Coventry March

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Coventry Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions has called a demonstration against unemployment for Saturday January 17th - a demonstration intended to be a harmless protest.

It was only thanks to mass pressure from a 300 strong stewards meeting that the Confederation leadership supported the November lobby of Parliament and since then no lead has been taken in fighting Coventry's mounting unemployment.

With only 401 vacancies in the city unemployment now stands at 15,I12. This does not include redundancies at Chrysler (5,000), Alfred Herberts (1,200) and GEC (1,000). These will take Coventry's unemployment rate over the 10% mark. There are still 590 school leavers without jobs.

The demonstration has bèen called for a Saturday rather than a weekday when the massive 'industrial strength of Coventry workers could have been mobilised. Every effort must be made to turn the demonstration into the opposite ihtended for it by the Confederation leaders.

Only a combination of working class strength and a clear policy can deal with unemployment. The WSL is mobilising for the demonstration around the demands for no redundancies; occupations; work-sharing on full pay; open the books; workers nationalisation: under management and programme of useful public works.

All those who want a real fight to defend jobs should join our contingent and attend our meeting afterwards at..

The Sir Colin Campbell Nr. Odeon Jordan Well Coventry pm January 7th property of the capitalist class or their press. They THES protected from such outside interference. The Oxford 5/55 Branch of the TGWU (with members in the Cowley Assembly plant) has correctly objected to the factory ballot going ahead this week, partly because of the atmosphere of witch-hunt under which it is being conducted. Workers must fight within the trade union movement for any election which is the subject of press intervention to be postponed . until members are allowed to make an objective choice of which candidate to support. And a renewed campaign must be launched against the postal ballot system of election.

These demands come into conflict with the strategy of the bureaucracy, the Labour government and the employers. The independence of the trade unions from the employers and from the state emerges clearly as a political principle which must be detendec if there is to be a fight to defenc jobs and wages. The WSL is in the forefront of this fight. *FOOTNOTE.

As we go to press, it is clear in Cowley that the new technique of the right-wing and the employers - publishing in every paper a "recommended list" of candidates in conjunction with a national witchhunt - will produce a very high poll and have a marked effect on the way many workers will vote. Leyland's statement that if Alan Thornett is elected it would mean an automatic confrontation over his recognition, seems to make his election unlikely be a substantial will undoubtedly solid vote for him.

Among the militant candidates, Bob Fryer seems in the strongest position to gain a deputy post. Fis election and every vote for a militant under these conditions would be a major blow at the employers and the bureaucracy.

The brazen perversion of democracy by the press in these Cowley elections must be met by a fight throughout the unions to kick witch-hunters and those who open up the union to such interference or condone it, out of the labour movement.