Suciauist Heathrow. Port Talbot Supporting Strikes Are Needed

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Party-led Leyland stewards conference on the Social Contract on April 3 was turned into an endorsement of Stage 2 of wage control, an essential prerequisite for a Stage 3. And it attacked pay strikes now taking place.

Such ideas are dismissed with contempt by the working class moving towards struggle.

Following on the example of the British Leyland toolmakers"

recent four week pay strike, 500 electricians at the British Steel Corporation's Port Talbot works struck on 23 March in defiance of their union leaders, and closed down the plant. They are demanding a new pay deal for working on a new and more complex plant.

And at Heathrow Airport, 2,500 of the airport's 4,000 maintenance engineers are working to rule and refusing to work night shift in support of their claim for increased shift allowances.

The response of British Airways management, following on the example of British Leyland's ultimatum to the toolmakers, was to sack 1,200 of the engineers in an attempt to split the dispute.

BACK TO WORK

And the response to this situation of the AUEW leaders, headed by Maoist Reg Birch, also followed the example of the toolmakers' dispute-they simply instructed their members back to work.

This is because these pay strikes, in some ways more clearly than the toolmakers, represent a challenge not only to Stage 2 of pay controls but also to the authority of the official union leadership who have set themselves the task of policing the Social Contract.

And for this reason the union bureaucracy_ rapidly moved beyond calls for a return to work to gang up with management attempts to organise wholesale scabbing.

BLACKLEGGING

This involved calling in the bureaucratic layer of "representatives" on the National Joint Council for Civil Air Transport.

16 out of 17 of the unions represented (the sole exception being the AUEW) agreed jointly with management to allow supervisory staff and managers to carry out checks normally done by the maintenance men.

This would allow some European flights to resume throuch nra arranned klaall..

to discuss a fraudulent peace initiative involving arbitration put forward by management.

If they decide to reject this deal, their first step must be to call out the dayshift engineers.

who are still working normally.

If the stewards climb down and accept arbitration it will represent a blow for the employers and the trade union bureaucracy.

HOSTILE

The hostility of the bureaucracy to the strikers is understandable. They know that if the Port Talbot electricians and the Heathrow engineers win it would demolish Stage 2 and make a Stage 3 impossible.

This is why supporting action for these strikes is so urgent. It is time for all those who have talked of support, such as the group of Glasgow conveners, to translate this into action.

It is time for Roy Fraser, Leyland toolmakers' leader, who correctly stated after a toolroom stewards meeting last week that at Heathrow the right to strike is at stake, and said supporting action would be considered, translated this talk into action.

And all those sections of the AUEW who began organising strike support for the toolmakers when they were threatened with the sack should now prepare similar action to defend the Heathrow men against victimisation.

And any attempt by British Steel Corporation to import extra steel supplies to break the Port Talbot strike must be met by blacking on the docks-where dock stewards themselves have agreed a 20% claim after Augustand blacking on road transport.

APRIL 20 This kind of support is vital in the fight to break Stage 2. The one day token strike on April 20 called by the Communist Party-led LCDTU and the Leyland stewards is of value only in so far as it mobilises behind these strikes (see back page).

The weight of responsibility on the shoulders of stewards who lead struggles in the period is heavy.

On the one hand the working class is searching for a new leadership, seeing the betrayals of the TUe leaders and union officials. Wherever a lead is given there is a huge response.

But on the other hand any Cont'd Rant Dona CalA PHOTO: John Sturrock, Report.

British airways 00000 001 General Mobutu's CIA-backed military dictatorship in the vast African state of Zaire appears to be collapsing under the onslaught of a tiny guerilla army reportedly numbering less than 2,000.

The invading army of exiles from the province of Shaba (formerly Katanga) crossed the border from Angola a month ago. The war looks as if it will become a spark which may ignite huge convulsions not only in Africa but also world wide.

Mobutu's government, militarily backed by the United States, Belgium (its former colonial master) and France, has been one of the mainstays of imperialism in Africa since the crushing of the anti-imperialist regime of Patrice Lumumba in the earl 1960c 0000..

BEATAN BP gir BP second most populous state of black Africa, the size of Zaire gives it a crucial strategic role (it shares a border with nine other states), and it contains half of the precious Copperbelt which straddles the border with Zambia and supplies 70% of Zaire's foreign earnings. Zaire was the imperialists' headquarters in the war of liberation in Angola.

ADVANCE The invading forces have made a staggeringly fast advance and are already threatening to capture one of the main Copperbelt towns (Kolwesi) from which they could quickly advance to the even more important city of Lumumbashi (formerly Elizabethville).

The Zairian army is reportedly collapsing before them, due to disorganisation Trident two air BF Many desertions have been reported and the army commander has been replaced. According to one report, he was killed in the fighting.

Mobutu's government has been Cont' Back Page Col. 3.

CONTENTS Review of British Road to Socialism P6 French Revolution P7 *Rank and File TUC cons Terence report PS Argentina one year after the coup: P3 TGWU preview of conference agenda PII

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Page Z SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 13 March, 1977