohamed Ben Ahmed, who were sentenced to death last Saturday for leading a revolt in the Kabylie mountains against the Ben Bella regime, now face life imprisonment. On Tuesday it was reported that Ben Bella had accepted their requests for clemency.

mittees, quarterly shop stewards' meetings and even some district committees of unions have gone on record in declaring their opposition to the "package deal' agreement beween the engineering employers' federation and the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions, signed on As workers become aware of the nature of the betrayal involved in the package deal, they inevitably ask: Why did our leaders sign this agreement and now that it has been concluded, what can we do about it?

The purpose of this article is to answer these two questions and to explain the main points contained in the package deal sell-out.

Notwithstanding the statements of the trade union leaders, the fact remains that for the overwhelming mass of engineering workers to whom it applies, the deal represents a virtual wage freeze over the next three years, which the trade union bureaucrats and employers, in collusion with the Labour government, Will do their utmost to enforce.

Wages

The agreement provides for two general wage increases, the first starting on March 7, 1966, and the other on March 6, 1967.

The increases shall be on each occasion as follows:

Skilled workers…...

Intermediate grades ••• Unskilled ..

Female manual workers : 21 year ApprentIces :

Thus the increases in the prices of goods over the past few months, in addition to the latest Budget increases in prices of cigarettes and beer, etc., coupled with rises in rents, rates and transport fares already passed or projected for the near future in many parts of the country, will have swallowed up and surpassed these 'magnificent' wage awards long before the workers receive them.

And this in the first few months of the deal!

In attempting to 'sell' the deal to the workers, the union bosses seek to divide the lowest paid workers, who obtain some increases, from the 'higher' paid, for whom it constitutes a freeze, appealing to the 'higher' paid to accept restraint in the interests of their brothers.

No mention at all of the present fantastic high level of profits the employers are reaping and of the jump in profits, which will accrue as a result of the package deal, is made.

The proposal is to establish over the next three years new earnings levels which will replace the national minimum time rates existing on January 4, 1965.

This will be achieved by six six-monthly increases of 6s. for skilled workers; six of 5s. 6d. for semi-skilled; six of 5s. for unskilled adult male workers; and six of 7s. for adult female workers. Here are some examples of the time rates and the new levels which will be reached when the agreement ends. (Figures include the increases in the previous table.)

Rate at 4/ Skilled worker Fitter, turner, etc. £10 11 Labourer £8 19 Woman (adult)

15 years 16 years 17 years 18 years 19 years 20 years and over The introd startin 8d. 4d. 6d.

But the whole fallacy of these increases is exposed by the following clause in the agreement. 'Workpeople whose remuneration however made up, is not less than the appropriate earnings levels for a normal week are not entitled to any increase in such remuneration. In those cases where such remuneration is less than the appropriate level, additional payments will be necessary in order to meet the standard for the week or weeks in question.' Thus it has been estimated that 95 per cent of workers gain nothing or next to nothing since their current wages, which include bonus payments of one sort or another, are higher now than what the proposed new minimum earnings levels will be even in 1968, let alone in 1966 ог 1967.

So, included in the category of 'rich' workers who must accept restraint—according to the (£30if40-£50-£60 a week with expenses) trade union chiefs-will be the skilled worker at present receiving £12 7s. 8d. a week (his two general increases of 5s. brings him to the level of £12 17s. 8d. in 1967) and a labourer at present earning £10 9s. 4d., and all those whose wages are above.

The same applies to apprentices. By way of similar 'increases' at six-monthly intervals, over the next three years the rates will be enhanced as follows:

Rate at 4/ f2 17s. €3 9s. £4 2s. €5 14s. f6 15s. €8 Os.

So if an 18-year-old apprentice is today earning f7 8s. 2d., he gains absolutely no increase in wages from these increases. his earnings are fractionally below, he will get coppers-but 6d. 4fd. .Ofd. 1fd. 9d 6d.

will have to the coppers.

Alongside this virtual wage freeze on nationally negotiated claims for three years, the union bosses have agreed that there will be no factory claims of a general character during the period of the agreement.

Thus, they seek to tie the hands of the factory union organisation, by whose effort and work in the past, local earnings have been pushed beyond the miserly levels which trade union leaders have been contented to accept (and that at a snail's pace) at national level on their behalf.

It is, therefore, these two aspects of the agreement that constitute the depth of the treachery to which the union bureaucrats have sunk in their readiness to serve their masters, the employers.

Having gone so far, they then grant the employers the undisputed right to introduce shift systems of working. On paid breaks, the employers can negotiate with the workpeople for their elimination or revision.

The agreement also gives a wide scope to the boss to introduce mobility of labour-to move men from one job to another. The application of this practice will undoubtedly assist the employers to minimise the number of workers in employment.

Hours

agreement provides for the iction of the 40-hour week ; in July. For timeNew level as from 1/1/68 £12 £10 payment by results will get an increase of 4s. This increase goes on to the supplement part of wages so that a skilled fitter earning say f20 would actually lose 2s. 6d. for the loss of the hour's earnings.

Female manual workers get increases ranging from Is. 3d. to 4s. according to age. Apprentices get a percentage of the 4s.

One of the agreements in this section, which causes intense dissatisfaction amongst night-shift workers, stipulates that nightshift hours shall be evenly spread over five nights, except in cases where a short night-shift is worked on one night of the week.

This short night-shift, says the agreement, "shall not be less than four hours'.

The demand of most night-shift workers is for the abolition of the short Friday working. In the Midlands, factory organisations are fighting for this against the joint opposition of the employers and the union leaders. The most notable recent struggle was at the British Motor Corporation factorys si toly ridused tee the workers simply in at all on the short shift. There, the demand is for the 38-hour week without loss of wages.

Holidays

The agreement provides for an increa e in the rate of holiday payme from time rate plus one-sil th to time rate plus level as fri т 1/1/68 £3 17s. 4d. 2d. £4 10s. 3d. 10d. £5 9s. 7d. 6d. £7 8s. 2d. 3d. £8 14s. 4d. €10 6s. 2d.

a third. The rate of holid: payment has been an outstandi grievance amongst workers.

For the lowest paid workers, the miserly rates are entirely inadequate to furnish them with the necessary money for a holiday. For those on piecework, or whose wages are based on bonus, a drop in wages occurs due to the fact that they are not paid these bonus earnings for holiday periods.

