Dunlop Sell-out Lo

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MEANWHILE, IN IRAN, RIOTING, MOBS OF EXTREMISTS... AFTER ALL —ANY OLD FOOL CAN GET THEM OUT THEM BACK WITH NEXT-TO-NOTHING GAINED!!!

The second mass meeting at the closure-threatened Dunlop Speke Plant where 2,400 jobs are to be lost, produced no advance on the six-point plan of 'action" accepted by the first meeting a fortnight earlier.

The platform line up included TGWU national chairman Stan Pemberton, the three Speke convenors, about half a dozen convenors from the other plants in the combine and twenty or thirty officials from the various unions involved. Pemberton opened by reading part of the leaflet put into the meeting by the Workers Socialist League which sharply attacked his own role in the closure. The paragraph read out stated: "Pemberton accepts that the 'viability' of the company must come before the jobs of the members he represents. "His presence here is to make sure that no occupation takes place, by using his long service with the company and his position as chairman of the THIS 1S THE NEWS-TODAY, PUBLIC SECTOR STRIKERS HAVE CAUSED DEATHS AND MOUNTAINS OF REFUSE... HE HEAD OF PAY STRUGGLES, ALAI PUT THE B RIDICULOUS! T MYSELF, I BLAME IT ALL ON THIS HIYA WALLER WHATSISNAME... HE'S L JUST GOT NO IDEA TGWU Executive Council, to 'con' the members into thinking that he is fighting the closure, in the 'corridors of power' on their behalf."

Pemberton launched into an ear-piercing attack on the WSL, saying how 'unpolitical' he was and how he was merely executing the decisions of the mass meeting.

He laid into the Workers Socialist League for being Trotskyists and for being "politically motivated".

He failed to mention, however, that he had spoken at, a Labour Party Young Socialists meeting organised by the Militant Group a week earlier; or that he was due to speak at a Stalinist-inspired meeting of the "Merseyside Campaign Against Unemployment" two days later!

He also did not deny in any way the substance of the criticism contained in the leafiet.

Instead, this "non-political" and "neutral" • demagogue proceeded to attack imports of "cheap East European tyres"' echoing reactionary chauvinistic management propaganda.

Pemberton's speech stood in sharp contrast to the line of the WSL leaflet, which argued for combine-wide action on the basis of work-sharing on full pay and argued the necessity for a call for supporting action by Dunlop and Pirelli workers overseas. "Full support"

it explicitly condemned demands for import controls which would merely shift unemployment overseas, and sabotage any possibility of united international action.

The next speaker was Tony Lane, a lecturer from Liverpool University-who read a poem by Bertholt Brecht!

Convenors from other plants then pledged "full support" but not one even mentioned occupation.

(DON'T WORRY, OFISHALL -IT'S ALL UNDER CONTROL I'M ONLY LETTING A FEW OUT AT A TIME AND IT WILL ALL BE OVER IN A FEW MORE WEEKS!

BUT THEN, WHAT ELSE CAN ONE EXPECT FROM SOME FUZZY-WUZZY FANATIC WITHOUT ANY EXPERIENCE OF HOW TO RUN A DISPUTE? Pemberton Pem berton ended the meeting with a plea for the meeting to back the talking and lobbying strategy of the convenors and gave a further warning about "irresponsible elements"

Pemberton was clearly expecting a possible intervention from the floor in favour of immediately adopting a policy of occupation, as the WSL leaflet had advocated.

However, in the brief period for contributions from the floor there was not one. speaker.

The crying need for a political leadership in Dunlop was very evident as Pemberton hurriedly and thankfully closed the meeting.

YOU WON'T CATCH MY MEMBERS TRYING ANY OF THOSE TRICKS! LPYS public meeting on Friday 2 February in Speke, called to rally a fight against the Dunlop closure, predictably only succeeded in allowing local left' MP Eddie Loyden and TGWU Executive Council chairman Stan Pemberton, to gain a little badly needed 'left' cover.

Secure in the knowledge that they were safe from any hostile criticism from the sycophantic hand rags of the 'Militant' prouP, these take lefts were given , free rein to sound off, in an orgy of back-slapping and self-congratulation about what they were going to do on behalf of the members.

Unmoved

The CP-inspired Merseyside Campaign Against Unemployment public.. meeting on 7 February continued in the same vein with Pemberton on the platform alongside Stalinist chairman of Liverpool Trades Council, Barry Williams, Stalinist national industrial organiser Mick Costello and local Stalinist District Secretary Roger O'Hara.

O'Hara spent most of his speech defending Pemberton against the WSL leaflet which had attacked him at the Dunlop mass meeting earlier in the week..

He appealed for unity pue for an end to "sectarian' pue "ultra-left' criticism.

A WSL member pointed out how Longbridge Stalinist Derek Robinson had sold out the Triumph closure through diversionary "talks and lobbies" and that this was now being repeated at Dunlops.

But the small audience, consisting overwhelmingly of hard-line Stalinist hacks, was predictably unmoved.

CHRIST, IT MAKES LONGBRIDGE LOOK LIKE A PICNIC!)

file WHAT REALLY TAKES SKILL & FINESSE, IS G$ TTING

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SOCIALIST PRESS

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OMS The 'Militant'-inspired