["BRING DOWN THE TORIES THIS WINTER' Saturday November…]

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"BRING DOWN THE TORIES THIS WINTER' Saturday November 15 10.30 a.m. to 5.30 p.m.

Open to all labour movement bodies.

Credential £1 (unwaged 50p) from G. Wel 169, Barclay Road, Smethwick, W. Midla BENNS MOB WANT TO FLOOD ..BUT HOLD • THE UPPER CHAMBER WITH ON...

WE SHOULD AT LEAST HEAR SEE HOW WE CAN HEAR DECADE OR TWO! ELS on short time and threatening a further iound of sackings.

A call from Salford Trades Council for a mass demonstration against all the redundancies last weekend was only weakly supported but since the óccupation was announced, solidarity has been shown by other local trade unionists.

The local Fire Brigades Union branch, grateful for support during their strike from Gardners' workers, has imposed a levy of £1 per member per week and the occupation comJournalists on London provincial papers returned to work at the end of last week after a three week strike for a London weighting' allowance.

The strike ended three days after a mass meeting narrowly voted by 188-161 with ten abstentions to accept an offer of £4.80 'new money' to take the total London allowance to £9.30 a week.

This sum is considerably less than the journalists could have won towards their claim for a total payment of £1,000 a year (£19.23 a week) but for the habitual treachery of officials of the key print union, the NGA.

The narrowness of the vote showed also that even faced with such obstacles and a management, arrogant in its hard faced opposition, the spirit to fight was still alive.

Lessons from the strike NOIN engines from the plant-which raises the need for the nationalisation of Gardners as a part of a planned, nationalised transport system.

. And the forthcoming joint meeting of Gardners and Chloride stewards along with the splendid support from the FBU pose the need for a Salford Council of Action based on the Trades Council, but widened to draw in representatives of all local workers' organisations to defend and extend the struggle. now be drawn out in preparation for the £20 a week national pay claim that has been drawn up.

First the strike showed that the provincial journalists are by no means a spent force.

Militants in the union, who suffer badly from impressionism, had been claiming since the end of the 1978/9 strike that the rank and file members had turned their back on militancy and the problem was getting them to strike.

On the contrary the strike has shown that the question is still, as ever, how to win.

The NUJ's Provincial Newspapers Industrial Council accepted that mass meetings of the members should be called and that a rank and file action committee should be elected to take day to day control.

The recent Intucon report which has received much publicity put Britain on the lowest wages in the EEC. with the exception of the Irish Republic.

So how can Edwardes hope to foist 6.1% on a workforce who are already the lowest paid car workers in Europe? The answer is in his tactics. Last February, just before the crunch on last year's review, Edwardes created a crisis.

He announced "overstocking" when it largely didn't The strike was the most democratically run in the union's history with three meetings being held and motions taken from the floor on each occasion.

But negotiations with other unions remained in the hands of the officials.

The task fell, almost by nature, on the CP officials who have suddenly blossomed in the union's head office (despite a complete absence of CP influence in the rank and file).

Before the strike started, freelance organiser Peter van den Berg struck the deal that was to be the hallmark of relations between the two unionsin return for limited support, the NUJ members were to be told not to ask NGA members to respect their picket lines.

In the face of hostility from the membership to this deal the officials renegotiated.

When the strike started, therefore, NGA members were DARK CLOUDS IN BLACKPOOL THIS YEAR. WHAT A SHAMBLES -MANDATORY RESE - UNILATERAL DISARMAMENT... ...WITH ALL MY BLOCK VOTES, I'M BOUND TO BE ONE OF THEM! H'MMM... ICAN SEE IT NOW!".

AND you push for wages, jobs will go" and then jobs go anyway.

One thing is sure. If BL workers are going to win their £17.21 claim this year they are going to have to watch their leaders.

It is significant that the JNC did not actually reject the 6.1% -they adjourned the meeting for three weeks to consider it.

Who needs three weeks to consider 6.1%? It is also clear that the "offer" on the bonus is designed to split the unity of instructed to refuse to set anything except advertisements and an editor's columns.

This deal was an obvious stitch-up. But opposition was silenced by the fact that 40 titles did not appear in London during the first week and 15 papers appeared with blank news columns and no cover price.

Those who struck the deal were therefore ablt to point to the fact that more papers were stopped than during the whole seven weeks of the 1978/9 strike.

But the inevitable result of manoeuvres with the bureaucrats came about:

After ten days the NGA council stabbed the journalists in the back and instructed their members to set all copy that had been claimed by the editor.

Papers began reappearing and hastily put up pickets were ignored.

The COMRADE PEERS, ON THIS OUR FIRST SESSION LET US REFLECTBEFORE WE SIMPLY ABOLISH THIS HISTORIC INSTITUTION, MAKE IT WORK FOR US... AT LEAST FOR A TRIAL ...THE LUNATICS EVEN WANT TO ABOLISH THE HOUSE OF LORDS! BANG GOES MY RETIREMEN:

Digbeth Hall, Birmingham General Secretary Ken Ashton, turned for support to SOGATand again struck deals.

Some support was promised and a mass picket at Uxbridge saw more _papers, stopped (although police enforced the Employment Act by forcing pickets to stand on the wrong side of the road).

When SOGAT in turn began to withdraw support, the NUI membership was left to face a long strike with only their own resources left.

It was at this point that the vote to end the strike came about.

During the NGA lockout earlier this year, the NUJ had instructed its members not to work on scab publications and to refuse to cross picket lines and struggled to enforce this.

But when the interests of the NUJ members were at stake, its officials went like supplicants to beg any deal going from print union officials.

1, 000 NEW PEERS TO TAKE:

ONE VOTE TO ABOLISH IT!.

BRAVO!

I SAY!

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SOCIALIST more.. ama