Tgwu's Secret Deal to Cui Garners Picket Lines

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Demonstration previous Garners Day of Action

Possible benefits

UPW EC have a three month trial to 'measure the possible benefits to the staff and the business' • They estimate that with full implementation a total of over 2,000 posts may be 'saved"

With computerised directories and the viewdata (a UK Post Office invention which links the phone to the television) the Post Office eventually won't need directory operators-subscribers will be able to do this themselves from home or the office.

£10OM is being spent on this project which could be launched in early 1979. Blackburn Tels, aware of the implications of CIR with viewdata, have tabled an amendment that the Post Office must not give public access to computer records.

This motion should be supported at this conference. However it fails to put forward a policy for opposing the des truction of directory operators in practice-a commitment to no loss of jobs or 'posts' and a drive for a policy of work-sharing on full pay.

The other major change the UPW leadership is backing is the introduction of Automatic Call Recording Equipment (ACRE) which will replace the ticket work at the switchboard.

Reduced

The equipment will reduce the need for the operator to refer to a file for routing details -the call details only need to be dialed once and can be used for both accounting and routing. It will also time calls and automatically release the call when During the week the numbers of tourists in Central London has diminished somewhat and the numbers entering the picketed restaurants has been reduced to a trickle.

The picketing has been maintained with some significant new support. On Thursday night 24 August, a large 20-strong delegation from the Executive Committee of the CPSA voted to come down to the picket line and they spent some hours covering a number of different restaurants.

PHOTO: Chris Davies, Report Further afield, strike committee member | M. Mahboob found widespread support for the strike when addressing a number of meetings of labour movement bodies in Scotland.

Communist party

Brother Mahboob •visited, amongst others, leaders of the Communist Party in Scotland.

It is to be hoped that this will place pressure within that party to increase the very limited levels of support which it has been giving to the strike up to now.

It is to be hoped also that the efforts of the Greater London Association of Trades Councils and its liaison committee will eventually yield more pickets and other support.

This week there was little sign of extra support from this quarter though we understand a circular has now been sent out to trades councils in the London area.

The Brent Trades Council delegation was conspicuous by its absence on Friday evening, 25 August.

The key body for winning support for the strike is still the Number 1 Regional Committee of the TGWU.

The limits that the bureaucrats are placing on their support is clear from the minutes of the meeting held earlier in the month, which are now being circulated.

The pressure being put on the TGWU leadership by the strike was clearly reflected in the discussion. The strike was called 'another Grunwick' • 'a political issue' on which 'possibly some industrial action' would have to be taken by other groups of workers, particularly in the public supply sector' The meeting also heard references to a previous resolution that we give full support but were we giving enough?' The answer to this point time after time by Regional Organiser Les Shorter.. and Regional Secretary Sid Staden must have sounded like a broken record.

They said 'we are not getting the support of our members with the pickets', that 'there has not been much response from other branches', and 'our members were not giving the The reason for this is not the unwillingness of the members to fight, but the refusal of the bureaucrats to lead.

This refusal is shown clearly in the resolution that was passed by the meeting calling vaguely on trade groups 'to obtain support from their membership' without demanding any specific commitment.

Even the specific commitment of Regional Committee members to 'visit' the pickets on Tuesday or Wednesday evenings has not been carried out since the Regional Committee meeting.

Only the Building Trade Group has continued to send its regular delegation.

The biggest bombshell the Regional Committee minutes is the revelation of a secret agreement with the police 'that there should be a maximum of six pickets at an establishment at any one time' This secret agreement, which typifies the refusal of the bureaucrats to take the steps necessary to win the strike, has not been revealed to the strikers nor indeed any of the pickets.

The police have just been allowed to harrass pickets and pick off individuals without any serious opposition from the It is presumably this same agreement which lies beind the rather strange statement in an otherwise unspectacular Time Out article on 18 August that 'mass picketing has been ruled out' It is the stepping up of support for the strike, and not its diminution that will win it now.

It is open campaigning and not 'secret diplomacy' that will be the means to do this.

Support must now be built in branches for picketing at specific restaurants on particular nights.

The day of action on 30 September called for by the strike committee must gain support as wide as possible in the workers' movement, especially in TGWU Region 1.

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SOCIALIST The vicious Tory government of Malcolm Fraser stands on the point of being overthrown by a massive upsurge of anger by the ST The £20 increase and