[running riot on a picket line that any…]

Scan page 11

running riot on a picket line that any court order, any injunction.

PAPER OF THE WORKERS SOCIALIST LEAGUE To fight the cuts means to challenge the Lib-Lab coalition Teachers in Oxfordshire must stand out against any reduction in the staff-pupil ratio for all ages.

REEMPLOY

All teachers on temporary contracts must be re-employed permanently-the threatened cutbacks in nurseries and equipment money must be dropped-and the policy of "natural" wastage" in ancillary staff jobs must be challenged.

In order to challenge government policy on the cuts national strike action must be called. Oxfordshire is not a special casecuts of the same nature are on the agenda for all areas of the county in the future.

The determination of Oxfordshire teachers must be used to give a lead to teachers throughout the country and an all-out national fight waged to defend the education service completely against cuts. still insists that it is The NUT Executive however leading a OPEN CONFERENCE NUT MEMBERS Saturday 2 July Birmingham University Students Union 10.00a.m. to 5.00p,m.

Called by delegations at NUT Conference in opposition to Executive on questions of wage control, spending cuts and union democracy.

Further information:

Convener, _ 23, Kenilworth Gans., London SE18. action.

BRITAIN 6 issues. 12 issues 24 issues Leading Tory Keith Joseph led a chorus of right wing spokesmen when he announced last Saturday that:

"Here we have a further erosion of the rule of law and civilised norms of behaviour by members of the labour movement; by leading members no less than by rank and file Marxist militants."

Tory James Prior went on to demand government legislation laying down maximum size of picket lines and ensuring that pickets come only from those on strike.

BLACKING In the meantime other Tories are demanding the Solicitor General launch legal action against the UPW blacking, and Grunwick managing director George Ward is talking of independent court Meanwhile the "anti-terrorist" Special Patrol Group and plain clothes police provocateurs were • 22 fi I wouk lik Press. I would like..... issues, l'enclose £.. Press. I wol NAME...

ADDRESS

EUROPE 6 issues. 12 issues 24 issues a subscri • issues, 1 (FROM had been supported by three government ministers, Len Murray and union General Secretaries.

WORDS NOT ENOUGH These threats must be answered by the labour movement. Words are not enough. Eric Heffer has correctiy called in Parliament for there to be "20,000 pickets" . He, together with every Labour MP must take up the fight to bring such forces into action to crush this employer.

• Trade unions, despite the wretched cowardice today of the Len Murrays, Tom Jacksons and Granthams, were built through defiance of courts and legislation.

It was the threat of national strike action by the AUEW in 1974 that forced through the dismantling of the apparatus of the Tory Industrial Relations Act.

MASS ACTION

Mass action today can defeat ..£1.15 ..£2.30 .£4.60

Scan page 12

return to work-their senior steward Brian Preston still sacked on trumped-up charges in a blatant victimisation.

Monday afternoon: Cancel the transporter drivers' union branch meeting, to prevent any chance of immedmeeting. Failed to get support for smashing existing 5/293 Wednesday morning: Body Plant TGWU stewards WORKFORC meeting. Persuade them to accept Leyland's scheme to stamp out plant bargaining and put wage negotiations into hands of national bureaucrats. On then to meet Jim Barson, "caretaker secretary" of the new IGWU Branch Wednesday afternoon: Meeting with Parsons to arrange Thursday's mass meeting. Drop him at the plant in time to arrange barricades to protect right wing from shop Thursday morning: Mass meeting in the Assembly Plant. Issue lying statement declaring "overwhelming £134.15 has arrived in the office since the last issue of Socialist Press bringing the total of our f3,000 fund received to date to £901.65. Latest donations include:Banbury £10; Cowley car workers £12.50; Oxford University booksale £51.80; CK $5; IS £15; Hull 22.10; London £5;

If we are to reach the £3,000 target by October 1, when we launch the weekly Socialist Press, we will have to step up our efforts and make At the same time the monthly fund' must be maintained. The June fund stands at £263.87, a long way short of our £600 target.

All readers and supporters of Socialist Press are urged to help us raise the necessary finance by sending a donation to: BD ¡LAW FrUI Yet .. another massive witchhunt has been launched in British Leyland's Cowley Assembly Plant by a right wing TGWU bureaucracy desperate to attack militants who resist their policies.

