To Bring Down the Tories!

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its own trade union and Labour leaders.

Initially under the guise of "saving the Labour government" , and now masked by a smokescreen of anti-Tory demaunceasingly to hold back and isolate struggles that have erupted.

Their success in this has been greater in some respects than in others. On wages, for instance, the Thatcher government came to office during a comparative "'lull" on pay after the winter's struggles had established 10-15% as the "going rate" for settlements.

It was not until the autumn of 1979, therefore, that the issue of wages came to the fore, bearing all the hallmarks of last year's confrontation.

Those employers able to pay up set out to avoid a repeat of those bitter strikes by offering substantial increases before strike action raised its head.

Thus in Fords a 28% settlement was reached; NUJ members received a recordbreaking 14.5%; miners achieved a 22% deal and local authority manual workers have settled for 13½%, all without strikes. In Vauxhall, only the Ellesmere Port plant resisted a 13%-withstrings offer and, isolated, were eventually forced back to work.

,Meanwhile the stand by the Engineering Employers Federation against a Confed claim including the demand for a 35hour week began to crumble in the face of the solid response to the inadequate and partial action that was called by the leaders of the Confederation of Shipbuildina and Engineering Unions.

Though the eventual settlement was far short of what could have been won through all-out action, the breakthrough on hours, the extra days of holiday and the increase in basic rates mark a significant step forward by engineering workers, which has deepened the crisis of the employers both in Britain and internationally.

Elsewhere, however, a few employers have taken a more pugnacious stand. In particular, Peugeot, the new owners of the Talbot/Chrysler concern, sat out a prolonged pay strike by workers at Stoke and Ryton, while union leaders sabotaged blacking action. The result was a substantial defeat. for the Chrysler workers, who eventually returned for the original offer of only 5%followed up by a management offensive on union rights and conditions.

In BL, too, management, pleading bankruptcy, has refused to offer more than 5% to manual workers (10% to PHOTO: Andrew Wiard, Report ridden firm is efectively to embark-willy-nilly-on a fight for the sliding scale of hours in and Blastfurnacemen's leaders have been at the forefront of agreements for cuts and closures right up to the present strike. Yet the willingness of workers at Corby and Shotton to fight for their jobs is indicated by their militant role in the strike.

Nor has it been only officials that have done the dirty work: at Dunlop (Speke) TGWU chairman Stan Pemberton and the "Action Committee" played the key role in sabotaging the jobs fight, and running instead a circus of gimmicks and protests along the lines of the "community politics" of the ROSAC campaign at Corby.

Throughout the public sector and especially in the NHS, union leaders have combined verbal opposition to the cuts with practical opposition and obstruction of action to stop the cuts. Only from the anger and pressure of their members have the leaders of NUPE and COHSE nominally pledged themselves to a policy of occupation against hospital closures. They have yet to wage an officially-led struggle of any sort in resistance to the cuts.

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Pani gogy, these leaders have worked