MORNING STAR-DUST 'No figh till we say so'

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solved.

"As we indicated in our editorial on Saturday, under these circumstances the continuation of the strike can only lead to further divisiveness between one section of workers and another at British Leyland."

(Morning Star, Wednesday March).

So said the Morning Star, the morning after Scanlon had backed the Leyland management threat to sack the toolroom workers if they did not end their strike.

CRITICISM

Read in isolation it could give the impression that up to that point the Communist Party paper had given some support to the toolroom workers.

The opposite was the truth. This editorial was merely a continuation of their position of opposition to the toolroom struggle. The only criticism made of Scanion's part in the sacking threats was that these:

"aggravate the situation, and simply do not carry conviction"

Early reporting of the strike was deliberately non committal. On the day it started, February 21, the Morning Star wrote:

"Opinion is divided on the merits of the strike as some Leyland workers think it can divert from the main fight for a return to free collective bargaining. They believe separate rights to negotiate toolroom wages could fragment the manual workers' bargaining position throughout Leyland"

The other half of the divided" opinion is of course not mentioned.

The opinions they quote are those of leading members of the Communist Party. In Oxford one of their number, Mick Soanes was busy moving resolutions in opposition to the toolroom workers. Derek Robinson, the convener at Longbridge had opposed the strike at the meeting of the BLMC Combine Committee one week earlier, as he had opposed all struggles against Phase II.

BOLSTER

On February 28 the Star quotes the strike leaders as saying that their action is not against the Social Contract and to bolster this describes it as being about "the effects of the Social Contract"

The same issue carries their report of the CP-run Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions conference two days earlier.

•This conference, which refused to allow any resolutions in support of the toolroom workers to be put, heard Derek Robinson declare that differentials could only be granted once there had already been a return to free collective bargaining.

"I don't accept that all we need to do is to bash the trade union The first clear public statement of the Morning Star's position came from their Industrial Correspondent, Ken Graves, on March 2 where he discussed the effects of separate negotiating rights.

"Such a 'solution' would inevitably fragment the bargaining position of Leyland manual workers... Currently it diverts from the key fight to change that disastrous economic policy by initially forcing a return to free collective bargaining."

After the rigged meeting with the which thomates were in ta minority, ice Star commented on the return to work call:

"Yesterday's talks produced the best possibility that has emerged so far of securing a return to work"

And after the strike committee recommended rejection:

"Such a hard line is against all expectation, as it was thought that meeting the AUEW executive members-one of the strikers' demandswould defuse the situation and open the way for a return to work"

(Morning Star, March 1 HOWLED When Scanlon was howled down at the Birmingham meeting it was a major weakening for all bureaucracy, forcing the Communist Party to come out with an open call for a return to work on March 12.

PHOTO: Chris Davies, Report Ken Gill Ken Gill, the Stalinist General Secretary of TASS, and therefore someone the Communist Party considers to carry some weight, attacked the strike as divisive.

In summing up the strike on March 18 the Morning Star tried to repair some of the damage done to the AUEW executive, saying they had "acted with commendable haste to accept the olive branch of the strikers".

Then after all their attacks the paper has the hypocrisy to describe the strike in this way:

SYMPATHY "The strike has major significance in that it aroused a groundswell of sympathy with the strikers and total opposition to the Government's pay policy which caused the strike"

In looking at the Morning Star's