A'tale with a Sting

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"MADE IN BRITAIN" By Steve Gooch and Paul Thompson The play, Made in Britain', by Steve Gooch and Paul Thompson, is one of the most vicious pieces of Anti-Communist propaganda to be presented in the theatre for some time Purporting to deal with a series of ovents which have taken place in British Leyland's Cowley Assembly Plant over the last ten years, it is reality geared requirements of the right wing in their struggle against the left in the factory.

For the first 8 years of the period covered by the play a leadership factory which fought to organise the union, improved wages and conditions, opposed Measured Day Work and defended agreements won in SLANDER From tiis period Gooch and Thompson (whose last play, incidentaliy, was published by the IS publishers, Pluto Press) select every witch hunt and lying slander against the leadership as their material.

The final 2 years of this period starts when the T&GWU bureaucracy moved in to break up the powerful 5/55 Branch, force the re-election of the leadership by ballot in the midst of a national witch hunt and instal right winger Reg IPersons: as convenor.

This period has brought the break-up of conditions won, the loss of agreements, speed-up on the tracks and a substantial drop in the value of wages. This was carried out alongside an anti-communist witchhunt reminiscent of McCarthyism. . From these two years Gooch and Thompsonshow not a single attack on Parsons, not a single recognition of the continuous fight vaged against him. in delence oi conditions. They ignore Parsons' refusal to attend the 5/293 T&GWU Branch, the election of Alan Thornett as Chairman of the branch and of the Joint Shop Stewards Committee, and the struggles in the factory around the shop stewards' 'Open the Books Committee' Instead the only aspect they present is the introduction of 'participation'. • Of course they conceal the manoeuvres to bring it in, keep silent on the massive abstention. in the election of delegates to the committees, and suppress the widespread shop-floor opposition to 'participation'.

They show shop stewards discussing, all of whom are in favour of 'participation', while the heroine of the story tells the audience that "we have to be constructive instead of always attacking" , and that "we have to make it work" • A trade union official in the play actually says that all his members are in favour of participation - and nobody contradicts him.

Parsons is thus defended to the hilt. A stark contrast to this is the play's depiction of the 1966 so-called "noose trial" which carries a vicious attack on the previous leadership in the factory.

The play shows workers screaming "hang them" in exactly the way the Tory press claimed in a huge national witch-hunt. For the Tories this was to be a main plank of their 1966 Election campaign. It disappeared from the media the day after the election.

Of course the real events were entirely different, with workers who had blacklegged on a pay strike (not a redundancy strike as shown in the play) agreeing to donate a day's pay to the Lifeboat Association.

JOCULAR

The director of the play has argued that he attempted to show "hanging" being raised in "jocular" way. But in the play two of the leading characters discussing after the mass meeting seriously conclude that violence "sometimes necessary"

The "noose trial" scene also shows a method which runs through the whole paly - portraying the principled leadership as mindless militants talking abstract strings of politica, cliches. The almost incomprehensible sneech hv the convenor at the mass 'The portrayed company into our says he With another twist of the facts the 1969 six-week strike in opposition to Measured Day. Work is presented as ending in a drift back to work - when in fact the strike was solid to the end.

The return to work in fact only came after a phony deal had been hatched in York, and after a recommendation from national officials had been fought for at a two hour mass meeting by local officials.

In the play, the only person pressing to stay out is, laughably, a student, putting such ridiculous arguments as "the private car has become effectively self-destructive"!

Of course even this ludicrous detail ties in with the witch hunting of the media, anxious to suggest "infiltration" . into the factories. And by inventing such caricatures the authors show their contempt for the best layers of workers who were prepared to fight MDW.

PAY RISE On MDW itself the play simply suggests it means a 'pay rise', and completely distorts the agreement which was fought for by the leadership after the strike.

For a year after MDW was forced in (backed by the threat that workers who rejected it would be forced into the labour pool on lower wages), the leadership refused to sign an agreement - fighting for full mutuality to be included.

When finally this was conceded by the company and the agreement was signed, the International Socialists and Communist Party, anxious to oppose the principled stand of the leadership (since their position had been to accept and "negotiate" MDW) turned around to attack the agreement, which was one of the only agreements in the entire industry containing a mutuality clause. (This agreement has since been torn up by Parsons).

Lining up with this, the play describes the agreement as a "lousy agreement" - no doubt to the applause of IS, CP, and right wingers alike.

Every slander and witch hunt from the capitalist press is dragged out in the play's presentation of the victimisation of Deputy Senior Steward Alan Thornett in 1974.

STEWARD•

"drivers' steward" is as an idiot, of whom the say "he's played right hands" ", while a steward hoc i "committed tactical

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DEATY THREATS BUSTON RACISTS SOCIALIST PRESS. Wednesdey Me)

"trigger-happy". The authors combine this with getting wrong the cause of the strike which led to the victimisation.

They join too with the Tory press and the right wing in the unproved lying allegation that under the old leadership meetings of the 5/55 Branch were "manipulated"

From this total perversion of history, to the present day. The Ryder plan is termed "a move away from conflict" - tell that to the workers who have been speeded up!

The 95% state holding in Leylands is likewise referred to as UNITED The finale of the play is a song in which united management and unions sing together - which sums up the authors' "perspective for the industry's present and future"

It is only fitting that such a display of venonomous hostility to the struggle for principled defence of conditions should turn out to be technically as well as politically a dreadiul play, and that its first performances held in Cowley in the hopes of luring a few carworkers to see it should have been given to an almost empty hall.