Year after year, resolutions at the National Committee of the Amalgamated Engineering Union have persistently sought to get the union leaders to fight for three weeks' annual holidays with a minimum payment of £15 per week for all workers and average wages for workers earning above that.

Under the pre-package deal agreement, a skilled fitter whose total weekly earnings averaged £20, would obtain £12 7s. approximately for each of the two weeks' annual holidays.

Under the new terms, he will get approximately f17 3s. 7d. a week, but the full increase will not be realised until 1969!

In their attempt to convince the rank and file of the worth of the package deal, the union leaders have stated that it will cost the employers some £300 million and therefore this cost is worth Ils. 3d. a week to the members.

'Cost'

is probable that they include in this 'cost' the estimated potential value of the production which might otherwise have taken place on the two days' extra holidays awarded under the agreement and on the hour off the working week.

They include in this 11s. 3d. a week, the monetary value of two days' extra holidays (one day in 1966 and the other in 1967). They conveniently ignore the fact that whilst workers are entitled to more holidays, they do not want to lose money on the deal.

For each of the two days' additional holiday, the $20 worker would drop approximately £l 3s. 6d. in wages with which to enjoy his extra leisure time.

In addition, the union leaders have agreed that, as from the introduction of the 40-hour week on July 5, the six Bank Holidays, which since 1961 have been paid on the basis of 8t hours each day, will thereafter be paid for eight hours.

As from January 1, 1968, nightshift and overtime premiums will be paid at the new time rates established.

Finally, in the event of 'legislaContinued

By an shop steward workers, the present wage paid for 41 hours will be maintained for the 40-hour week.

Adult male manual workers on in the budget he says: 'There must be a mixed number two in the ] Labour government. is very m uch in the news these days. He is certainly a politician to watch. Ever ready, in words, to express sympathy for the underdog, in practice he carries through policies in sup port of the employers.

In this respect, his speech on the Budget was a classic which repays study After claiming that the buaget aldea redistribution of incomes-for which there is no shred of evidence, quite the contrary— he spoke strongly in defence of profits.

The Budget, 'The Times' reports him as saying, 'was not an attack on profits, they [i.e., the Labour government] believed profits as one of the motivating forces in the economy. What he said later on about making the economy more efficient has to be seen in the light of this concern.

He went out of his way to thank the two bosses' organisations, the Federation of British Industries and the British Employers' Federation, for their cooperation in drawing up the incomes policy statement. Yet later on he drew attention to the fact that 'Britain had been bypassed by the second Industrial Revolution' and was behind its rivals in the use of computers and ollier advanced lechniques.

Technological lag The reason for this technological lag is not far to seek. British industrialists have reaped handsome profits in the past 15 years without the need to replace obsolete equipment or expand into new fields.

What can Mr. Brown do about this if he is not prepared to make an attack on profits?

There is only one thing he can do, that is to make it profitable for industrialists to change.

The unavowed purpose of the incomes policy is to reduce real wages so that fewer goods can be bought on the home market and higher profits made from exports. Out of these higher profits, or so theory has it, business will then be able to invest more and improve the competitive position of British industry in the world market.

Profits must be maintained and increased, such is the philosophy of Mr. Brown. Meanwhile, he says: "The main source of faster growth must be a more rapid increase in output per man.' To the bosses he says: we will not attack your profits and we will get workers to produce more, so that they will actually grow faster.

Meanwhile, Mr. Brown is preparing to put this policy over to the trade unions at regional and local levels. No doubt, with the help of right-wing officials, more "package deals' will be proposed.

Co-operation As for business, the 300 biggest firms have now received a polite note from Mr. Brown 'asking them to make their full contribution to the campaign to strengthen the balance of payments'. As he put it: 'We are looking forward to their response with confidence' Brown looks forward to the co-operation of both sides of industry: those whose labour grinds out the surplus from which profits come and those into whose lap they fall.

Instead of proposing the nationalization of the 300 companies which form the basis of monopoly capitalism in Britain he promises them support, of which a wages freeze is the main item.

'There will be a mixed economy in this country as far ahead as we can see. The boundary of the public sector will undoubtedly move forward from time to time. Whatever the relative size, the essential point is that both sectors in a mixed economy must improve and expand, said Mr. Brown in the concluding part of his speech.

True he threw in, for the benefit of the so-called "left' economy' MPs, a phrase about not restricting the scope of public enterprises just because they are publicly owned. And he ended with some more of the characteristic demagogy which earns standing ovations at constituency meetings.

But what is the real substance of all this? Any pretence at working towards socialism is clearly abandoned as far ahead as we can see'. How long is that? Ten years, fifty? No matter.

Handmaiden The Labour government, as stands out from Brown's speech, is committed to a 'mixed economy' based on profit. Nationalized industry will continue to be the handmaiden of the monopolies. Profits will not be attacked. Capitalists can be reassured.

Of course, this policy of a "mixed economy' for 'as far ahead as we can see' is not only George Brown's policy. It is the policy of the whole Labour government which is endorsed by the rank-and-file MPs, however "left' they may strive to look, every time they vote for the measures to carry it out. It is not just an interim policy for a government with a small majority. It is a policy, let it be said again, for 'as far ahead as we cán see' Clause Four of the Labour Party Constitution, which calls for nationalization of all basic industry, has been quietly dropped overboard despite the decisions of the Labour Party Conference to retain it. The rank and file should not be taken in by the demagogy of Wilson, Brown and Co.

The policy of these people is to hand the working class over, bound and gagged, to be exploited more effectively by the monopoly capitalists. Determined resistance and the building of an alternative leadership can defeat them.

AS a regular reader may f point out that Peter Arnold's article 'Wilson and de Gaulle seek economic entente' in last week's Newsletter contains some strange formulations which, I think, are bound to create confusion in the minds of many readers.

It suffers from a rigidly mechanical approach to capitalism's crisis. The author, for example, uses the words 'collapse of the imperialist power system' in his introductory sentence. What does this mean?

Marxists have always been careful to define this process as a 'deep crisis' or as the 'decline' or 'death agony'-but never the 'collapse' This seems to indicate a sort of mechanical motion, an objective event which we cannot influence. From the same standpoint, it can also be argued that socialism is inevitable.

