Gang Special

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The Press does not always speak with one voice and in the case of Grunwick there have been thousands of words in the national dailies which have appeared to reflect a variety of From the Express, Mail, Sun and Telegraph the support for Grunwick's managing director George Ward There has even been some reporting of events on the Guardian gave prominence to the claims that bottle The early edition of the Evening Standard on Junc "The police-picket clashes were very bitter. In one case 10 police charged a group of pickets standing peaceably by the road, pushing them dangerously into But it was not all like that. The real, considered, Press reaction cami the following day, reporting the The headlines tell their own story. 'A Blot on Britain' (Mail); "The Bloody Limit' (Express); *Shouts of Kill as PC is Hurt' (Telegraph); and 'Madness and the The pictures that dominated the papers were of PC Wilson lying in the road with blood pouring from his head. A police cordon round his body had moved out the way so that the Press could get these shots of an incident which happened "off the ball" after the Wilson, a hefty member of the Special Patrol Group, had joined colleagues in attacking a crowd which had on the picket. But in the pages of the Press, PC licence them by wearing armbands was seized the Press for a further attack on 'mob picketing' Not one paper gave the strike committee's statement comdemning this move in full, and it was widely misreported as being a difference of tactics, instead of In a long piece under the picture of the injured policeman the Express recounts blow after blow against the police. Not one by the police against pickets! Indeed none of the capitalist press made anything of the news conference by two pickets, one on crutches, the other in a wheelchair, hospitalised by Issue" the Express said that the main question was not an opinion piece headed "Yes, This is a Class about trade union rights but about whether or not picketing and the lessons for the ruling class it the Times to produce the nastiest piece of all.

defence of Ward's exploitation of coloured "An immigrant community can only obtain a place of advantage for itself in the host economy if it is prepared to work harder and for less pay than the "The success of Grunwick has been based on employing immigrants without restrictive practices and at highly competitive, that is low, wages. At a time when unemployment is high-and it is particularly high among the immigrant community in London-it is very natural that coloured workers should be willing to take jobs on these terms. The alternative is unemployThe Times says that trade union leaders realise that the jobs of their members depend on the low wages of these workers and that the result of raising these wages will be to create unemployment, by raising them above This is one area where the Press is united. Law must be maintained. Nothing must be done to undermine the economic system. The balance between Labour and The best answer has come not in words but frol the printers at the Ohserver, who refused to accept NAFF advertisement without the right of reply; at the Sun where printers refused to set a vicious leader about on the picket line, and, of course, from the They all demonstrate in a small way what will one he proved again, that the pen of the bourgeoisie is views.

has been open.

For the Mirror and Guardian Ward has been an obstacle, an enemy because he will not take a single step down the road of social democracy.

picket lines that 10l all one way traffic. The throwers are police provocateurs.

23 said:

the wall of a house."

arrest of Scargill and the injury to PC Wilson.

Martyrs' (Mirror).

main picket was over.

the temerity to bang on the side of the van.

This group of police aristocrats are the most vicious Wilson became just another innocent bobby.

Roy Grantham's call to limit pickets to 500 and to on by a fundamental difference of principle.

vicious police attacks.

there was going to be civil peace.

With the focus of most of the media on the mass is left to hev get jobs?" the Times makes an oper On June 30, in a leader headed *Where else will racialist workers and his fight against the unions.

existing host community... ment."

the 'market price' Capital must not be upset.

'mobs' postal workers at Cricklewood.

ir;

mehter than the sword of the working class.

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earnings. strike committee, Mahmoud Rowland Sheret, a delegate to bussing started, they had persuaded Stirling and District Trades Council 20 people not to go to work, nine stressed that the question of getting of whom had joined the strike. was only part of the struggle, which demanding was not just the right to must be to generate support for talk to the workers going in but the Faze Democracy in the labour movement is far too dangerous a subject for discussion, and should be banned, according to the Scottish TUC.

Four days before the Scottish regional conference of the Campaign for Democracy in the Labour Movement in Stirling, the Central Federation of Scottish Trades Councils withdrew its sponsorship -at the instruction of the Scottish TUC.

No discussion was allowed and the previous decision to sponsor the conference was reversed because, it was said, it was "against the rules" of the Federation to sponsor an allScotland conference.

The General Secretary of the Scottish TUC Jimmy Milne told the Federation that it could face the withdrawal of recognition if it went ahead. • Yet similar conferences have been sponsored many times in the past. What the Scottish TUC was objecting to was nothing to do with the constitution, but the politics of the conference.

