Heathrow Crunch Date

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UCATT has now made further plans for its fight to prevent the closure of Birmingham District Council's Direct Labour Construction Department.

In view of the Tories capturing control of the West Midlands County Council the becomes more urgent.

If the Tories win the other district councils next May, several thousand jobs will be at stake.

The UCATT action committee have called a one day official strike on July 5 and are calling on other local authority workers to support it.

All branches and shop stewards committees supporting the campaign are asked to send delegates to the meeting called by the action committee on Wednesday June 1 at 7.45 in Digbeth Civil Hall. The five AUEW negotiators at Heathrow of the movers, Colin Kenny who is one of the National Health Advisory Committee delegates and the secretary of the Committee of London Area Stewards in the Health Service (CLASH).

Bird said that what we wanted to do was get "the British people well housed, well fed and back to work."

* The venue of a CDLM public meeting during the ASTMS Conference had to be moved when the room (booked by telephone) turned out to be in a THF hotel!

MATTON CROSS REST AURANT A rare moment of truth in a union conference came at the AUEW conference in Eastbourne.

John Baldwin, the construction section's general secretary revealed the level of working class hostility to wage control, asking:

"Is Hugh Scanion shouted out by Leyland workers because he is Hugh Scanion? Do they abuse me because I am John Baldwin?

"Of course not. It's because we are being seen as policemen defending a policy that the rank and file lads will not accept.

"It's not nice having your suit ripped and ruined, to face open hostility and hatred, because you are trying to defend the discredited policy. I have been kicked, punched and nearly knifed."

British Airways manage with a "reasonable offer" oi face a recommendation by shop stewards to a mass meeting on that day to resume industrial action.

The original deadline of May 13 was extended after British Airways agreed to consider the shift pay claim wich had been drawn up by all the unions in the Engineering and Maintenance section.

The final claim was for shift pay increases ranging from 25% to 45%. Management in return offered a derisory 35p a day in order to keep the talks going.

But the talks only got off the ground after Reg Birch persuaded the engineers to end the blacking of aircraft which had been repaired by supervisory staff during the four week strike.

As we go to press there is no news of the offer British Airways are likely to make. What is certain is that they will refuse to offer anything like what the men are asking for because of the threat such an offer would pose to the Social Contract. With 55,000 workers employed at the airport, it is certain that if one section were to break through the Social Contract the rest would want to follow.

This leaves British Airways with the choice of calling the bluff of the AUEW negotiators or making an offer which would only be paid when the pay code allowed. This is certainly not going to please the engineers who lost over £200 each during the four week strike.

The shift pay claim can be won. But it requires a leadership which is prepared to take on the array of forces ranged against them, the government, the employers and the union leaders. It is also important that in taking action unilaterally, the AUEW fights for the support of the other unions who now clearly stand to gain from winning the dispute.

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Builders plan fight

CUTS CAUSE VE CASUALTIES aırways PHOTO: Andrew Wiard, Report

A Policeman's Lot

ment have been given to Friday 27 May to come up