BL workers fight on against strings

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In held b: as Cas used t Despite Edwardes victory engineered for him by the leaders of the AUEW and the TGWU, in imposing the 5%o-with-strings pay package on BL workers, matters are not settled in British Leyland.

BL workers were betrayed but not defeated. They are in a militant but frustrated mood.

Since the strikes were betrayed management have played a tactical game around the introduction of the 92-page document of strings.

in some plants where they have felt safe they have gone ahead.

Notice

some plants they have eck, while in ther i such tle Bromwich they have he two week noti ce of UNION DUES intent "negotiated" by Moss Evans of the TGWU.

This last tactic may yet lead to further strike action in Castle Bromwich this' week when the two weeks' notice runs out for the elimination of the paint sprayers' "togging up" allowance.

Persuaded

In the Cowley Body Plant the paint sprayers, after three days on strike, were told that the Castle Bromwich workers had accepted the company's terms and were persuaded by their leadership to go back to work and dress up in production time.

Meanwhile strike action has broken out in the Cowley Assembly Plant over the secondary issue of bonus back pay. One of Edwardes" tactics in imposing his ultimatum was to offer a £100 bonus payment to Chall ...YOLR MAN AT THE TOP. anyone who clocked in on 8 April and accepted the new conditions.

This turned out to be no more than £60 to £70 and workers struck in an angry mood.

The strike may well continue this week, with the issue broadening to embrace the package as a whole.

BL workers must fight to resist every move of management to impose any aspect of the strings.

Unacceptable They must say at every point that the Edwardes package remains unacceptable. All existing agreements must be defended. Strikes which break out must be spread to the other plants where similar conditions exist.

JUST FANCY, B.S.C.

BUYING IN THAT MACGREGOR YEAH MOSS, IT'S BLOKE FOR 2 MILLION QUID! RIDICULOUS!

DST BUT WHAT ABOUT OUR PAY-OFF, MOSS.? AFTER ALL, IF MACGREGOR'S (THANKS A LOT LADS WORTH $2 MILION TO B.S.C..?

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The clashes between US fighters and Iranian air force planes high over the Straits of Hormuz last week served to highlight the continuing threat of imperialist military aggression against Iran.

A US fleet is still hovering menacingly in the Gulf, yearning for the opportunity to restore its tattered prestige in the wake of the disastrous "rescue" mission in which eight hand-picked butchers were killed.

Press campaign

US military "hawks" in Washington are meanwhile spearheading an orchestrated chauvinist press campaign designed to create conditions for Carter to unleash an outright military assault on the defiant Islamic regime which has cocked a snook at American imperialist might.

Such moves are not without resistance at home. An anti-war movement is already underway in the US, fuelled by memories of the horrific Vietnam war and growing popular hostility to the oil monopolies which stand to rain most from the forcible VIN restoration of a pliable pro- imperialist regime in Iran.

It is also clear that Carter's European allies are more than slightly hesitant at the prospect of further military adventures in Iran, which they fear could not only prove a disastrous failure, but also trigger an upsurge of anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist struggles throughout the Gulf region and the But : if the biggest guns pointed at the Iranian masses are at present mounted on US aircraft carriers, bombers and battle cruisers, those being actually used to most lethal effect are in the hands of the Iranian military and Islamic fundamentalist forces under the direction of President Bani-Sadr and the Ayatollah Khomeini.

The Iranian army continues to prosecute its bloody war against the oppressed Kurdish minority in western Iran, with the bombardment of the capital Sanandaj-leaving at least 200 dead.

Repression

Bani-Sadr has threatened to call on "36 million people of this country to be present in Kurdistan and defend the onenees and unitv of the countrv"

Similar threats and actual military repression are the principal means through which the struggles of Iran's other oppressed minorities-the Turkomans, Azerbaijanis and Arabs-are being held in check.

Lumpen mob

But the street violence of the lumpen mob brought into play by Bani-Sadr has been employed most ruthlessly employed in the attempts to crush the secular left-wing forces of the Fedayeen -whose power bases in the universities have come under vicious and bloody attack.

As the Fedayeen-which has consistently supported the struggles of national minorities and of the working class, and thus rapidly expanded in size and influence since the fall of the Shah-fought back, BaniSadr declared that he i would lead "the people" onto the campuses to crush the left wingers.

The left has responded by anti-government demonstrations proclaiming Bani-Sadr to be "worse than the Shah"

With economic chaos and devastation growing daily in Iran-oil exports are now at a virtual standstill from the giant Kharg Island terminal-the regime is clearly divided on how best to handle the crisis.

While Bani-Sadr continues to look for means of strengthening the central state machinery to restore stability and towards a reconciliation with US imperialism Khomeini still seeks to exploit the hostage issue as a diversion from the material problems facing the Iranian masses.

Either way the Iranian workers and peasants face a future of violent repression and exploitation at the hands of Iranian and foreign capital.

Last week was not a good one for the crisis-ridden Zionist regime in occupied Palestine.

Carter The way forward must be through a turn to the strengthening of the factory and neighbourhood committees that have sprung up since the overthrow of the Shah, and the construction of a revolutionary leadership on a socialist programme of democratic and transitional demands to mobilise the masses and oppressed minorities in the fight for a workers and peasants government in Iran.

The ultra right wing Begin government has only kept in power after a series of defections and damaging statements by ministers by the need to preserve unity in the face of the Palestinian 'common enemy'.

May Day demonstrations in Tel Aviv saw 150,000 workers chanting 'Begin go home' They were mostly organised by the pro-Zionist Labour Party and the state organised so-called trade: union federation, the Histradrut.

The demonstration was described as the largest anti-government protest in the history of the state' It reflected the growing feeling against the 100% inflation rate and the desperate inability of the Begin regime to resolve it.

The only answer of Begin and his supporters has been to launch murderous attacks on the Palestinians.

At the end of last month a group of ultra-Zionist desperadoes went on a rampage around the town of Ramallah in the West Bank.

Begin On May Day an Israeli army officer shot dead a 17 year old Palestinian youth in Antaba, also on the West Bank.

After a series of demonstrations and riots in the area the Israeli cabinet was discussing a new group of repressive measures including deportations, prison without trial and, no doubt, further measures yet to be revealed.

Israeli West Bank military governor Ben Eliezen declared that there was 'a greater readiness to provoke and confront' the Zionist forces by West Bank Palestinians.

This was followed by the attack on 2 May by Palestinian

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