Thorns struggle is sold out

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SIAL NEWS Efforts of management and the TGWU official contrived to get a vote to end the strike at Thorns Southbury Road plant at a mass meeting on Friday.

Over 1,000 workers had been on strike for a week in defence of a victimised steward.

Preparat Paul Green, militant TGWU steward was sacked for supposedly bad timekeeping.

This victimisation was clearly an attack on union organisation in the plant in preparation for speed-up and redundancies.

In fact the production manager Phil Hart has been quoted as saying that there were six stewards he wanted to get rid of. This steward is the first.

A 24 hour picket maintained on the gates a good response was from most lorry drivers.

"Inquiry"

The District Officer Tom Knowles, after meeting management, had a 3 hour meeting with the stewards on Tuesday inside the factory so that Paul Green was not able to attend.

Knowles was in favour of a return to work pending an "inquiry"

When he couldn't sell this line he tried one of the oldest tricks in the bureaucrats' book.

He had received complaints, he claimed, from unnamed members, that they had not been able to vote properly at the original mass meetings.

What was needed, he said, was a recalled meeting of members to retake the vote. played a key role major cuts struggle.

We have championed every major unionisation fight, from Grunwick to Garners and Sandersons, highlighting and fighting each step of bureaucratic betrayal and sabotage. And the Workers Socialist League has been at the forefront of the fight in British Leyland and throughout industry to oppose the erosion of the independent shop stewards' movement through class collaboration in workers participation' bodies.

In each of these struggles and in our international work the WSL has fought to reveal and to explain the counter-revolutionary role played by the Stalinists of the Communist Partieswhether these be Eurocommunist parties or those was and got This was to include the scabs on the 6pm-10pm shift, mostly women, who had crossed picket lines throughout the dispute.

This was accepted by the stewards and gave management their opportunity to act.

The 350 workers on the evening shift were called together and offered £7 each, equivalent to 3 hours overtime, plus the use of the canteen to park their children if they attended the Friday mass meeting and voted against the strike.

Gravely mistaken

The outcome of the vote was a foregone conclusion.

Paul Green • remains outside the gate.

But if Brother Knowles thinks that he will now receive less criticism at the 1/1530 branch meetings he is gravely mistaken. adhering to Moscow.

Our principled stand on these issues has also vividly exposed the opportunism and confusion of the various other left groups who claim to offer workers a revolutionary' alternative.

And the practical experience we have gained in the fight for the Trotskyist Transitional Programme has convinced us of the necessity to reconstruct the Fourth International as the World Party of Socialist Revolution, on the principles established at its foundation in 1938.

Whether fighting falling living standards, unemploy. ment and the attacks on democratic rights at home or mobilising in solidarity with international struggles against imperialism in Ireland, Iran and Southern Africa, the Workers Socialist League has a practical and a theoretical contribution to make.

Join We call on Socialist Press readers and supporter to consider the co ming struggles, the problems they face, and the necessity of a principled lead in each day-to-day fight.

Only our small size prevents our work having still greater impact on the class struggle. You can play a role in changing that!

Why not join us? Our local branch would be pleased to tell you • more about our programme, policies and perspective.

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