Their bitter hatred of anyone prepared to lead struggles in defence of living standards and working conditions and their inability to win support among workers for their line of collaboration with management has driven the right wing to deliberately split the trade union movement on the plant.

The instrüment used for this fresh attack on trade unionism is a TGWU Region 5 inquiry report on Leyland's withdrawal of recognition from four shop stewards last August.

That attack by management provoked a two-week strike during which TGWU District Secretary David Buckle and TGWU plant convener Reg Parsons publicly supported management.

The Region 5 report, published 9 months after the victimisations, was accompanied by two Regional Committee decisions: the stewards' sure that more money comes in each week. Workers leave the Cowler Assembly Plant Liu INure credentials were removed by the union; and the Oxford District Committee was given free rein to "reorganise" the TGWU within the Cowley Assembly Plant.

Theit proposals, revealed at the June meeting of the District Committee, called for the creation of a new TGWU Branch for the factory.

This branch, they went. On, should meet only monthly, on the factory premises; it would have its constitution drafted by Buckle and its officers elected by shop floor ballot.

The objective was clear: either the existing 5/293 Branch (set up in the 1974 "reorganisation" after the victimisation of Alan Thornett)

would be broken up; or the bulk of the members would be taken out, leaving an empty sheil.

These moves are the culmination ot a general plan worked out in the aftermath of the Decembet 19/3 elections when the right wing was voted out, with Frank Corti elected secretary and Alan Thornett as chairman. Abandoning even the pretence of democratic procedures, the right wing set out to regain Socialist Press Fund Drive 71 Nant. Maamnith Dool Hill Monday morning:

Tiate supporting action.

Tuesday morning:

Branch.

in the Assembly Plant.

floor.

Wednesday evening: obtain majority to majority" in favour of new branch. Thursday evening: Mass meeting One and a half hours of witch-hunting for new branch, and a riot.

control by manoeuvre.

The Oxford District Committee, with a built-in right wing majority of personal friends of Buckle and various elements of management, endorsed the proposal for a new branch.

Last Tuesday Buckle called a full meeting of all 130 TGWU stewards on the plant, all paid by management.

NO VOTE The meeting went badly for the right wing. Although the chairman announced he would be calling on stewards to vote endorsement of the proposals he rapidly reversed this position as the meeting voiced its hostility to the idea of a new branch. The meeting closed without a vote.

The right wing had no choice but to go over the heads of the stewards to the members.

Again management cooperation was enlisted for the holding of mass meetings of both day and night shift of the 4,000 members.

The company agreed to stop all production lines for the meetings (losing around 100 cars per hour) and to pay full wages to the whole plant-howeyer long the meetings may be.

Under Parson's direction, management cleared a car park, and constructed a high barrier of pallets around it, leaving only two entrances.

The right wing platform was set against the side of a building, with an entrance from a door behind. A high barricade was then erected around the platform to prevent access from the floor of the meeting.

A major blow to these plans came when 75% of the day shift membership boycotted the meeting -leaving only 400-500 attendance. But the biggest blow had been the action of the 5/293 Branch committee in distributing a statement prior to the meeting exposing the slanders on alleged misuse of funds that Buckle had raised at the stewards' meeting.

DEVASTATING

So devastating was the reply that these slanders were dropped completely at the mass meeting.

Buckle announced instead that the 5/293 Branch was controlled by people of "extreme" political views; these people go to "extremist" conferences and "commit" branch members to policies they don't agree with; and they spend whole branch meetings talking about "Vietnam" and This brought forward nothing but hostility from the meeting which rang out with demands that the 5/293 officers be allowed to speak.

Secretary Frank Corti even managed to climb over the FOUR DAYS IN THE LIFE OF DAVID BUCKLE OXFORD DISTRICT SECRETARY, TGWU. Persuade Cartransport drivers to Assembly Plant TGWU stewards Meet Cartransport drivers and work on, their senior steward still of night shift. produces majority speak Parsons called for a show of hands on the proposition "that the vote be taken"

Understandably most workers were 'confused as to what was taking place, and did not vote. Some hands went up. Seconds later Parsons declared the vote carried "in favour of a new branch."

As howls of anger went up he rushed from the platform followed by Buckle.

