Strike shakes officials
Socialist Press1979 1979-01-10Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 12 →
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popular support.
The way in which they evacuated the towns and forcibly dispersed the working Ilying with Pol Pot, has ridently attacked the invasion, nd massed troops on the Vietamese border. tionary, nationalist attempts to build "socialism in a single country" offers the only way forward in Kampuchea and in Such a political revolution The votes for strike action by lorry drivers in Scotland and large parts of England caught several trade union bureaucrats with their "left' credibility seriously exposed.
Scottish IGWU bureaucrat Alex Kitson tried to halt the movement suggesting that Scottish lorry drivers had jumped the gun' In a desperate attempt to retrieve the position he made a hurried retraction in Saturday's Morning Star, claiming that this darling of the Broad Left had been "misquoted"
Voted down In Birmingham, TGWU official Alan Law who built his reputation as a militant within the trade • group representing lorry drivers, attempted to argue that the strike should be deferred until a final stage of procedure had been exhausted-only to voted down.
A group of drivers promptly invaded his office and occupied it, demanding his replacement as their official.
Ballot This came after a week in which the Department of Public Prosecutions decided not to proceed further on ballot irregularities in which Law admitted personally casting votes for many of the 4,500 members of the (now divided) 5/35 Branch.
The lorry drivers are clearly in a very strong position to fight for their claim.
But the danger of a sellout of the interests of lorry drivers will continue to exist until the likes of Law and Kitson are removed and a principled revolutionary leadership built in their place.