[Lead needed. NUJ members march in Nottingham last…]

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Lead needed.

NUJ members march in Nottingham last December 84 votes to 57 for the policywhich included a call for mass pickets to close the paper down.

Bower's appeal was pitched in terms of blaming the membership:

"If you are not prepared to do this your membership (of the NUJ) is not worth a lot either."

Nearly 1,000 workers joined a demonstration last. week in protest against the closure of Dunlop's factory at Speke in Merseyside.

The march was part of an international day of action in which Dunlop workers in Italy, France and Germany are reported to have engaged in token stoppages or one day strikes in solidarity with their British counterparts.

Though the demonstration won a warm response as it made its way through Speke, the one-day strike itself has i had no impact on the task of halting Dunlop's closure plan.

Union leaders on the plantincluding TGWU General Executive chairman Stan Pemberton -have constantly argued against adopting a policy for occupation of the plant.

Running scared of any fight against the Callaghan-Healey government, they have wasted week after precious week in futile talks, lobbies and protests while demoralisation begins to gather pace among the Speke workforce.

Already 83 workers have taken redundancy money and left the plant. The "action committee" has allowed this to continue.

• Pemberton, along with the Communist Party, has focussed most attention on the reactionary call tor import controls supposediy to protect 'British" jobs by banning "foreign." tyres.

Ironically this leads the CP into arguing against imports from Eastern Europe and USSRI But an equally pernicious line is being put forward by the Socialist Workers Party, whose' leaflet on the issue calls for occupation only as a stop-gap policy until a new employer can be persuaded to take over the Speke plant. '"Similarly at Drylanders in St. Helens the workers occupied their factory as the only alternat tive to being thrown on the scrap-heap :.. and were able to find another group to take over their factory, saving most of the jobs. The lessons are quite clear."

The crisis wracked Workers Revolutionary Party put out a leaflet which called in ultimatistic fashion for the bringing down of the Labour government -but which failed to call for the essential policy of factory occupation in Speke!

An article in Newsline mysteriously defended unnamed "Trots" from Pemberton's witch hunting-while remaining tactfully silent about the fact that the "Trots" arguing for occupation were not the WRP: but the Workers Socialist League.

A WSL leaflet on the other hand did spell out the way forward in the Dunlop struggle: *Occupy the plant! *Open the books of the company to elected trade union committees! *Work sharing on full pay! *For a nationalised motor and components industry under the management of elected trade union committees as part of a socialist planned economy! *Build councils of action!

I REMEMBER WHEN I FIRST GOT MY FOOT ON THE NU.S. LADDER -ONE HAD TO BE FLEXIBLE...

LEARNING THESE BASIC TRICKS IS LIKE RID A BIKE- I'VE BEEN PEDOUNG THE SAME LINE (N.U.PE. EVER SINCE!