Defeat for sanctions aids NUJ

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The first crisis in the NUJ national provincial strike over wages showed the leadership of the union and of the TUC running for cover.

The emergency committee of the NEC called off the blacking of Press Association copy at the Daily Express within hours of a High Court injungtion being won by Beaverbrook Newspapers.

It was a move designed to take the dispute over pay to a new level and has vivid links with the decision by the UPW in 1976 to call off their blacking of phone calls to South Africa after an injunction was served.

When the injunction was granted, NUJ president Denis MacShane and deputy general secretary Charles Harkness were immediately summonsed to the TUC.

There they were told that on no account must they stand up to the court ruling.

Now the leadership of the union is leaving it to the Express chapel to decide whether to continue with the blacking, while they cover their retreat by saying that the TUC is prepared to finance an appeal "all the way to the House of Lords' The blacking of PA is a vital action in any strike on provincial papers.

PA management have refused to accept that copy can be sent to some offices and not other is therefore essential that PA çopy is stopped every time a regional paper is in dispute.

But even after being instructed to strike under conditions where virtually every NUJ member in provincial journalism is on strike, the PA chapel has continued to vote against strike action.

Blacking is therefore the only answer.

The NUJ leadership must refuse to allow the blacking to be taken off and must call on the TUC for direct strike action to prevent the state from seizing the union funds.

If the blacking of PA can be stopped by a court injunction then every piece of secondary blacking can be stopped by NAFF or the employer through the courts.

The defeat of the government sanctions in the House of Commons, followed by Callaghan's removal of sanctions has left the employers-The Newspaper Society-naked and exposed.

The Newspaper Society immediately made its 'special case offer unconditional and agreed to meet the NUJ for talks if the strike is called off.

But journalists have taken 70 years to reach the point of this strike and there must be no question of any return to work until the strike is won and the full €20 is paid.

Steps must be taken to build on the limited solidarity shown by print workers in Kent and van drivers' and warehouse workers in London.

More papers have been stopped; and one employerthe Belfast Telegraph-has left the Newspaper Society to settle almost in fuil.

Journalists must stay out till they win.

fignt As Times Newspapers finally sacked its printers last week the Financial Times management threatened to sack printers over disruption over a pay claim.

The threat underlined that the drive towards job stripping being spearheaded by the Times is being closely followed by all Fleet Street papers.

The FT. pay dispute is directly over a move to print pages in Frankfurt, West Germany.

After the gigantic demonstrations of last weekend, the crisis Iran has entered into new phase.

The millions of workers, peasants and students, who massed in the streets of Tehran and the other major cities, expressed their opposition to the Shah's. dictatorship on a larger scale than ever before.

Their largely peaceful protests were impressive in their discipline. But the power of this unity remained chained by the authority of the religious leaders.

As the tanks and troops of the Iranian dictatorship circled Tehran, the demonstrators occupied the heart of the city with their numbers.

By their action they showed how near Iran has come to a state of dual power and the problems that can still prevent that dual power from developing.

As they marched through Tehran, the crowds declared yet again their loyalty to the ayatollah Khomeini-a loyalty that can bring them only defeat.

Khomeini has never wavered in his statements of opposition to the Shah's regime.

Since the mobilisations of last week, he has repeated his calls for increased strike action and a campaign of civil disobedience.

But these are not the acts of a revolutionary who will lead the masses of Iran to win their freedom from oppression and material want.

Even during last week Khomeini has been dropping Crowds in Tehran hints that he would ban the Communist Party if he came to office.

For the fate of the Iranian workers and peastants, it is irrelevant Whether Khomeini is a sincere fanatic or a hypocritical demogogue and opportunist.

The ayatollah offers no perspective beyond the overthrow of the Shah but loose generalis: ations about a democratic Islamic republic.

The old lures of popular religion are once again laid out before the oppressed masses-a society of equality, where religion transcends the class struggle and all strife has been abolished.

But these opium-dreams will soon give way to living nightmares of reality, if the mass movement is not broken from the domination of superstition and idealism.

Khomeini's leadership offers Iranian workers only one prospect-a step into an abyss of chaos and defeat.

The military government of General Azhari has been unable to restore imperialist stability in Iran.

The army leaders showed their weakness when they were forced to allow the mass demonstrations to proceed.

They have made little impact so far with their latest threats of more effective repression of strikes and protests.

But the generals grow objectively stronger with every day that the working class remains tied to the religious opposition and held back from taking the revolutionary leadership of the struggles against imperialism in Iran.

Talks between the Shah, military leaders and the bourgeois liberals of the National Front are clearly reaching new levels of agreement on what action must be taken to restore capitalist order in Iran.

The strengthening of this alliance has been a major factor in providing the latest militancy of the mullahs, who wish to reassert their claim to power by showing what forces they can call for support.

The imperialists and their agents know very well that they cannot as yet impose a 'satisfactory' solution on the crisis.

But they can also see the opportunities opening up for them, while the proletariat remains bound in religious fetters and does not strike with all the might of its independent political strength.

The strike wave has renewed its forced in the oil field, crippling production once again.

Workers in other sectors are holding firm in their action, and still pressing their * political demands. But this movement must be co-ordinated to gain the full force of its power and develop the potential of this movement.

Independent militias need to be formed immediately to protect strikes, occupations and demonstrations against state repression and attacks from reactionary forces.

Soviet-type bodies must be built to represent the political needs of the working class and all other oppressed classes, including the rank and file soldiers.

Such bodies could extend and develop the struggles of the Iranian masses to a higher level where the leadership of the working class can offer a socialist alternative to the oppression and brutality of imperialist rule.