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ference of ASTMS on the Health Service, Ireland or abortion, in spite of many motions on the preliminary agenda concerned with these subjects.

At the last Conference ASTMS discussed the National Health Service and adopted a policy against private practice both inside and outside the Health Service and for committees of trade unionists to be elected to monitor the day to day runnug and rmances oi ine 1- Simmeans Area Health Authorities.

A second motion was also passed which called for a massive injection of money into the Health Service and for a sliding scale of expenditure to protect it from inflation and government cuts, FIAT DIAH Jenkins This programme is ASTMS policy, but all that the National Executive have done about it has been to refer the Conference motions to the Parliamentary Committee, while allowing massive cuts in the Health Service to be carried through.

Twelve motions appeared NEC for their lack of action in defence of the Health Service, and called for an enquiry into the running of the NHS, along with industrial action to back the demand for the immediate injection of money into the Service, and a sliding scale of expenditure.

The Conference Standing Orders Committee, however, have decided that the NHS is not a "priority area" for ASTMS this year. They are presumably happy to wait until some future conference, when it has been still further devastated by cuts.

The rottenness of the ASTMS leadership is shown also by the way the SOC proposes discussing the full time officers' dispute, in which one officer, Judy Cotter was dismissed.

Though several motions called for the election of full time officers the SOC has chosen oniy one motion for discussion - simply instructing the NEC to further improve the comfortable conditions of employment for full time officers and ensure that "disputes such as the recent officers dispute can never occur again".

Thus the non-elected bureaucratic base of the Jenkins leadership is to be further strengthened at the expense of the membership.

The manipulation of the Conference agenda and the refusal to tackle the crucial questions facing the working class confirmas that the left' talkers as well as the open right-wingers within the TUE are incapable of defending their members against the Labour ASTMS branches must send emergency resolutions to the NEC demanding the Conference discuss the important topics deleted by the NEC.

A half day strike on May 26th has been called by the Sheffield AUEW District Committee. In a town where not only the DC but also many other trade union bodies are completely controlled by the Communist Party, this can only be seen as a manoeuvre to maintain their credibility among their membership.

Ihe reality of the reactionary Stalinist politics of the CP is exposed by the events at Laycocks, a subsidiary of GKN. Both its convenor Colin Taylor, and the Chairman of the Joint Shop Stewards, Ian Thackeray, are members of the Communist Party.

These two recently signed agreement, with no recourse to stewards or membership, forcing workers in other grades to do labourer's work. The agreement does away with the need for the firm to recruit labourers - of which there, is an acute shortage in the factory• The agreement reads:

"Where a production worker is instructed by his supervisor to work of & lebouring job, and where no shortage of work situation exists on hiber job, the worker concerned will be paid at his/her average earnings for the period of time spent on the labouring job"

When the shop floor heard of this agreement there was a movement against it in one of the three main factories making up Laycocks.

A mass meeting of the 150 workers in that plant was held at which the convenot spoke. The meeting unanimously rejected his argument and called for a mass meeting of all the plants.

The shop stewards of all the plants met last Friday and voted almost unanimously (including most of those supposedly requesting the earlier mass meeting) against a joint mass meeting and in favour of accepting the convenor's agreement.

The Stalinists and right-wing in the plant were shown to work completely together. The action of these CP members must be rejected by the whole trade union movement in the town. Where does the AUEW District Committee stand?

If they don't reject the deal and remove the credentials of the convenor then the fraud of their position on May. 26th will be exposed since their own leading stewards are helping the employers to increase unemployment.

Just like the leadership of the AUEW nationally, the Stalinists pose as being against unemploy. ment white every action thay take iNCIeRBES It.

We demand of the Sheffiekl Communist Party mombers: where do you stand on this?

*One leading memb the CP and a famier face at Committee conference, Cyri Morton, convesar of the Shardomy factory in Shefficki, & factory completely dominated by the Ci has taken the CP's position to its logical conclusion and become personnel manager for the firm.

The real effect of this change it tax laibility, usually presented a merely an "updating" of archair and irrational accounting practices is that British capital as a whol now pays a negative amount of tax State subsidies to capital, for investment and other purposes exceed industry's tax payments On the Bank of England' figures, indeed, the rate of profi before payment of tax in 1974 wa: lower than the after tax rate! (4.0% before tax and 4.1% after). It seem that this is now to become regardec as standard practice.

It is little wonder that the Financial Times reports an ecstatir senior civil servant as saying 'This is a Department Industry Budget, a real support for the industrial strategy "