All the lads want is a clear, firm lead Anti-wage freeze

movement. It is completely within the constitution to place a resolution before the Parliamentary Labour Party demand'here can be no evasion. The left MPs must fight Wilson or be exposed as his main allies. It is up to them. it would way out. Place a demand the left national BY SYLVIA PICK | UNEMPLOYMENT figures counted on Monday, but not to be released till next Wednesday, will certainly show the sharpest rise in Birmingham and the West Midlands. Since the October figures, which showed a total of over 41,000 wholly unemployed and on short time, the mass sackings of car workers from BMC factories have taken place.

Last week the car industry stood in the light of reports in the Midlands was in a state from the Tractor and Transmisbordering on complete break- sions factory in Birmingham that down as a consequence ..Of a number of men there have government policies. Factories already hit by redundancy and short-time working were in some cases brought to a standstill by the strikes against sackings at Morris Radiators, and of the car delivery drivers at Longbridge.

Following the return at Oxford, some firms are starting up again.

The Longbridge strike, which is official, has already lasted over eight weeks. A Midlands official of the Transport and General Workers' Union has said: "The onus is on the employers. We lill stick it out as long as they NO DRIVE Pickets have in fact built huts from which to watch the storage compounds at Austin's, and have a searchlight which shows what is going on in the compounds after dark.

But since the start there has been no drive by the union leadership towards a quick and decisive victory by enlisting the support of car production workers. These also voted overwhelmingly for work-sharing instead of redundancy, the principle for which the Longbridge drivers are striking.

This week work has been parfactories ameded by the too the putes.

But the desperate plight of some car workers can be underreceived no day whatsoever for the past three weeks, s, although they were not among those sacked.

Reports say that some have been reduced to asking the firm to declare them redundant, in order that they might draw the dole.

Workers at BMC's Fisher and Ludlow factory, Erdington, report that reactions to the crisis are very mixed and confused.

Many in the factory say that there should have been a resolute all-out fight against redundancy from the beginning.

Others take the more fatalistic line that there was nothing much they could do.

This latter reaction is the consequence of the disastrous weakness of trade union leadership, both local and national. Continued pare 4, column 6 → PUBLIC MEETING Hungarian Revolution NDAY, NOVEMBER 21 TY MEMORIAL HALL SHEFFIELD 7.30 p.m. ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY contracting electricians employed on a site at Newbridge, near Edinburgh, by James Kilpatrick and Son, a Paisley firm, had their employment cards sent to them through the post recently.

They were told in a letter that they were sacked because of an alleged unofficial meeting held during working hours, 'coupled with the continuous poor level operation in many aspects: Of coApprentices who were left on the site were expected by the firm to carry on with the journeymen's work.

Tightening up

The company offered to reengage the men on the condition that the working rules agreed between the Electrical Trades Union and the Electrical Contractors' Association would be strictly applied. The electricians who have now returned to the site claim, however, that working conditions have been tightened up and the rules rigorously applied.

The attitude of the local ETU officials was that the men were in the wrong and that they had no alternative but to return to work. A notice was pinned up at the Paisley headquarters of James Kilpatrick which invited all 'loyal' ETU members to prevail on their brothers to return to the Newbridge site.

The electricians had no alternative but to return under the firm's conditions. They were told that only 85 men would be restarted and that selection would be based on seniority.

At least one shop steward attack From BOB SHAW failed to regain his job although he had seniority of a number of years. He has now had to leave his new house in the Livingstone New Town and move back to Glasgow in search of a job.

Other sacked electricians live in the Bathgate area where unemployment is already high due to sackings at the BMC.

Previous strike

Members of the ETU will recall the strike which took place at the Kincardie Bridge site in 1962. The strike was broken when electricians were sent on to the job at the instigation of the union office.

An attack was then launched against individuals and branches in the area and a number of ETU members were disciplined.

Electricians at Kilpatricks think that they are being sorted out because they have led an unofficial movement against the government's prices and incomes policy and took part in a demonstration in Glasgow when contracting men marched to the union office and demanded a fight against the wage freeze.

Since the Kincardine strike many things have changed in the ETU. Many ex-CP members and other militants who were then in opposition to the union leadership have now followed them into full-time jobs in the union.

They now say that they are still opposed to the right-wing but claim that the way to defeat them is to beat them at their own game-by using the rule book.

This avoids any questions of giving leadership to rank-and-fle movements which try to find a genuine policy to fight the electri• cal employers. It also means that they keep their nice new jobs.