[The Leicester Trades Council The decision of the…]

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The Leicester Trades Council The decision of the T&GWU National Executive to call on the TUC for a one-day general strike to force the release of the Shrewsbury Two is a step which must not be overlooked.

It reflects the pressure on the bureaucracy from militant trade unionists throughout the country on this issue, and is a conscious attempt to side-step the growing call for all-out general strike actio It is most important that resolutions continue to flow in to District and Regional committees and National Executives of all unions, as well as to Labour party GMCs calling for indefinite general strike action to free these pickets. Any attempt to limit the action to a one-day stoppage means that the way is opened for further bureaucratic evasion.

Alongside the call for general strike action must go the demand that the Labour party left MPs fight to remove Jenkins as Home Secretary.

The Workers Socialist League fought for these policies when it took part in a demonstration of 1,000 trade unionists who THARES GON Shrewsbury Two demonstration marched to Leicester jail on Saturday 8th March.

The following motion has been passed unanimously by T&GWU 10/76A Branch (covering Hollis Bros, Hull) : "This branch meeting recognise that the January 14th lobby of Parliament demanding the releas of the Shrews bury Two has not achieved its aim. In fact since that date brothers Warren and Tomlinson have been removed from an open prison and sent to separate closed jails, thus making their term of imprisonment more harsh.

This branch calls on the Hull and District Trades Council to demand of the TUC that an off icial General Strike should be called and maintained until their release is secured.

It was quite clear that their imprisonment by the last Tory government was an attack on the right to picket, and their continued imprisonment is a condemnation of the Labour government's Home Secretary Roy Jenkins, who should be removed from office and replaced by a Home Secretary repared to use the power at his disposal."

At Imperial Typewriters in Hull the occupation continues despite the weakness of its leadership and the refusal It is being supported by blacking action from Hull dockers and the National Port Shop Stewards Committee. The Yorkshire Divisional Council of ASTMS has also donated £500 Other major firms have also announced closures ans redundancies - Thorn Consumer Electronics in Hull is to close throwing up 225 Jobs, and in Bradford, alongside the continuing slump in textiles 900 are to be made redundant at Bairds colour television factory the biggest plant in the town. In both Bradford and Hull the WSL is actively campaigning on the call for mass meetings and factory occupations to fight all redundancies and short time and to establish the sliding scale of working hours with no loss of carnings.

In the course of the occupation the books of the employer must be forced open to the view of trade unionists, to prove the case for the firm's nationalisation by the Labour government, without compensation. A programme of public works, to integrate nation alised plants into the beginnings of a planned economy is vital to protect all jobs and expand production of necessary commoditics.

A resolution passed by Leeds No.1 UCATI Branch for the UCATT Regional Conference in May, puts forward means of fighting layoffs and wage-cuts: Painted and Published by the Workers Socialist League. 31, Dartmouth Park Hill, London NWS THR.

Printed by Trade Union Labg to the regime now comes directly from the Stalinist Communist P Party, whose Secretary, Cunhal is a dichard advocate of the Moscow line. Under his leadership, and through the influencesof the CP in the mass movement, the political energies and initiative of the working class are being directe into the campaign for the parlia,mentary elections.

The Stalinist leaders Join in con demnation of the break-up of conferences of the right wing parties, and willingly aquiesce in the officers latest actions banning parties of the "ultra-left"- the Maoist MRPP and AOC, with threats against Pabloite "Trotskvist" groupings such as the ICI. Itself an important element in the Armed Forces Movement's *Revolutionary Council", and the prop osed civilian parliament, the Communist Party now forms the most obstinate brake on all attempts to strengthen and unily the independ. ent organs of the workers? power. It is no accident that the Stalinists move in this way. The outSreak of revolutionary struggle in Portugal, in conditions entirely different from those which enabled the fascists and the military to prepare the base for a coup in Chile, is already having an international impact.

In Spain, students at Madrid Un"That this conference rejects the attempts of the employers to force workers to pay for the economic crisis by unemployment and inflation. It calls upon UCAT Executive to negotiate a sliding scale of wages and hours so that wages increase in line with the cost of living and the amount of work available is shared among the whole labour force with no loss of pay. Unemployment must be eradicated by a massive programme of public works. So that these works should not be exploi ed for profit by employers this conference calls on the Labour government to nationalise the bullding industry without compensation. Glasgow dustman can tell Portuguese workers, the standing army is neither above classes nor controlled by the working class. Yet the existing mass workers parties in Portugal are dedicated to prese erving a 'unity' with the armed forces and the capitalist parties, holding back the power of the working class.

To fight now means to demand that the CP and SP break from all bourgeois parties and the AFM and form a workers government with a programme to unite worker and peasants, and based on the existing organs of workers' power centralised in a national body.

Above all however stands the need for a leadership able to understand and to defeat reformism anti Stalinism - a Trotskyist party.

WSL PUBLIC MEETING "For a Workers' Government in Portural." 15th April, 7.30 p.m at "THE ROBBUCK"

(corner T'tenham Ct Rd and Manle St. nr. Warren St Tube)

The enormous movements in the working class internationally pose sharply the question of programme and of leadership. It is to resolve The response which our paper and the policies it fights for have been able to win in the workers movement shows that we must expand the paper from an 8-page fortnightly.

We are therefore appealing to our readers for a E500 monthly development fund. • Donations should be sent to: Socialist Press, 11 Lower Basildor Near Reading, Berks.

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LETTEN 1872 LAN

of the T&GWU to pay strike benefit.

these that the WL and its paper , Socialist Press have been founded.