But the right wing have been singing its praises. BLMC Body Plant Convenor Bill Roche lyingly described it as "entertaining" , while Reg Parsons claimed that it would cause offence to no-one "except perhaps a few militants"

To show how thoroughly he has swung to the right, AUEW Convenor of the BLMC Service fact X, was Power, who in 1966 as MITX was the main target of the 'Noose Trial' witch hunt, went on television to urge his members to go and see the play.

Oxford Mail Industrial Reporter Peter Sturges has added his voice to the right wing clamours of support. Sturges was at the forefront of the victimisation of Alan Thornett, and has for years played a key role in every witch-hunt in the town - a record which has caused him to be deservedly hated by trade unionists in every sectọr.

This hatred was reflected recently in the Trades Council decision to exclude him from reporting meetings.

Extreme right winger Parsons - not censured at all in play which he recommends as "inoffensive".

In Sturges opinion the play 19th, 1976 FRI The violent campaign launched against Boston's black community reached a new level on April 27th when racists openly threatened the lives of leading campaigners against school segregation.

In an interview printed in the group known as the South Boston Marshals Association, was quoted as saying " ....we're looking for Tom Atkins and Maceo Dixon"

LEADER

Atkins is the leader of the Boston branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) - the foremost US civil rights movement which has over 400,000 members; while | Dixon heads the National Student Coalition Against Racism (NSCAR), an anti-racist movement initiated largely by the Young Socialist Alliance (YSA) of which Dixon is a National Executive member. The YSA is the youth organisation of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).

It is the NAACP and the NSCAR riists which have led the campaign at the centre to bread sere stoo in schools by busing children between white and black neighbourhoods to achieve a racial balance.

Racist violence against blacks has been mounting sharply since Apri Sth when, amid screams of "Get the nigger, kill him" , a mob of white high school students nearly killed a black attorney Theodore Landsmark outside the City Council Chamber.

While Mayor Kevin White watched from his office window, Landsmark was knocked to the ground and kicked in the face. His nose was smashed by a demonstrator wielding a steel pole attached to which was an Arherican flag.

The previous day a bomb had destroyed a school bus in Dorchester and the days following the assault on Landsmark saw more attacks. There have been many examples of violence against Black lawyer attacked by antibusing isolated rifle attacks on hoods and gangs of white thugs cruising black areas smashing cars and windows.

It is clear that the violence is organised. On April 8th and 9th, the Charlestown Marshals Association and the South Boston Marshals Association announced the mounting of dusk to dawn patrols to "protect" all-white areas.

Despite a seeming lack of interest in these racist attacks the authorities and the capitalist press were quick to move in when blacks began to hit back. After white motorist Richard Poleet was dragged from his car and beaten up by a group of 20 black youth a hysterical campaign against "black violence" was launched.

Sections ot the black community were cordoned off by police, a move which encouraged statements such as that made by James Kelly (leader of the violently racist South Boston "Restore Our Alienated Rights" (ROAR) group) who said "a black is not safe in South Boston"

During the next two days there were strikes and demonstrations throughout Navarra. In the nearby town of Estrella almost the whole In the face of an intensive raci campaign much liberal backing fe an April 24th pro-busing demoi stration fell away. Perhaps mo damaging was the decision of th NAACP to withdraw support.

In a letter to the NSCA Margaret Bush Wilson, on behalf ( the NAACP Boards of Director stressed the importance in th coming elections of:

"not handing the reactionarie an opportunity to capitalise o latent fears"

She argued for a mass 'campaig of voter registration because:

"The political process offer immeasurable opportunities ti bring about positive social change but such opportunities can only b realised if the people most affecter appreciate the value of their vote"

This statement sums up th hopeless confusion of the libera bourgeois leaders in the busin fight. They are always at pains tr avoid any call for the politica independence of the working clas or the building of a labour party.

At a news conference on Apri 21st, Maceo Dixon of the NSCAI announced the April 24th demon stration would have to be resched uled.

"The black community is unde heavy attack. We are in a state ol siege. The intensity of the racis terror is such that it is not possible to hold a peaceful legal activity ai this time"

Seizing the initiative, Mayoı White, who had done nothing to defend blacks under attack, called for a "march against violence"

On April 23rd 20,000 people marched to Boston City Hall where they heard Protestant, Jewish and Catholic religious leaders deplore violence and call for prayers "to heal the wound of our city"

Despite the decision of the NAACP to back this march less than 5,000 of the demonstrators were black.

CENTRAL

The NSCAR opposed the April 23rd march as an attempt to avoid the central issue of racist violence and the future of desegregation plans. In a public statement, Maceo Dixon attacked the Mayor's record on opposition to violence directed at blacks and continued:

"Yes, a march is needed today, but a march that says the law, the desegregation order, must applied fully and firmly. A march that says that federal presecution of antibusing conspirators is needed now. A march that demands that federal troops be on hand and fully deployed in South Boston and Charlestown when the buses carrying our black youth roll into areas where racist "marshals have declared open season on black 'outsiders"

Anti-busing groups such as ROAR also opposed the march. They now have the bit between their teeth and obviously hope to deliver a final blow to the probusing forces.

However, their national march in Washington on April 24th was attended by only 2,000 of the 40,000 to 50,000 expected by the organisers.

Extra police were drafted into the schools on April 26th and the authorities obviously feel that the situation could get completely out of hand over the summer.