We Demand Union Recognition Unite Dvercome Jackson Blow to

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After 23 weeks Journalists at East Midland Allied Press returned to work on Monday after a 23 week struggle against the destruction of their union chapel at Kettering.

The strikers at Kettering have fought a heroic struggle against the scab organisation-the Institute of Journalists, but a big question mark still hangs over the return to work.

The formula means that nine defectors agree to return as members of the National Union of Journalists and remain in the union until disciplinary hearings are completed by the end of August.

At first the defectors rejected this TUC compromise. They changed their position atter private discussion with the TUC committee chairman, Bill Keys, general secretary of SOGAT.

It is unlikely that they would have agreed to the settiement unless they had been given assurances that they would be free to resign at the end of August.

. The blurred terms of the return to work must be blamed on the leadership of the NUJ, who at the very moment when supporting strikes of substantial duration were on the agenda, sought instead for a negotiated way out of their problem.

An alternative strategy, from the Kettering workers own. Area Council, calling for immediate national blacking of Press Association copy and week long strikes area by area was allowed to lie on The strike at Grunwick has reached a crucial stage. With summer nearly here and the firm's peak season just beginning, UPW General Secretary Tom Jackson has smashed any hope of ending the strike quickly through post office workers blacking Grunwick films.

When a delegate at UPW Conference proposed that the union black Grunwick irrespective of legal action resulting from the NAFF's injunction, Jackson-his hand on his heart, no doubt-opposed him.

Jackson argued that the UPW's legal advisers had warned that not only would UPW members carrying out blacking be taken to jail, but the union's assets would be sequestered as well.

So the resolution fell.

Jackson was determined to do two things at his Conference. The first was to force support for Phase 3 of the incomes policy, which he did by combining it with a call for large • wage increases-sowing enough confusion to get his report accepted.

The second was to squash all opposition to the high court rulings against UPW members' right to take industrial action on South Africa or Grunwick.

Clearly this links up to the support for Phase 3: if UPW members take action in support of other workers they might get the idea of striking for their own higher wages!

The Grunwick strike committee were not taken by surprise by Jackson's betrayal. Michael Foot's "Sunday socialism" speech to launch the UPW Conference promised that the impotent Labour component of the Lib/Lab coalition would safeguard the rights of the working class to take industrial action.

From the mouth of a member of an anti-socialist coalition government this is simply rubbish. The gains of the working class have in any case come from its own strength and actions, not promises of legislation!

The Grunwick strike committee are planning just such action. After over 40 weeks out on strike they have learned some lessons. •They have decided that in future APEX officials will not be invited to all strike committee meetings. The role of union officials at Heathrow and in the hotel strikes has illustrated that workers must not place any confidence at all in union officials to guide their struggles to victory.

Further, the strike committee have decided that the 24-hour picket is not a principle and that it should be dropped if more effective action can replace it.

Building labour movement support for mass pickets is the next step, and the strike committee have chosen the week of June 13-19 as the first such initiative.

They plan to stop scabs and vans going through the gates, even in the face of police harrassment.

The recent announcement by Warwickshire County Council that the 1100 school meals supervisors would not be sacked after all was greeted with derision by the meeting (as it was at the Nuneaton Trades Council sub-committee) when it was discovered that they too are to become "temporary workers.

The official and the branch secretary who have been negotiating with Warwickshire County Council failed to turn up to the branch meeting to give a report back. It was felt by some members that they may have something to hide.

The meeting passed the following resolution unanimously.

•That this branch recognises that the result of the temporary employment agreement has been to enable the county council to reduce staffing with the minimum of union resistance.

We therefore call upon the GMWU to renegôtiate the terms of employment of ail county council staff. New terms of employment should exclude appointment of any worker on a temporary basis with present temporary posts being converted to permanent ones.

Furthermore, we call for the establishment of minimum hours for all staff regardless of workload"

A further step toward in the fight against the cuts was taken recently when a county council ISSC was set up-initially between NUPE and the GMWU.