Significantly, CP members who had voted for the conference, refused to take up the challenge and sat mute while the manoeuvre was carried out.

The conference of 50 went ahead backed among others by the Stirling Labour Party_and Labour group on Stirling Council.

Many unions, including the CPSA, NUJ and NALGO had asked for reports back and in NALGO the discussion of the CDLM programme had taken 30 minutes and opened up many questions in the branch.

Stewart MacLennan said that far too many Scottish militants had made the long treck to talking achieve their aim of a 10% limit on Yet Phase 3 would be fought from the day it was introduced.

a programme through conferences that programme so that it colla De put into action.

The response to the capitalist crisis in Britain had been in some quarters a strengthening of nationalism as reflected by increased votes for the Scottish Nationalists and the National Front.

Labour movement sections which argued for import controls or for holding off wage demands in the "national interest" contributed towards these movements.

terse!

The secretary of the Grunwick Ahmed, said that on the first two days of the mass picket, before the What the pickets were noW right to discuss the issues with them riaht to dierce the icenes with them away from the police and management.

Ahmed had been arrested twice in the first two days of the mass picket and the strike committee was rejecting limits on its size.

"The strike committee is still calling for mass pickets, as many as turn out. We've got to keep the pressure up and get as many as Arthur Scargill said-20,000 to 25,000 people."

"As far as we are concerned, armbands just give the police the chance to say "these are official pickets and those are not-you lot get in the coach."

The majority of the people left in the factory took jobs there after the strike started. "When . we go back they are going to be out. Whether. they want to be in the union or not, we don't want them. Obviously they don't want to go on strike, they get £15 a week more than we get."

HOTEL STRIKES

Earlier the conference had been told by Cathy Sherlock about the sell-out of the hotel strikes in Oxford and Sheffield by the TGWU -a move which had strengthened the Grunwick management's hand.

The CDLM passed a resolution calling for national blacking to be imposed in support of the THF strike still going, at the Night Out night club in Birmingham.

The regional conference went on to endorse the draft resolution calling for support for struggles against wage controls, opposition to cuts in public spending and opposition to all legislation attacking gains and rights of the working class and to interference from the courts and police.

ALTERNATIVE

The conference agreed that the general basis for an alternative strategy should be a demand for the sliding scale of wages and resolution submitted by Stirling Trades Council • to the 1976 Scottish TUC calling for a 35 hour week, longer holidays, no redundancies, opening the books, nationalisation without compensation of firms unable to ensure full employment, restoration of the cuts in public expenditure and cost of living increases for all state benefits.

In support of the Grunwick struggle the conference adopted the following programme:

Pickets: Full support for mass pickets with no limits on numbers and rejection of any system of licensing or armbands etc. Mass mobilisation for the day of action including demands on the Scottish TUC to organise special trains. CDLM to send delegation from conference to picket.

Blacking: Full support for postal workers in their blacking. Demands on leaders of UPW, GMWU and EETPU to introduce official blacking of post, water and electricity.

Courts: No recognition of court of inquiry. Defence of any union members taken to court for blacking. Demand the dropping of all charges against arrested pickets.

Warwickshire NALGO have called off their limited action against the cuts, and accepted a "package" which includes a reduction in the total number of redundancies.

The package was sold to the membership at the AGM, by the branch officers, in defiance of a call from the leading shop stewards for a stepping up of industrial action.

The Chairman put a slightly modified version of a motion which had been overwhelmingly rejected by the shop stewards only a few days before.

He claimed the motion was "new" because it only called for a "suspension' of industrial action.

Meanwhile school cleaners in the county, members of NUPE, GMWU and the TGWU) are being asked to accept Council proposals that they be laid off during school holidays on half pay.

TERM TIME

This would involve the big cleaning jobs, normally done during the holidays either not being done at all, or being pushed onto the cleaners during term time.

The scheme is supposedly voluntary, but a NUPE official announced, "If the scheme isn't accepted the only alternative is redundancies"

At the same time it has been announced that the threat to sack all the 1130 school meal supervisory assistants has been withdrawn. Instead, as the GMWU branch secretary put it, "they're being reorganised".

The "reorganisation" involves 25% redundancies.

As the term draws to a close these manual workers are getting anxious about their future. Many of them do not know whether they will have a job to return to in September.

Meanwhile the TGWU and GMWU officials have both demonstrated their concern by going on a fortnight's holiday.