Officials Snatch Defeat from Jaws of Victory

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The three week old strike against victimisation at Christopher Relf's in Redditch is over. The TASS official has sent his members back to work until a local conference bers remain suspended.

This is a dispute which has shown very clearly the contrast between the readiness of workers to stand by trade union principles, and the readiness of officials to sabotage their struggles.

For the first week, the shopfloor workers were out in sympatny with the strikers, despite instructions from their ofticial All Cotton to return to work. Cotton's political hostility to the "Broad Left" leadership of TASS appears to be such that he will do anything to A meeting of trade unionists, Labour Party members and socialists was held at the Sponcroft. Smethwick on Thursday July 15th to discuss opposition to the spread of racialist ideas and organisations in the area.

The meeting adopted a programme which recognised the need lor positive alternative policies to protect jobs, living standards and social services.

This was condemned as "sectarwork, and then rang round the country telling shop stewards committees that the dispute was over!

But the blacking of Reifs products, packaged car components, continued at Leyland's Cowley, Longbridge and Drews Lane plants, with the result that Relf's factories at Redditch and Alcester remained at a standstill. A continuous picket resulted in even milk and mail being stopped.

The only threat to unity came from Hopwood Parcels, the haulage The drivers, hose ed op sc. vard?, Relf. admits to being "against trade uni , took a load out by night and unsuccessfully tried to unload it at Cowley.

They then began to cross the picket by day and load up their trailers. Since nothing could be unloaded at Cowley, the result was it Racism ian" by members of the Communist Party who said it would exclude "non-working class opponents of racialism" . They have since set up a joint committee with the vicar of Dudley!

The programme adopted at the Sponcroft meeting also supported the right of black workers to organise self-defence, but recognised the need to force the labour movement as a whole to accept their responsibility to protect the black community..

A committee was elected to organise work around this programme. the that all the trailers were full and thạt all the trailers were full not available for other work.

They then appealed to both the TASS members and the Unipart Service shop stewards at Cowley to lift the blacking to save them from being laid off!

At the end of a fortnight's strike the TASS members were solid and the blacking was still total. Efforts were then made by Mr David Buckle, T&GWU District Secretary in Oxford, to force Cowley to lift the blacking.

Buckle ignored the trade union principle at stake, arguing that if the AUEW shop floor workers were back at work, why should T#G drivers suffer?

These arguments were correctly rejected by the shop-stewards at Cowley.

FEAR

However the TASS official was able to use the fear that the blacking might be lifted, to persuade the workers to return to wOIk.

He told them that if no settlement is made at the local conference, the strike can be restarted.

This ignores the fact that the whole solid and principled position that existed has been given away for nothing.

As a result, two TASS members will be lucky it they keep their jobs and the organisation of white collar staff in Redditch will have suffered an important setback.

ICL

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takes place. The blacking is off, though two leading mem-