Spread the Kick Out Strikes! Callaghan!

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the country came together in a series of mass meetings that threw out the company's 14.9% and penalty clauses pay offer.

The same day in Birmingham 3,000 manual workers from Leyland's Drews Lane Tractor and Transmissions factory were storming out of the gates after a unanimous mass meeting vote for an indefinite strike against their 5%with-strings offer.

And. in London, Bakers Union General Secretary Sam Maddox was threatening a national strike in pursuit of the union's 25% pay claim-which on their current rates would still only give a £10 rise:

PHOTO: Laurence Sparham, IPL Still talking-Duffy SOCIALIST PRESS RALLY To commemorate the 1st anniversary of the weekly Socialist Press.

• Speakers to include Socialist Press Editor John Lister ¡ollowed by a showin of Eisenstein's "STRIKE"

Admission £1.00

Sunday 19 November 3 p.m. at New Ambassadors Hotel Upper Woburn Place (1 minute from Euston Tube)

*Mass meetings have begun in British Oxygen, where workers are recommended to reject a 9% offer.

*A majority of Michelin workers have already thrown out a 9-11½% with-strings offer.

*5,000 Scottish lorry drivers have been recommended to reject a 5% offer, and press their 25% claim.

*1 million local authority workers are pressing pay claims of 40%-demanding •a £60 minimum wage for a 35-hour week.

Closeted

Yet even while workers continue to register their bitter hostility to all forms of wage controls, TUC leaders remain closeted this week with ministers in a last-ditch bid to agree an economic policy, and public sector union chiet continué to stall on wage demands for their millions of members.

Mullenhan nonfirent that no canadan.

Labour MP or union leader is prepared to campaign for his removal from office, carries onregardles of Labour Party conference and TUC Congress policy-to uphold the 5% limit.

The sharp escalation of the pay struggle has brought a retreat by the Tories, afraid that they might find themselves catapulted into office pledged to end wage controls in a period Moti already shut down all production of Maxi, Marina and Princess cars at the Cowley plants, as well as MG Abingdon.

As we go to press the Mini and Alegro production at Longbridge is grinding to a halt. The dispute will stop the whole of Leyland.

Convenor Arthur Harper, declaring that no meetings will be held until the company concede, went on television to describe Leyland workers as "lions led by donkeys"

The strike has abruptly halted the company's plans to connect the pay review with its proposals for pay parity linked to speed-up-and to ballot for them at company level. Even the 5% pay offer is conditional on acceptance of the parity proposals.

But the principled fight at the Cowley Assembly Plant against corporate-level bargaining and for a plant claim of £27, a 35-hour week and a cost of living clause, has pressured every other plant into submitting its own claim.

Until that point. convenors were all set to comply with the company's plans. In fact Jaguar stewards only put in their claim last week, while Rovers held a mass meeting to endorse their claim last Friday-two days after the supposed settlement date, and at the same time as the Drews Lane walkout!

But the most conscious sabotage of the pay fight has been carried out by Longbridge convenor, Communist Party member Derek Robinson, and fellow Stalinist Peter Nicholas at Rovers.

Conned

Robinson in particular conned a 600 strong stewards' meeting, getting them to vote in favour of a resolution allowing the negotiating committee to choose one of three options.

These were: 1) giving BL until December 1 to improve their offer; 2) immediate strike action; or 3) negotiation with no action.

Having won carte-blanche, Robinson predictably put option 1 to Friday's mass meeting-effectively heading off any action alongside Fords, and bringing the talks closer to Christmas.

The Communist Party registered its support for this tactic in the Morning Star, which criticised the Drews Lane strike on Friday and failed to mention it in Monday's pay strike round-up!

Meanwhile in the Cowley Assembly Plant, a stewards' meeting is to be held on Tuesday and a mass meeting on