Garners: Action Needed

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Management of Smith-Wallis Engineering in Highgate have now refused to discuss with the union or allow elected TGWU shop stewards back into the plant.

The strike began when workers received a £2.50-£4.00 pay offer in response to their £15 claim-aimed at reaching the TGWU's target £60 minimum wage.

Since then strikers have dug in for a long battle, and manage. ment has stepped up violent attacks on the picket line.

One management scab was discovered carrying an axe in his car-which he claimed to be taking for "sharpening"

Last week this same scab drove wildly at the picket line, hospitalising three pickets with injuries and shock.

The full strength of the TGWU's Birmingham organisation must be thrown behind this strike-with blacking, mass pickets to cover the factory's 15 gates and financial support.

UNION DUES Garners strikers have been forced to witness another week of token gestures at a time where their ten month struggle could so clearly be won.

Token gesture number one came from the powerful TGWU Region 1 committee, which Regional Organiser Les Shorter reported, will make some money available before Christmas and get Catering Officer Abrahams to seek out help on the picket line.

But since no striker will be involved Abrahams' approaches to trade groups, there is no reason to believe that even one extra picket will, be produced by a man who once declared that one picket outside a restaurant was enough.

And the Regional Committee seems determined to block O shall AT THE the strike committee's call for a TGWU delegate conference on the Garners strike.

Joken gesture number two was displayed in Wednesday's Morning Star, in the form of a photograph of Communist Party leader Gordon McLennan picketing Garners.

The CP have been sending delegations from i their King Street and Morning Star offices every Monday and Wednesday lunchtime to picket in Trafalgar Square. • But while this cosmetic job may fool some of the CP's members into believing the Party has a principled record in the strike, the appearance is not even skin deep.

Six or seven top bureaucrats twice a week is no substitute for a serious attempt by the CP to mobilise their thousands of claimed London members who have never been seen near the I WONDER WHERE YEAH, WHAT'S HE ÖFISHALL 1S? I'M SURE DOING ABOUT OUR (I SAW HIM COME IN!) LOW PAY?

/NUPEY FEBRUARY, ANOTHER LETTER TO I SECRETARIES: G FUND:Garners picket.

But the tokenism of CP "support" is exposed most clearly when we examine the role of the network of Stalinists in top positions in the London labour movement, who have done next to nothing to aid the strike.

TGWU Regional Secretary Sid Staden is a CP. member and agreed with the police to restrict picket lines to six strong.

Other CP members. are delegates to the Region 1 Committee which has scarcely lifted a finger in 10 months.

The S.E. Region TUC is headed by Stalinist chairman Jack Dunn, with the secretary being Morning Star darling Jack Dromey.

These people have not even mobilised themselves in support of the strike!

The Greater Assoç- London MARC APRIL JUNE JULY AUG SEPT OCT ' OH HELLO-ER, I'M GLAD YOU ASKED ME... I'M JUST BACK FROM A MEETING OF THE ACTION COMMITTEE...

PRINT & DISTRIBUTE 2,000,000 LEAFLETS ARTICLE ON LOW PAY IN 'TRIBUNE. A SUNDAY DAY OF ACTION WITH 1 HOUR STRIKES DINNER WITH JIM AT Nº10 ARTICLE ON LOW PAY IN 'MORNING STAR' RALLY ADDRESSED BY ALAN FISHER IDAY STRIKES AT SELECTED BRANCHES. ANOTHER 2,000,000 LEAFLETS. ¡ation of Trades Councils is headed by Stalinist Frank Stiller -backed up on the GLATC Garners sub-committee by fellow CP member Tom Durkin. Both men failed to attend the last sub-committee meeting.

And on Westminster Trades Counci, Stalinist secretary David Treisman has distinguished himself by blocking moves to elect a Garners strike committee member onto the sub-committee raising funds for arrested Garners pickets!

This strike could be won if only a few of these bodies were to seriously mobilise their membership behind the policies of mass picketing and secondary blacking.

• Token gestures are no use with an employer like Garners boss Margolis. The Stalinists and right wingers that block all-out action must be exposed at every opportunity.

...AND IS NOT CLAIM

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PRESS ST Bakers' picket PHOTO: Mark Rusher, IFL :: -:

DEFICIALE STRIKI

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"LET'S SEE-DECEMBER, A CONFERENCE OF GENERAL THEN JANUARY, WELL LAUNCH A FIGHTIN