This mechanistic determinism is recurrent in the article.

In the reference to the pre-war Germany, a clear inference emerges that fascism was nothing more than an attempt by the German ruling class to restore the productive plant destroyed by the First World War. On the contrary, the German capitalists restored and augmented their productive plant with American loans under the Young and Dawes plans some years before Hitler came to power.

This is what Trotsky said about it in 1926:

"The number unemployed in Germany has passed the two million mark. Owing to the rationalisation of production skilled workers comprise about three-quarters of the total unemployed' ('Whither Eul ope', speech by Trotsky to R ussian audience in 1926)

SPEAKING in Birmingham last Sunday, Mr. George Brown declared to the organised workers of this country that their wages would have to be held down. He tried to disguise this wage-freeze (the 'incomes policy') with fine words .. we have got to accept social justice and planning in the field of wages and salaries bargaining?

Brown explained that strongly organised and well-paid workers must forgo increases to leave more in the kitty for the poorly paid. This shows how shameless and cynical the Labour government is.

After all, the pensioners are the ones least able to exert any organised pressure to improve their incomes, and yet it was they who were deprived of the niggardly 12s. 6d. increase all through the winter.

Tory Act In point of fact, Brown is going to try and clamp down on all wage increases. After the recent agreement for a wage increase in the Scottish plumbing trades, he ordered an inquiry, because he fears the effect on wages throughout the building industry. A Tory Chancellor did exactly the same thing in the same industry only two years ago!

The Trades Union Congress General Council this week announced the reasons why it had agreed to accept the working of the National Prices and Incomes Review Board.

This body, under the rule of Tory Aubrey Jones, specially chosen by George Brown, will have the task of actually implementing the 'incomes ' policy'. Woodcock and the TUC leaders try to make out a case for the Despite this rationalisation, or because of it, German capitalism could not satisfy its appetites for new markets and fields for investment in a peaceful manner.

The 1929 crisis, plus the intolerable situation created by the Versailles Treaty, impelled the German ruling class to utilize fascism to regiment the working class, smash all opposition, militarize the economy and restore the rapidly declining profit rate by a massive and bloody expansion of German capital.

Arnold's explanation of French events though correct in parts is just as facile-if not more dangerous from a methodological point of view.

"The French bourgeoisie,' he writes, 'remained completely unable to carry out any (my emphasis) of the renewal of industrial plant necessary since 1918'!

Indeed? Didn't Marx devote a whole volume of 'Capital' to prove that such a thing was absolutely impossible under conditions of expanded reproduction, the basis of capitalist accumulation?

Are we to conclude from this then that French capitalism has been suffering from a realisation crisis since 1918?

The intensity and scope of replacement of fixed capital in industry, as well as new investment, will vary from nation to nation, and from industry to industry, but it would be extremely dangerous for us to conclude that such a process does not take place.

That is why I think Arnold's comparisons between France and Britain are false and invidious.

In Britain, too, the development and modernisation of industry varies from one sector of the economy to another.

While traditional industries like textiles and shipbuilding are declining, the more profitable sectors such as radio, electronics, automobiles, chemicals and plastics have witnessed a revolution in technology and an influx possibility of increased living standards all round as a result of this 'co-operation' between employers, workers and the government. But they make a very poor job of it.

Like Brown, Woodcock says that the incomes policy will enable 'planning' to take place. Together with 'increased productivity' this will make possible an eventual rise in incomes. So every worker must work much harder, must not take action to increase his wages, and wait until the powers that be decide that an increase is possible.

This is what happens to labour and trade union leaders who abandon socialism and the working class.

Opposite All their experience in spouting about 'social justice, 'planning', and 'the interests of the community' turns into its opposite, and is used to impose the requirements of capital upon the working class, meanwhile leaving intact the wealth of the exploiters.

Thus, in the same week as starting his campaign to sell the incomes policy, Brown makes it very clear that his. brand of socialism intends to leave the vast majority of industry in private hands.

What the incomes policy means for the workers' wages is made very clear by the figures given in the TUC memorandum:

'Since the end of the war wage and salary incomes have risen at an annual average rate of 6t per cent, but prices have risen by nearly 4f per cent each year. Real wages and salaries have therefore only been rising at a little more than 2 per cent a year. Most of the money increase has been lost because productivity has risen by no more than 2} per cent a year.' Now Brown is asking that of new investment.

This, of course, does not mean that British capitalism is buoyant and stable, but it does show that the decline of capitalism is not a uniform and straight-line process.

For this reason, too, I must take exception to the bald statement of Arnold that France and Britain are 'on the verge of total bankruptcy.

Britain is faced with a perennial balance of payments problem which gets worse every year -and every month.

To cover this deficit, the Bank of England negotiated one of the biggest loan operations in Britain's history.

This operation has failed to achieve the desired results and the government is preparing to negotiate another loan from the International Monetary Fund. Whether the IMF grant this loan or not, what faces capitalist Britain is not "total bankruptcy', but the devaluation of the pound with all the consequences it would entail for the dollar and the franc-and for the British working class.

Certainly such a move would put an end to sterling as a reserve currency.

France's problems are not exactly the same. She is fighting a life and death struggle against U.S. and West German economic and military domination in Europe.

In order to counter the economic offensive of the USA, France took the initiative in forming the Common Market, which is a protectionist association for the benefit of West German and French monopolists.

This policy was clearly adumbrated by the financial commission of the French National Assembly in November 1964:

Is there not some reason to believe that, with the existing level of technology and productivity in Europe, the American giant will shortly absorb everything in its path, even despite the harmonised tariffs?

Should not Europe be first consolidated?' (Journal Officiel, Assemblée Nationale, p. 5321)

French Communist Students' Congress Three A gress of the French the • annual conril Pabloite 'Unified Secretariat' because they stood by their

standards the City of London.

In order to maintain profits the employers are having to strike.

Despite the actions of the tion (i.e., government measures) adding • seriously to costs, the employers can demand a revision of the agreement.

The unions for their part can ask for a further wage claim within the three year period of the deal 'if there is an increase of five points or more in the Index of Retail Prices during the period of 12 months from January 4, 1965, and if this increase is maintained for three consecutive months in either of the succeeding 12-month periods'.

In relation to this, the follow-

greater need than ever for a fight against imperialist preparations for nuclear war.

