[As the dust settles on the week of…]

Scan page 11

As the dust settles on the week of non action by British trade unions against the regime in South Africa, the question to be asked of postal workers union leader Tom Jackson is this: Was the blacking of mail and telephone calls a gigantic fraud?

Evidence from letters and circulars sent by Jackson to branches of the Union of Post Office Workers suggest he never had the slightest intention of blacking anything except industrial action by his members.

They reveal that the leaders of the union knew in advance that legal action was almost certain and that they had already decided to bow before it.

And they have been followed by an instruction from Jackson to al his members - action in support of other trade unions is banned Wherever strikes erupt postal workers are immediately involved Their support in not crossing picket lines is one of the first demonstrations of working class solidarity.

When this happened at Grunwick in November the union was threatened with an injunction. Immediately the union withdrew its action stating that this was to allow ACAS to intervene in the dispute.

The real reason is now clear. Jackson was not sure whether his members would accept what is clearly true that any action by postal and telephone workers which disrupts mail and telephone calls is illegal.

It is banned by the Post Office Act of 1953 and the Telegraph Act of 1863.

In a letter to branches last week Jackson says that the union hired Counsel's Opinion on what the law meant.

He complains that he is still waiting for that opinion. (Throughout the letter his respect for the legal profession is demonstrated by the capital letters he gives to each mention of this "Opinion").

In the meantime he spells out his own Opinion in the form of an edict.

"It is clear that in their (Law Lords) opinion the right to take sympathetic action is illegal in accordance with the two Acts referred to earlier. Branches for the time being, must not become involved in matters of this kind for they too would be open at the moment to charges of a criminal character."

With the next sweep of, the pen Jackson declares that no-one has challenged their own right to strike.

"Indeed there have been relerences made that this is quite legal." (The Acts of Parliament make no distinction about how post is disrupted. They simply make it a criminal offence).

Jackson promises special report on the Counsel's Opinion at the annual conference. Presumably it will arrive on a tablet of stone.

The day before this circular, Jackson sent off to all branches a long nine page apologia to branches explaining why they heard about the blacking first when they switched on their TV sets or opened their newspapers.

The decision to introduce the blacking was made on January Sth nineteen days after they had been asked to do so by the Post, Telephone, Telegraph International.

Another six days went by before the circulars were sent out. The news broke in the newspapers on January 13th - two days later.

Jackson claims that this was due to leaks from branches and that this was why other branches did not know of the decision (presumably blaming postal workers for staggered delivery).

What throws this claim into doubt is the fact that the National Front claims that one of its major