Pickets SOUl Maxwell junket

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HERE IS BRITAIN GOING? €1.45 LESSONS OF OCTOBER. €2.60 It is now six weeks since the 650 workers at Laurence Scott and Electromotors, Manchester, occupied their factory to Workers THE JOIN Nearly 70 pickets from Oxford and from Ladon (mainly NUJ members) joined protest last Saturday outside the offices of Pergamon Press.

Millionaire "socialist" Robert Maxwell was throwing a luncheon party for 350 guests to celebrate his successful takeover of the BPC corporation a takeover which has already cost thousands of print union jobs.

Marquee Golden chairs and a piano were carted in to the marquee in the grounds. And • band apparently composed largely of child labour •was chauffeured in to lend a desperate air of jollity.

Pickets including members of the BPC NUJ chapel shouted slogans demanding the reinstatement of the 9 NUJ members who were sacked at Pergamion for taking strike action in pursuit of a house agrecment.

They shouted in vain: only a handful of the selected scabs and bootlickers even slowed. down their flashy cars long enough to heat.

Leaflets explaining the Tral sub (UK).

Six issues. £2.00 Six months.

One year 114.00 Europe Six months. .£9.00 Rest of world:

Stx montha... £10.00 Write 1o: Socialist Press, BM Box 5277.. London WCIN 3XX. dispute had to be thrust through the windows of moving Rovers. Diana Dors cruised through in a blue Rolls Royce. It you can tell a man by his friends, Robert Maxwell is not a nice guy.

Boycott

An ambulance was in attendance, presumably in case any of the guests suffered from a premature knife between the shoulder blades.

The only success in persuading guests to turn back had taken place before the picket began. Strikers had secured the agreement of Oxford's Lord Mayor, veteran • Labourite Henry Nimmo, to boycott the proceedings rather than cross a picket line.

His rejection of the invitation caused Maxwell some damaging publicity: but Maxwell's publicity machine has been going sadly in other respects, 100.

Fuelling anger

His latest "press release" -sent out primarily to labour movement bodies in a bid to forestall further support for the strike has succeeded only in fuelling anger against Maxwell and boosting sympathy for the SOCIALIST PRESS CONVEY WONT REINSTATE THE EIGHT!

Birtha now lo stop Echmarden strikers-now in their week of picketing.

Nor has it been better received in the few newspapers to whom it has been sent. Apparently it went straight into the waste-bin at the Daily Telegraph while the Sunday Telegraph carried a report which reinforced the strikers' case.

Meanwhile a 4-person delegation from Oxford CLP headed by chairperson Tom Richardson is * to visit Maxwell in an attempt to persuade this "socialist" to negotiate with the trade unionists involved.

"New chapel"

And a pathetic attempt to infiltrate a gang of senior managers into the NUJ through the establishment of a "new chapel" of scabs fell flat on its face last week amid front page publicity in BOOKS Le on Trotsky the local press.

But the strikers still urgently need print u zion solidarity-particularly f rom the NGA-and financial and moral support from the whole labour movement.

Messages and donations to the Strike Committee, 5 Union Street, Oxford.

*Oxford NUJ branch voted last week to write letters of complaint to Soviet Weekly NUJ Chapel, the Communist Party of Great Britain and the Morning Star, protesting at the fact that Soviet Prime Minister Tikhonov held talks with strike-breaker Maxwell last month.

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