While U.S. forces and their puppets step up the brutal attack on the Vietnam liberation struggle, using still more horrifying weapons, they receive complete backing from both Wilson and Home.

British imperialism, run by the so-called Labour government, provides a Malaysian training ground for U.S. troops.

Callaghan's anti-working class Budget raises more millions to spend on arms production than his Tory predecessor's. Although the British government no longer pretends to be able to drop its own H-bomb, the Wilson administration associates itself closely with the NATO war alliance and the American bomb.

What is the relevance to the fight against these policies of the Easter March called by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmamentor its shadow?

What is the march supposed to be for?

From 1958 to 1963, the Aldermaston March attracted large numbers of young people to its demand for unilateral nuclear disarmament.

The Newsletter and the Socialist Labour League supported every one of these demonstrations because they rallied an important movement against the war plans of British imperialism.

But we always warned CND that unless it turned towards the working class movement, it would remain a futile gesture.

Pacifism can only hold back the fight for peace. The battle against the hydrogen bomb was a part of the battle against the power of capital waged by the labour and trade union movement.

Defend revolutions

That is why we refused, and continue to refuse, to equate the Soviet H-bomb with the American bomb. We are utterly opposed to the policies followed by the leaders of the Soviet Union, which seek to adapt the Soviet Union and the world Communist Parties to the needs of imperialism.

But we never let this blind us to the tremendous significance of the Russian and Chinese revolutions, and the duty of every socialist to support their defence against the imperialists by all available means.

For the threat of war arises from the nature of capitalism, and these revolutions were, and The American monopolists, however, got round the tariff walls by increased investment in the Six, particularly in France.

Total U.S. investments France today are in the region of 10,000 million francs.

U.S. capital, apart from setting up branches of its own firms, has acquired over 200 French firms during 1958-1962 alone.

'U.S. capital controls 90 per cent of the French production of synthetic rubber, 60 per cent of the production of agricultural machines, telephones and lifts, 50 per cent of electric bulbs and 20 per cent of electrical equipment.' (International Affairs, Vol. 3, 1965, p. 52)

At the same time, the one-time cordial relations between French and German big business have given way to increased competition and strife, not only in agriculture, but also in industry. West German monopolies are now trying to dominate Western Europe by working in close alliance with U.S. and British capital.

The real problem confronting the European capitalists is the automation and computerization of industry in order to catch up and outstrip U.S. productivity. But how can they do it when the entire computer industry, for example, is controlled and dominated by American monopolies such as IBM, RCA and NCR?

De Gaulle's policy is very largely shaped by his response to the combined pressures of West Germany and the USA on French markets.

De Gaulle will stop at nothing to prevent dollar penetration of France. At present the dollar enjoys a privileged position in the world monetary system since it is a substitute for gold.

This enables the U.S. monopolists to evade to a certain extent the consequences of a payments crisis and a fall in reserves by printing more dollar bills and exporting this inflated currency abroad.

But if there is a return to the gold standard, or an increase in the price of gold, then the dollar BLACK THE H-BOMB • Socialist Labour League members on the first Aldermaston march. remain, powerful blows against that system.

After initially opposing all involvement with the labour movement, the CND leaders turned their attention to its Parliamentary apparatus. As the Labour Party 'lefts' jumped on to the bandwagon, CND became increasingly dominated by their verbal opposition to Labour's nuclear policy.

In October 1960, Gaitskell was defeated on this issue at the Scarborough Labour Party Conterence.

Instead of organising to force the implementation of the new agreed policy, the "Tribune'ites ran away. They aided the manoeuvre of Crossman and Padley which enabled Gaitskell to get over his defeat and restore the old NATO line.

CP role

Frustrated with the opportunism and respectability of Canon Collins, some people turned towards forms of individual protest. But sitting down in the road and going to prison proved as ineffectual as the Collins brand of diplomacy.

The Communist Party firmly opposed the aims of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament up to the Easter of 1960. They alleged that the demand that the British H-bomb should be scrapped was 'splitting the peace movement'.

In 1960 they pretended to back CND and have even tried to make people with short memories believe they had been in it all along.

In reality they attempted to turn the 1960 march away from unilateralism and towards the 'Summit' talks which took place so explosively in Paris soon after.

So effectively did they reinforce the movement away from the will be hard hit, and the value of dollar investments abroad will dwindle.

This is what the French Bank tried to do recently when it converted 150 million dollars worth of securities into gold. De Gaulle continually calls for a BLACK-BASES BLACI-BOMB' original object of CND that no large march was held in 1964 and CND was allowed to die as an effective organisation.

The chief motive power here, however, was the complete surrender of Foot, Silverman and their friends after Wilson took over as Labour leader. With the approach of the General Election they were entirely absorbed in the task of stopping anybody embarrassing Wilson.

This year's march has been given no clear aim by its leadership. CND leaflets talk about the need for peace in Vietnam (so does Johnson) but say not one word about how it is to be obtained.

They take a neutral line between the Vietnamese people and their imperialist murderers. 'Clearly the (Geneva) agreement has been violated by the South Vietnamese and the Americans and by the North Vietnamese and the Chinese,' says one leaflet.

CND refuses to support the Vietcong fighters or attack directly the imperialist policies followed by Wilson and Stewart.

The Stalinists are even worse.

One British Peace Committee leaflet actually devotes one whole side to a picture of Wilson with a quotation about not letting Germans control nuclear weapons.

Alternative

Fortunately, the left does not have to choose between these sets of fakers.

The Young Socialists, by demanding the recall of the Labour Party Conference and denouncing the treacherous policies of Wilson, are providing an alternative lead.

The fight to throw out this MacDonaldite leadership and adopt socialist policies is a vital step which can link the opposition to nuclear war with the struggle against Wilson's capitulation to big business and the attack on, working-class living standards.

All those Easter marchers who want to fight against imperialist war must help the Young Socialists in this campaign.

JOMO KENYATTA, PresiUnion of Communist Students, held on March policies!

Since the congress, the Pabloite supporters have taken measures to stifle any criticism

separate currency system for the Common Market countries, also for the same reason.

The dollar is much more vulnerable today than it was in the 40s and 50s. This is due, as Peter Arnold correctly points out, to the enormous drain of dollar funds to stabilize and defend the economies of foreign capitalist powers.

