NUJ appeals

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The House of Lords last week reserved judgement on the appeal by the National Union of Journalists against a court ruling by Lord Denning that effectively declares secondary blacking illegal.

The case arose during last winter's strike by provincial journalists. To make their action more effective the NUJ called out its members at the Press Association, which traditionally supplies strikebreaking copy to provincial papers, enabling them Scabbed When half the NUJ members at PA scabbed on the strike the union called on its Fleet Street members to black PA copy.

The Daily Express immediately sought, and obtained from Denning an injunction against this blacking-a decision upheld in the Court of Appeal.

If upheld again by the Lords it will stand as a major precedent for further anti-union litigation. miners at Saltley was the only way to fight the joint assault the police, courts and officials.

Instead, the convenors chose to call for a public inquiry' presumably consisting of a sprinkling of MPs, clergymen and do-gooders, alongside top trade union bureaucrats, to examine the behaviour of the The existing leaders of the Vauxhall strike were incapable of such a determined campaign because they are reformists who have shown in the past that they will shy away from "political actions against the Tories and pass the buck to the national officials or blame the members for their own cowardice.

The lesson to be drawn from this experience is that only a resolutely determined and principled leadership, a revolutionary leadership, can carry through the independent interests of the working class.

Such a leadership must be willing to openly challenge anti, union actions by the courts and McGarry STILL AVAILABLE WSL MANIFESTO A basic statement of the policies of the League. Price 15p including postage from WSL, 31 Dartmouth Park Hill, London NW5 1HR

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SOCIALIST SOCIALIST elana press gag tightened cuts: all out on Nov 28.

Stung on the one hand by the rising tide of oppos ition to the British military occupation of Northern Ireland, and on the other by the miserable failure of Humphrey Atkins' recent half-baked political 'initiative' • the Tories have embarked on a new clampdown on media coverage of the Irish war.

Using the pretext of a clip of Panorma film showing the Provisional IRA on the streets of Carrickmore, Thatcher, Yet those that defy the state propaganda machine will not be able to count on support from Labour leaders.

Callaghan last week joined Thatcher in condemning the Panorama film-continuing Labour's cringing support for imperialist repression in Ireland.

To defend even basic democratic rights today in Britain or in Ireland demands the building of a new leadership in the labour movement.