In the angry scenes that followed many workers voiced their views on Buckle's brand of "demoстасу" and others told the right wing what they could do with their new branch.

But the local press and radio obediently relayed Buckle's statement that an "overwhelming majority" was in favour of the so-called reforms.

REFUSAL

The night shift meeting, though somewhat larger, ended in a similar way. Bitterness centred on the right wing's refusal to allow 5/293 Branch committee members to speak in their own defence.

At one point angry workers seized the microphone. It was surrendered when Buckle promised to a Branch committee speaker. allow This promise was abandoned as soon as the microphone was returned.

An hour and a half of anticommunist witch-hunting, laced with brazen lies and slanders, secured Buckle a majority vote.

Key to this was the refusal to allow any right of reply.

CONTEMPT

As the meeting ended, hundreds of workers converged on the platform to voice their hatred and contempt for the bureaucratic display they had witnessed.

Desperate for support, Buckle even attempted to turn this to his advantage, and in' collaboration with anti-union reporter Peter Sturges put together the story headlined in Friday's Oxford Mail 'TOP UNION OFFICIALS ASSAULTED'.

Buckle's tactic had come tull circle: slander people; refuse them right of reply; accuse them of 'disruption' when they complain;

and then use this to justify denying them the right to speak.

Despite all this there remains a conserable body of support for the 5/293 branch. For this, reason the Branch officers are not prepared to see the branch broken up and the TGWU membership weakened and divided.

They are calling on all members to stay in the 5/293 Branch and resist right wing pressure to transfer them into the new branch. RESS, Wednesday 22 June, 1977 Brian Preston, chairman of the TGWU branch covering steward at Cartransport Ltd., has been sacked.

The only 'crime' which Socialist Press can discover he has committed is that he has supported members he represents and refused to toe the line of the TGWU's Oxford District Secretary, David Buckle.

The man who sacked him, Cartransport depot manager Bill Hillier was, until his recent promotion, a close crony of Buckle, as well as vice-chairman of the Oxford TGWU District Committee and many years a member of the No. 5 Regional Committee.

When Alan Thornett was victimised in Leyland's Assembly Plant, and removed from the position of Deputy Convener by the Regional Committee, it was Hillier who was brought on to the plant to help conduct the resulting election.

AUTHORISED Now settling into his open role as a manager,, Hillier set out to frame Preston, claiming that as depot manager he had not authorised a management/union meeting for which Brian Preston was paid wages under the normal agreement -and then sacked him.

The resulting three week strike by drivers employed by Cartransport Ltd did not halt production in Cowley because the firm carries only a third of Cowley's output.

The rest is divided between other car transporter companies, all covered by the branch of which Preston is chairman.

The key to winning reinstatement was therefore a strike by the whole branch. The branch committee therefore called a full meeting for last. Wednesday with a recommendation for strike action.

Buckle then moved in. He called a meeting of the striking Cartransport drivers for Monday morning. And at that meeting he convinced them to return to work.

He did this . on two counts:

firstly, he argued, he was meeting management on Tuesday, and they may not meet him if the strike was still on; and, secondly, if the issue was not settled on the Tuesday, they could spread the strike from the branch meeting the next day.

After obtaining a return to work on this basis-even though senior steward Preston was still sackedBuckle set to work to ensure the cancellation of the branch meeting.

This was carried out by the Branch Secretary (another long standing crony of Buckle's) and the assistant secretary (general foreman over one of the companies still When Cartransport drivers met on Wednesday therefore, they found no Branch meeting-only Buckle, waiting to drive home his advantage. Conveniently, management had not given Buckle a final answer-and he obtained a majority decision to stay at work until this answer arrived by post.

SACKINGS

This victimisation is completely linked to the struggles inside the Oxford car factories. If Buckle and the TGWU extreme right wing cannot achieve the. isolation of militants by routine bureaucratic means, they may well invite Leyland management to come up with similar sackings.

This will not be easy. Workers are becoming thoroughly sick of the manoeuvres of these bureaucrats and are in no mood to tolerate victimisation by management.

----- pull-quotes -----

SOCIALIST PRESS *

£3000 FUND

car-transporter drivers taking cars from the Leyland's Cowley Plant, and senior shop