Thus the de Gaulle-Wilson meeting was an attempt on the part of de Gaulle to utilize the weakness of sterling for his own advantage vis-a-vis the U.S. and to replace his unreliable German partner with an Anglo-Saxon one.

While on this subject, I should like to draw the reader's attention to the utterly nauseating and wretched statement by Michael Foot in last week's "Tribune'.

Michael Foot, who, incidentally, was expelled from France in 1958 by the Gaullist regime, welcomes the de Gaulle-Wilson meeting with these words:

.. it is sense that we should remove the atmosphere of rasping grievance or irritable pettiness between the two countries which was the legacy left by the previous administration.' Kick a centrist and you will find a patriotic rascal!

The centrists, as usual, have no answer to the plans of the big monopolies on both sides of the Atlantic who are launching the biggest trade war the world has known. The first victim of such a war will be the working class.

The only way out of this impasse, this blind revolt of the productive forces against the national state, which leads increasingly to crisis, depression and war, is, for the Marxists, to unite in struggle for a socialist liberation of Europe.

Neither de Gaulle nor Wilson, but a socialist Britain in a Federated Socialist States of Europe! Kenyatta and Kaunda show their hand dent of Kenya and Kenneth Kaunda, president of the Central African state of Zambia, have, in the past week, come out in their true colours as opponents of socialism and of the working class.

Kenyatta, along with his Economic Planning and Development Minister, Tom Mboya, attacked the left in Kenya after some left politicians had criticised the inclination of Kenya's government to imperialism.

Kaunda attacked those whom he said were 'disrupting the stability and the economy of the country', and threatened them with imprisonment if they did not accept his 'discipline'.

The evolution of these gentlemen is a useful lesson on the role of nationalist, 'antiimperialist' leaders in the newly-independent states of Africa.

Only a few years ago they were the darlings of all sorts of centrists and left' political groups in Britain and even now some self-styled Marxists' are dipping their pens in the inkwell in preparation for christening the new nations 'workers' states' of a peculiar kind.

Kaunda's 4-6 this year, the party bureaucracy regained the control that it had lost the year before.

At the 1964 congress, the Communist students had elected a national committee putting the supporters of the official party line in the minority. These managed to hold only 35 seats, against 35 taken by the supporters of the Italian Communist Party and 13 members who were decisively breaking with Stalinism and approaching revolutionary positions.

The Italian' supporters' criticism of the party bureaucracy was confined to the lack of democracy inside the party. They were unable to make any kind of analysis of why this situation had arisen, or how it was connected with the French Communist Party's counterrevolutionary role.

The vote received by the 'Italian' group represented an instinctive rejection of the party leadership by the student movement, rather than any firm support for the Italian right-wing line. It was also due to the lack of organisation by the left opposition in the party.

Opportunities

A decisive intervention by the left could expose the inadequacies of the mere cries for democracy as a substitute for scientific analysis and the struggle to build a revolutionary party.

The situation after the 1964 congress, then, was one which offered big opportunities for the Trotskyist movement. It should have been possible to intervene, to help the young comrades in their struggle, to link this struggle with the struggle of the working class and with a full analysis of the causes and history of the crisis.

This would have ensured that many of these comrades could have transformed their spontaneous rebellion into a conscious fight against Stalinism, and become members of the Trotskyist movement.

The intervention of the Pierre Frank group, supporters of the so-called 'Unified Secretariat of the Fourth International', achieved nothing of the kind.

Whatever had been the support of the Italians' in 1964, it was clear by the beginning of this year that the National Bureau, elected at the student congress, no longer represented any one but themselves and off by the recent copper and railway strikes and by a number of left speeches from the political opposition. Kaunda said:

'From midnight tonight, I shall restrict or arrest anyone who misbehaves. I myself am a fully qualified agitator. I am very experienced in it from the days of the struggle and I know how I was handled. I will know how to handle you too' In so many words Kaunda threatened that he will use against the strikers the repressive methods of British imperialism!

In fact, of course, Kaunda and his type are political agents of the capitalist companies in Britain and the United States, who still own and control the industries of Africa.

Kaunda continued: I must impose discipline on the nation' That is precisely the situation.

'AFRICAN SOCIALISM' Jomo Kenyatta and lom Mboya spoke up in reply to very similar developments in Kenya. This should cause no surprise.

The workers of these countries, 'as in Nigeria and the Congo, are discovering that political independence leaves their class problems unsolved: that the struggle inside the movement was now between the supporters of Stalinist bureaucracy and the left opposition.

The Frank group had succeeded in gaining a good deal of support amongst this left opposition and had undoubted influence over its leadership.

On the eve of the congress this year, the situation had clarified and the left opposition had a majority among the Communist students in the Paris Faculty of Letters, in Lyon and in Caen, and substantial minorities in some other towns.

Before the congress, the 'Italian' leadership permitted the various factions in the movement to circulate documents for discussion-an unheard of situation in the French Communist Party.

Three main texts were cirPeter Arnold outlines the background to events at the Congress after interviewing French Communist students culated, one on the official line, one taking up the positions of the Chinese Communist Party and one submitted by the left opposition. These were all printed in a special issue of 'Clarté, the Communist students' journal.

The text of the left opposition had been passed by the branch of the Paris Faculty of Letters by 70 votes in favour against 6 votes for the official party line and 6 votes for the Chinese line. This, together with the support gained in other areas, was a clear mandate to fight for this text at the congress.

The Stalinist bureaucracy had used the year to prepare its forces for the congress. They had packed the delegations, giving them an automatic majority of 350 delegates against 150 oppositionists, it still remains necessary to struggle against the boss, and the boss is the same boss as before.

Thus in Kenya the General Secretary of the Railway African Workers, responding to the militancy of his members, who were on strike last month, declared war on the employers and on capitalism, which, he said, was being perpetuated in Kenya by Europeans.

A major political struggle is flaring up over the future of the economy in Kenya.

Another left spokesman, Mr. Okelo-Odongo, Assistant Minister for Finance, revealed the divisions in the ruling Kenya Africa National Union party when he said last week that for the achievement of economic freedom the native people of Kenya must take over the big property held by foreign companies. He said pointedly that many of the leaders who talked about 'African socialism' meant nothing different from African capitalism.

