[liberated towns and villages, and to blaze the…]

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liberated towns and villages, and to blaze the crops.

Yet the experience of US imperialism in Vietnam showed the limited value of aerial bombardment in resisting guerrilla warfare.

The Derg's main aim will almost certainly be to contain the thrusts of the Eritrean liberation forces while they try to break the EPLF's supply-lines which run far back into the Sudan.

Sudan

• Already Mengistu has an appointment with President Numeiri of the Sudan, and the highest item on the agenda will certainly be a demand from the Derg that the Sudan moves rapidly to end all EPLF activity within its borders.

So long as the supplylines can be kept open, the EPLF can maintain guerrilla warfare indefinitely at a high level of activity. Time is on the side of the EPLF.

The longer the war continues, the more the pressure of opposition mounts within Ethiopia itself against the Derg and its bloody dictatorship.

Every shot fired in Eritrea raises the temperature of that economic and PLE supporters demonstrate In the final analysis, the success ot the Eritrean people in their struggle of liberation will be determined by their ability to fight not just against national oppression, . but against all the forms of oppression which afflict them.

The third article in this series will report on some of the ways in which the EPLF has worked towards that goal in the liberated areas of Mengistu

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Page 4 SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 7 February 1979 Westminster Hospital staff nurse Gillian Brear speaks from floor at Central Hall meeting Interview with Tom O'Regan, Chairman of Kensington, Chelsea and Westminster Branch of NUPE, currently s4.ma malaol PHOTO: John Sturrock, Report PHOTO:

the on strike at the Westminster Hospital.

pared to come forward and fight John Press In last week's Socialist Press you described how you have fought for indefinite strike action on the NUPE claim since Christmas. How has that struggle developed since then?

Last week I explained how l had fought to get my branch (Camden General) and my section (Cressy Road Dustmen) to adopt policies calling on the leadership and especially the London Division to call all-out indefinite strike action.

This last week things have developed very rapidly.

Despite the general feeling amongst our 40 stewards for all out strike action our Branch Secretary took the decision to only call out the men who man the petrol pumps at the two major depots.

So at the beginning of last week there were only about four men on strike in Camden!

This brought things to a head. Because as the diesel ran out in our dustcarts, my men were refüsing to scab on the pump men's strike.

Management threatened to send the drivers home if they didn't scab.

We had mass meetings on Monday and Tuesday to prepare for strike action, and when the lorries ran dry on Wednesday the whole refuse section took the decision to come with the drivers on indefinite strike in support of the full claim.

What were the feelings of the membership then and now?

They were totally fed up of one day strikes and partial actions in different sections.

Feeling was very high that the whole of the borough shnuld be out on strike.

cover at the hospital?

We elected an 8 man strike US. committee with each member having specific tasks.

l've been really strengthened by the way the men have reacted.

In struggle those you least expect come forward and play leading roles.

This has been seen in the strength of the picketing and the level of our organisation.

Already as well as keeping a picket line across the depot our strike committee has made decisions on spreading the strike, what emergency cover we will aliow, and joining up with other boroughs on strike.

Could you enlarge on those aspects?

Well the men felt strongly that we couldn't remain out on a limb.

So the first thing we did was to send 30 blokes down to the other two depots at Camden Town 'and Holborn ISP The Borough of Camden has 3 refuse: depots, Cressy Road (Hampstead), Camden Town and Holborn] to urge them to join ASLEF is insisting on a 10% bonus for its members and the NUR is objecting. What is the background to this?

The background to all recent rail disputes is the massive cuts in jobs since Beeching.

In 1950 there were 446,000 jobs on railways. By 1973 there were 190,000.

In 1973-5 there was a slight increase of 5,000 jobs, but now there are proposals to cut 40,000 more. And then there are staff shortages on top.

That saved' £64 million in 19778. Meanwhile there have been all kinds of technological changes making work more intensive and often more dangerous.

Yet it continues to be really low paid industry, and addition we've had four years wage control.

The present dispute started last year after the jobs of station master, porter, ticket collector and guard in rural areas were all amalgamated into the job of At a mass meeting the follow ing day they voted to come out.

The second way of spreading the strike was the way our own picket lines affected other NUPE members in our depot.

I think the directions Fisher issued saying you shouldn't picket any workers other than your own section are a scabs' However, oUr strike committee made the decision to let the highways and fitters go in to work but argue with them not to bring any vehicles out.

When managaement threatened to send them home if they refused to break our picket line, they too took the decision to come out.

The point is that we haven't had to battle to get workers to come out alongside us.

The feeling in the membership is very strong now against the 5%.

But to set the ball rolling a lead was necessary. Because none was forthcoming from our branch leadership it was down to our depot to give a lead.

Now at the end of the week, Socialist Press interviews a Kings Cross guard who is. a member of the Holloway branch of the NUR.

limit.

'It was also an alternative to the management's proposals for incentive bonus schemes which are very divisive.

The RSNT agreed to the NUR's plan and it was also endorsed at the 1978 AGM of the NUR. But ASLEF still insisted on their separate 10%.

The BPS has now been agreed to. The actual sums are £1.74 for railmen, (that's the new dog's body job of porter and ticket collector rolled into one); £2.03 for guards; £2.28 for drivers.

Backdated to April it will pay f50-£125. But you have to do enormous amounts of overtime to get even that. John Seymour we've qot 7 sections out including dust, sewers, highways; transport and electric lighting.

You mentioned emergency services. As you know the Workers Socialst League has always argued for strike committees controlling emergency services.

The decision was taken in negotiations with management to allow two dustcarts to empty the hospitals in the borough.

I will be fighting for a position that the strike committee decides what emergency cover should be and that any emergency cover we give depends on there being no contractors or scab labour used anywhere in the Borough.

Any wages earnt should go to the strike funds.

FS for '15 changes in manning practices' are incredible.

They include much more single manning, radio controlled trains which we have been fighting for a long time, the withdrawal of rest day working (which most people do to survive), freight guards being trained as carriage and wagon inspectors, spare time flexibility (meaning a guard could be put on the ticket barrier for the last two hours of his shift) and carriage cleaning by married women on six hour shifts with students during school holidays.

The NUR is now saying it is 'obliged' to go back to the RSNT.

What is the feeling among the membership?

An example was an open meeting at Unity House in November, which Weighell was asked to address. There was a lot of anger and Weighell, who's very keen on support for the Labour Party, threatened to leave several times.

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