[Following talks between T&GWU officials, contractors of the…]

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Following talks between T&GWU officials, contractors of the £200 million Newcastle Metro project and representatives of 250 striking tunnellers from the city's four sites, agreement has been reached to call off the action.

The dispute began over eight weeks ago, initially over the sacking of a shop steward but subsequently developing into demands for wage increases from the present £135 to £200 a week and for a separate tunnellers section within the T&GWU.

Flying pickets had won strong national support for the action which in the last week has spread rapidly to involve workers in civil engineering. power stations and Water Boards in Whitley Bay, Gateshead, Lancaster. Warrington, Proctor and Myrafra A significant aspect of dispute has been the activities of the T&GWU bureaucracy. The fulltime officials, no doubt using the experiences they gained by their scabbing involvement in the prolonged and bitter Eldon Square building workers strike last year, have conducted a vicious campaign against the action.

Gordon McLean, regional organser of the union's construction section, has used slanders, claiming that the majority of workers have been pressured into support by threats of violence to themselves and their families.

Following a vote by the tunnellers to continue the action at a meeting addressed by a T&GWU convenor from Dartford, McLean said that the convenor would be reported to the union's Executive for "interfering" in Tyneside affairs. ment with the employers (a tactic used against the Eldon Square pickets) condemning the strike, McLean has argued that Labour government policy would mean that to concede the pay claim would jeopardise the completion of the Metro project.

"The claim is a breach of the Government's pay code and under the White Paper anybody receiving Government assistance which breaks the code could have that assistance taken away from them.

"We have £140m. being pumped into the Metro by the government at the moment and if any of the Metro companies agree to the men's demands then that grant is liable to be stopped"

The T&GWU national leadership itself has been at the forefront of agreeing pay cutting policies and is obviously pledged to ensuring MORE DETAILS Please send me more information about League.

Name. • Address Si

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DIGBETH HALL,BIRMINGHAM, SUNDAY, OCTOBER 24th, 10am - 4pm.

The newly-formed Campaign for Democracy in the Labour Movement - an ad hoc committee of trade anionists - has called a Conference in October as the first step in the fight for democratic procedures in the The Conference is open to all trade unionists, but the committee asks in particular for trade union branches, District Committees, shop stewards committees and Irades Councils to send delegates, to sponsor the Conterence, and to give financial support. Il enquiries to Kevin Lee, Campaign Secretary, 44. Devonshire Rd, Handsworth Wood, Birmingham 20.

• END RACIST KILLINGS contd from front TRICO BLACK! ILEYLAND labour movement.

2D MORE 0RAS POORE inlott Sw 5 Korth Plant Director Corley Asserbly The Ley EXTEND

COWLEY ASSEMBLY PLANE

400t7 BR0LOU Over the pest Ice conths there have been severa, official reetinga held on the Plent, particulerly in' the North korks. These cectings hevs been errenged elther without the serious situation.

ls e Company ve carnat tolerate the position where saati groupa of employees in an attenot to undermine the Viablinty of the Compary and the asthority of the Trade Union Orcoris~ certaln that the majority of espioytes do not wish to suffer the lost wages these stoppages are causing..

ine purpose of this Clock Notice is to bring to the attention of the minority that in for here s unofficia: meetings on the Plant without the surpart of she Senior Trade Union represensative(s) and the Company, r1ll be proceeded against in the Discipline Procedure with a view to their disaissal for promoting disruption within the Pient and thereby causing lost production.

the Company feels that 1a declaring this policy it it acting in the interests of the very large cajority of smioyee:

The Leyland clock notice After a week in which strikes took place demandAsiah the case at do on AMRI June 20th be reopened, management have retaliated with a statement threatening victimisation against any worker who organises meeting on the plant without the agreement of the extreme right-wing convenor Reg Parsons.

The statement, a major move by British Leyland, takes the form of a virtual joint statement with the of the T&GWU.

It points out that:

"As a Company cannot tolerate the por where small groups we ion of employees in an attempt to undermine the viability of the Company and the authority of the Trade Union Organisations are causing serious loss of production."

The clear aim of the Company is to protect the right-wing I&GWU District Official, Buckle, as well as Parsons, as they face growing criticism for accepting a sereis of sackings in support of Company speed-up.

The T&GWU officials should declare where they stand on this statement. Did they have knowledge of it before it was published? would they defend any worker who was victimised under the terms of this letter?

..TUC TRAUD Elsewhere on the agenda there s the same evasion, the same refusal to challenge TUC. complicity in the attacks carried out by the Labour Government...

On the question of the cuts in public spending and the social services, affected unions provide a screen of words to disguise the refusal of their officials to fight in defence of jobs, conditions or services.

Indeed the only policies put forward as an "alternative" to the cuts centre on a combination of nationalist import controls and still more subsidies to private industry • through the -National Enterprise Board.

The bankrupt charade of speechmaking which will continue week at Brighton therefore offers no way forward to the working class.

students, show that the old perspective of negotiating for reforms with the racist government is now being rejected and the perspective of the overthrow of white rule is beginning to gain acceptability.

The old, conservative, collaborationist leadership rested on earlier deleats and demoralisation.

Today there is a historic opportunity to build a revolutionary leadership which can channel the strength of the mass movement into the fight to defeat the apartheid regime and the capitalist exploitation it protects.

This faces the world workers' movement with a challenge - the need to use all its power to bring tangible aid to the offensive of the black workers, students and peasantry in Southern Africa.

Conspicuously the British Labour government, busily attacking its own working class, is silent on the growing repression in South Africa. They do not wish to "interfere in the internal affairs of another country."

DUTY

Cont'd from Front Page:

Instead a programme of action is needed, combined with an all-out fight within the unions to drive out the TUC bureaucrats and assert democratic control over the full time officials.

Such a programme must include:

*No to all wage control - for a sliding scale of wages to protect living standards against inflation.

*Stop all cuts in public spending - strike action to defend the social services and demand spending be linked to tising prices on a sliding scale.

*No redundancies - work-sharing on full pay.

*All full-time officials to elected from branch meetings not appointed.

*Drive . out the careerists officials to be paid no more than the average wage of their members. • made weaponry.

In the general demand that the Labour Government end all trade and financial relations with South Africa; we must therefore emphasise the need to impose a total and immediate ban on all arms supplies to the racist regime.

At present the Callaghan Government claims to enforce the United Nations arms embargo. But this is a fraud.

The interpretation of the embargo is so loose that even where it is not British-made bullets which kill black workers, they are fired from British-made vehicles such: as the British Leyland Land Rover - a favourite vehicle with the forces of repression throughout the world.

RE-ROUTED

These arms and equipment must instead be re-routed to the guerrilla forces fighting imperialThe fight must be taken up locally and nationally within the trade unions and Labour Party to force this change of policy.

Those "left' MPs who claim

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knowledge, or without the support, of the Senior Trade Unloa representativets) and the Crabeny. The represente a very