Tom Mboya's speech was in reply to that of Okelo-Odongo. He tried to justify the retention of capitalism by calling it 'non-alignment'. Towards the end of his speech he indirectly attacked the left in the country • by warning against attempts 'which may not be confined to former colonial powers' to about 100 of which the left opposition.

The first thing that the Stalinists did at the congress was to vote that only the official text should be considered there!

It was at this point that the Pabloite training of the leaders of this opposition reaped its due reward. For they accepted this refusal of the Stalinists to discuss the alternative texts, and confined their intervention in the congress to taking up points in the Stalinist text!

Such is Pabloism. For a year it had attracted Communist students around it with propaganda that Stalinism must be overthrown, only to come to terms with the bureaucracy when the fight was on, and act as if Stalinism could be reformed, or at least made more palatable, by a few reforms!

One of the prominent leaders of the group was heard to state afterwards that the congress had been a great success.

Yet the Stalinists had recaptured every seat on the national committee and the national bureau, and the left opposition was demoralised by the failure of their leaders to fight.

For this gentleman, the conference had been a success because the Stalinists had omitted to expel him. Why should they?

In fact, at the congress, the only attacks on the party leadership were carried out by a small number of members of the left opposition and by the 'Italian' faction. These latter were condemned as 'adventurist' by the supporters of the exploit Kenya's economic weakness and urgent needs.

This attack on Communism will be the battering ram for attacking any working class or socialist opposition, and no doubt Mboya will also make use of the Kenya students who recently returned full of protests and criticisms from the Baku University in the USSR.

FRIEND ATTACKED

While Mboya was busy in this way, Kenyatta was bitterly attacking Mr. Bildad Kaggia, an old colleague of his prison days and now one of Kenyatta's critics on the left.

It becomes clearer every day that the so-called African socialism about which so much has been heard is only an ideological cloak for the national bourgeoisie and the middle-class politicians who run the state on their behalf, all of them subservient to the continued existence of imperialism.

As was explained in the Newsletter's recent interview with two young Congolese Marxists, the crying need in all these countries is for a leadership to fight for and win the political independence of the working class, and to defeat the representatives of the national bourgeoisie who are now clearly aligned with imperialism, whatever their public speeches at conferences. of their actions.

At the elections for the committee of the Faculty of Letters branch, which they control, the Pabloite leadership of the committee presented the same official list of candidates as last year, minus one name, that of a comrade who had spoken out against what she considered a betrayal. In her place, the Pabloites inserted the name of a supporter of the Chinese Stalinists!

An intervention in the students' movement can only be successful if seen in its proper context. The rebellion of the students against Stalinism is not merely a student phenomenon.

Students' revolt The growing crisis in French capitalism has made the consistent betrayals of French Stalinism almost unbearable to the working class. The students' revolt is an anticipation of the problem of building a new leadership and defeating the Stalinists.

An intervention in the student movement can give valuable insight and experience for a more decisive intervention into the working class mass base of the Stalinist party.

For this intervention in the student movement to succeed, it must be linked with the crisis which, although it may still be hidden, must exist among the worker members of the party and which finds an indirect and distorted expression in the student protest.

For the students to win, then, they must be led into activities which would bring them directly into contact with the workers and the nonpolitical youth, and at the same time engage them in serious effort for theoretical clarification.

The Pabloite intervention has been entirely confined to the students' movement, treating it apart from the working class, an isolated phenomenon, with its own problems.

In fact, the Pabloites do not see the need for any attempts to clarify the students, as, in their opinion, clarification will come automatically through the pressure of external events.

The article in 'World Outlook', a weekly publication of the Pabloite centre in Paris, written just before the congress, illustrates this.

'The French Communist Party leadership, writes Pierre Frank, 'holds one important advantage. It can wield considerable influence among the very youngest layers. This is due to the fact that they did not go through the Algerian war and consequently have not had the personal experience of seeing the French Communist Party's policies tested a major question in which they could make an independent judgment.' No help How can anyone with these views help the students and other dissidents in the Communist Party to break with Stalinism? They see no need to help.

'All we need is another war, comrades, a few more defeats for the working class, and everyone will spontaneously become Trotskyists,' they seem to say.

Unfortunately, Frank himself is a living refutation of his own theories. Despite the many rich experiences of his life, he has been unable to become a Trotskyist at all.

It is still possible to rectify the situation in the student movement. But to do this, it is necessary to see the contradiction between the Stalinist leadership of the French Communist Party and the objective needs of a mass base in the working class.

This offers big opportunities, which more than outweigh the 'difficulties' caused by the arbitrary rule of the bureaucracy in the party.

The first clash in the students' movement clearly shows the end of Stalinist monolithism is near. But the influence that the Pabloites were able to gain, only to betray and mis-educate the students, shows that the break-up of the bureaucracy does not necessarily lead to a victory for Trotskyism.

If the lessons of the student movement are learned. many valuable cadres can be won for the Trotskyist movement in France from the Stalinist partv.

TOOLMAKERS at the at the Cowley, Oxford, factory of Pressed return to work at a mass meeting held on • Steel agreed to returni Wednesday this week.

The 800 strikers were told by the the Amalgamated Engineering Union substantial wage increase would be discussed.

Leaders of the AEU refused to make the dispute official, no doubt hoping that by isolating the toolmakers and building up pressure against them the strikers would eventually return to work.

Men at Cowley were striking against the imposition of the 'package deal' signed by the employers and the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions.

They showed a great deal of determination in spite of repeated attempts earlier by union leaders to get them to return to work.

WEAK

But the toolmakers' unofficial leadership was weak Instead of using the dispute to build up a lead for the fight against the *package deal', the men were isolated in their struggle.

There were no big efforts on the part of the unofficial leaders to get support from the other trade unions and, in fact, the local and national press was able to play on this by giving a lot of publicity to statements from one official about starting a rat race in wages'.

Discussions with the management can mean little or nothing.

If rank-and-file members are to win future wage demands and throw out the 'package deal' then a very real struggle has to be waged against their own leadership.

These leaders will probably have something to say at the National Committee Meeting of the AEU on April 27. It is vital that large numbers of engineers lobby this NC and demand that the 'package deal' be rejected. Divisional Organiser of that their claim for a over Deal

Johnson's swindle Hepworth and Grandage Limited engineers of St. John's Works, Bradford, over the alleged difference in wage rates between this firm and the British Piston Ring Company of Coventry, doing similar work.

The workers at the Coventry firm are reported to have wage rates 40 per cent higher than the workers at Hepworth and Grandage Ltd., which means they probably get a considerably larger wage.

The union tried to get a board meeting with the management to discuss the wages but they did not receive satisfaction.

Immediately, a ban on overtime began throughout the factory. All castings sent from Coventry to Bradford for machining were "blacked'.

On the night shift of April 7, one of the workers refused to machine the 'blacked' castings and he was suspended.

Two hundred of the nightshift men walked out in sympathy.

The following day meetings were held in every department. As a result the majority of the day shift came out, excluding the electricians and maintenance workers.

AGREED

The electricians would not strike until the AEU declared the stoppage official, but they agreed to continue with the overtime ban.

The strike was not declared official by the AEU leadership.

The union's role in this strike is very clear. The fact that the strike was not declared official hampered the militant action of the workers and caused the weakening of the strike.

At a mass meeting on Monday, April 12, a convenor put the management's proposals to the meeting: that is that negotiations would take place between the union and management if the men returned to work.

This was accepted by the meeting with only one vote against. The strikers also voted to return to work with the overtime ban lifted and with the castings no longer "blacked'.

The convenor's advice to the men to go back to work under conditions very favourable to the management weakened the position of the union pending negotiations.

LIKE the production workers in engineering, white collar clerks and draughtsmen are showing their contempt for the efforts of the employers to impose a three-year package' pay deal.

• In London over the week-end representatives from five unions in 4,600 firms in the Engineering Employers' Federation took part in talks with the bosses lasting 10 hours.

One of the main objections to the deal was that there was no immediate increase in pay for the 500,000 workers represented by the five unions.

Officials claim that the only general increase would be 10s. next March. But one of the unions involved in the deal, the Draughtsmen's and Allied Technicians' Association wants a 10 per cent rise in wages.

Pay talks for this increase have broken down and union leaders have declared that the position will be considered by the union's executive before DATA's annual conference in three weeks' time.

Token

Those draughtsmen employed by firms in the engineering and shipbuilding firms have called a one-day token strike over pay on April 21.

Amongst other unions which rejected the deal were the National Association of Clerical and Supervisory Staff, the clerical section of the Transport and General Workers' Union, and the Association of Scientific Workers.

The fact that white collar workers too are taking a stand against wage freezing is an indication of the tremendous feeling in the engineering industry about attacks by the employers and the Labour government on their wages.

These unions and many others will be holding their annual conferences this Easter and the Labour leadership can expect much opposition to their attempts to prop up the profits of the engineering employers by trying to hold back the wages of thousands of workers throughout the country.

Determined

FIVE hundred and fifty draughtsmen on strike at Harland and Wolff shipyard, Belfast, are solid in their determination to stay out until the secretary of the Joint Office Committee whose sacking sparked off the stoppage, is reinstated.

More and more the indications are that this strike is the big test for the whole of the shipbuilding industry.

It was the militancy of the Belfast draughtsmen that forced the executive of the Draughtsmen's and Allied Technicians' Association to take action on the national claim for a minimum rate of £22 10s. at 30 years of age.

An official ban on overtime is at the present time being operated by all shipbuilding draughtsmen in Britain and a one-day stoppage has been called for April 21.

If the claim is not won by April 26, DATA announce that they will call out draughtsmen in five shipbuilding firms.

Weakness

A national stoppage has not been called because the draughtsmen receive full pay when on official strike.

This reveals the weakness of the DATA leadership who substitute the full pay scheme for a real fight to convince the membership.

In order to win their demands the draughtsmen must involve all the shipyard workers who are fighting against an attempt to impose a wage freeze on them.

Rebbeck, the managing director of Harland and Wolff, is reported to be very busy issuing warnings about the future of the firm and attempting to scare some of the workers into not fighting for increased wages.

A big responsibility lies with the striking draughtsmen not to allow the centrist union leaders in the shipyards to sell them out.

30 walk on atomic energy site THIRTY men from four trade unions walked out in a dispute at the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Nuclear Physics Laboratory, Daresbury, near Warrington, after alleged attacks on trade union organisation.

The strike has been declared official.

In a leaflet issued by the Joint Strike Committee it claimed that in March there was a meeting to negotiate an agreement on wages, hours and conditions on the atomic energy site.

The leaflet alleges that redundancy, which involved five pairs of pipe fitters, including the site convenor was created.

The strike committee are asking for support from all trade unionists in this dispute. viciously attack workers.

At Pinehurst Textiles Ltd, Lurgan, County Armagh, 350 workers came out on strike in support of a pay claim on March 29. The firm is reported to have immediately sacked everyone, posting their cards lo inemn. • At the factory a round-theclock shift system is worked and an average take-home pay for a married man is £8 15s. Workers are demanding at least 3d. an hour increase on shift allowance and 6d. an hour on basic allowance.

In reply the firm offered a scheme which would have meant greater productivity and a rise of 4d. per week! Workers claim that the strike occurred after company procedure had been exhausted.

RETURN

Faced with this mass sacking the Transport and General Workers' 1 Union officials have openly taken the bosses' side and advocated a return to work although it is well known that not everyone will be re-hired.

Hughes, Northern Ireland Textile Officer of the Transport Union appeared on the scene 10 days after the strike. When the workers paraded through Belfast, Sloan, the Northern Ireland secretary, could not be seen in the area.

After the union officials did eventually meet the management they refused to inform the branch secretary and the chairman of the result.

Workers are incensed with the union officials. A vote of no confidence in the district secretary was passed in the early days of the Postmen take action FOLLOWING the rejection of a pay offer of a shilling in th pound by postmen's leaders, 500 men at the Paddingto office decided to ban overtime. • They declared that if they did lot get a satisfactory settlement on the pay claim they woul strike from next Monday evening.

Union leaders met the Postmaster-General, Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn on Thursday morning.

In addition to refusing the pay offer they also rejected a 40-hour week which would begin in October.

General secretary of the Union of Post Office Workers, Ron Smith, was extremely worried that his members might take unofficial action.

He said there was no question of calling an official strike while talks were going on.

Many rank-and-file members remember the way in which they were sold out early last year when postmen up and down the country walked out on strike for better pay and working conditions. Transport leaders, the strike is still strong and the men say that the only basis for a return to work is: no increased work loads, everyone who went on strike to be re-employed, £1 immediate increase with negotiations for more.

TGWU refuse to make strike official AFTER a senior shop - steward was sacked by the management of Spaldings Ltd., near Belfast, the 190 workers came out on strike.

Shop steward, George Craig, had refused to allow a job with a fixed rate to be re-timed by a time and motion study expert.

On Tuesday, April 13, the firm is reported to have announced that the strikers would be receiving their cards and non-union labour would be employed.

The Transport and General Workers' Union refuses to make the strike official, although the men claim it is a blatant case of victimisation.

Shop stewards from other factories were told they were not to assist the strike. Transport drivers and dockers have agreed to declare the firm 'black' and not to handle any goods for it.

The Spalding strikers are composed mainly of youth and although the militancy is high, they need finance urgently.

All donations of money should be sent to Jim Beattie, Treasurer, Spalding Strike Committee, Flat 4, 5 Indiana Avenue, Belfast 15.

on pay claim strike over sackings FIVE hundred men from the firm of Hattersleys, Halifax, came out on strike last week over the sacking of five men.

The men who worked on valve production are alleged to have been told to do another operation-—that of loosening the nuts on the valves. They were on piece-work and a change could have meant that their bonus would be cut down.

The workers claim that the management said they would look into the matter.

This strike must be seen by the men as a fight for their right to a decent wage and trade union rights.

page 2), and its rejection here could well be an anticipation of the difficulties which Carron and the Amalgamated Engineering Union leaders are going to have in getting the deal ratified by the National Committee of the union, which meets in Blackpool on April 27.

Whatever this body decides, there is no doubt that a movement is growing in the working class to use their full strength to win increases from the employers.

This remains the only way to defend wages and conditions.

To be successful, however, these struggles must be accompanied by the building of a socialist political leadership which can defeat Wilson and Brown, and lead a campaign on socialist policies which will finish with the bosses and the Tories once and for all. ing should be noted.

Firstly, the Index of Retail Prices does not reflect the real rise in the cost of living as it affects workers. Rents, rates, fares and other items are not included in the Index.

Secondly, the Index could rise and fluctuate by 14 points in such a way over the next three years that the leaders could not claim any further increases in wages under the agreement.

Lastly, the negotiators who signed the agreement have not the slightest intention of launching any fight to improve the workers' lot.

The package deal is entirely adapted to helping the capitalist class to try and solve their economic crisis at the expense of the workers.

So they lie, these servile trade union servants of the masters, when they say it is a 'good' deal.

They are hypocrites when they pretend to be interested in the welfare of the lower paid workers.

SCANDAL

The biggest scandal of the trade union movement has been the absolute ignoring over many years of the abominable living standards of the lower wage workers. But the responsibility for this rests entirely on the same trade union leaders who could have, but did not, use the power of the unions to substantially increase wages.

In the present period of rapidly rising costs, the package deal can only have the effect of increasing the impoverishment of wider sections of the working class.

That would be the case if the union bosses had their way. But the engineering workers are not going to passively accept their standards being lowered. Signing a piece of paper is one thing-.. getting the workers to accept it is something quite different.

In actual fact, workers are defying the agreement by striking for higher wages. Thus the strike of the toolmakers at the Pressed Steel Company, Cowley, is a blow against the deal, and therefore a blow for all workers.

All those men whose actions for improved conditions now come up against the agreement must be supported in these struggles which should also be carried into the branches and districts of the unions against the deal.

SUPPORT

Immediately, the workers should ensure that full financial and other support is given to the apprentices in their fight which is also against the deal.

The lobby of the National Committee of the Amalgamated Engineering Union, which meets in Blackpool on April 27 should be a mass demonstration of shop stewards and apprentices to impress on this committee the need to fling out the package agreement.

The National Committee was previously given 20 minutes by the AEU leaders to read the agreement.

Many delegates there who previously voted for it in haste must be having second thoughts.

All shop committees and apprentices should convey to the National Committee their feelings on the matter.

The biggest single blow to the employers' wage-freezing tactics would be if this National Committee flung out the agreement.

Telegrams from all organisations in the union (branches, stewards committees, etc.) should be sent to Blackpool on April 27 as well as delegates.

This is the way to fight this pernicious agreement. This is also the way to begin the cleansing of the trade unions of the bureaucrats, whose interests lie more with the bosses than with the workers.

The next article on the package deal will deal with the future of the unions and Labour.

Registered at the G.P.O. as a newspaper Printed by Plough Press Ltd. (TU). r.o. 180 Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4 Published by The Newsletter, 186A Clapham High Strect. 1 ondon. S.W.4 wage increases be kept below the 37 per cent mark, so it is very clear that all improvements in the standard of living must stop and the standard must actually decline for many workers.

Fortunately, it is not just a question of what Brown, the bosses, and the union leaders want.

Throughout the winter, thousands of youth in the Young Socialists and important sections of the adult workers supported the old age pensioners in a campaign to backdate their increase, and valuable lessons have been learned.

Now we are moving into a series of wage struggles which can blow the incomes policy sky high.

On Monday of this week five • unions refused package deals on wages, hours and holidays. The Draughtsmen's union announced its rejection of the 3-31 per cent incomes policy and declared that nothing less than a 10 per cent increase would satisfy their members. Draughtsmen all over the British Isles have recently been demonstrating their willingness to take industrial action for their demands.

Scientific and clerical workers in four other unions were offered a pay and hours settlement which their unions have turned down. This affects a million white collar workers.

Already in the engineering industry the Pressed Steel workers at Cowley have initiated a great battle for increases far above the package deal agreement.

The great discontent which has been boiling up for years in the coal industry among the poorly paid day-wage men has resulted in the National Union of Mineworkers executive submitting to the Coal Board a 12 per cent demand for fl 4s. 6d. a week for 250,000 men.

Southern Region drivers on the railways are asking for an increase of 3s. 3d., equivalent to 20 per cent, which would only bring them up to the national average earnings.

Footplatemen last week rejected the British Railways' bonus offer, and the three railway unions are now likely to come together to prepare a new demand for an all-round increase.

The offer to clerical workers was substantially modelled on the engineering package deal signed last year (see article on