Skegness: a New Thfp

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The refusal of TGWU officials to use the strength of the 1.9 million strong union to win disputes emerged clearly in the marathon strikes against the Trust Houses Forte hotel chain which were sold out earlier this year.

Now 43 workers at Sanderson's fork-lift factory in Skegness are facing similar obstruction in their twenty-week battle for reinstatement and union recognition.

They are up against not only a reactionary anti-union • employer, but TGWU Regional Secretary David Cairns, whose actions helped ensure the sell-out of the Imperial Typewriters occupation in 1975.

TGWU officials have SO far dragged their feet on any blacking action against Sandersons and its subsidiary, Truckmasters. Sandersons is continuing to import Toyota fork trucks and adapt them.

Meanwhile all Cairns could say at a support meeting called on 12 September was how difficult it would be for the strikers to get jobs if they were defeated.

TGWU members however have given strong support to the actionwith Ford workers blacking the a week to 3.

As strike committee member Colin Simpson told Socialist Press:

"We are fighting on three fronts: one, the employer; two, the higher TGWU officials; and three, hardship. We are receiving only £6 per week strike pay from the union with another £6 from the strike fund.

There seems to be no cooperation between the union officials and the strike committee.

If we lose this it will set trade unionism in this area back 100 years-but we will win.

But what we need to win is full backing from the union. Above all we need urgent financial support."

The next meeting of the TGWU No. 10 Regional Committee must -ey factories throughout the Leyland combine to submit their own claims now and take action to win them.

And they must broaden this call to the car industry as a whole -where claims are now in process in Ford and Vauxhall.

In each of these cases we advocate that the claims submitted should be full catching up claims to regain 1974 pay levels, linked to cost of living increases, providing rises to keep pace with inflation as assessed by elected trade union committees.

To highlight the fight against the present government the Leyland strikers must demand that the 'left' Labour MPs declare full support for the strike and FROM PAGE be lobbied with the demand for immediate Regional and national blacking on Sandersons, and for increased financial help.

In the meantime, support and donations should be sent to Phil Gilliatt, 27, St. Matilda's Drive, Winthorpe, Skegness, Lincolnshire.

fight to break coalition.

It is by the stand they take on coming struggles that these so-called "left wingers' can be exposed in the eyes of thousands of workers who still cherish illusions that they will at some point fight Callaghan, and new steps forward can be aken in the fight for new leadership in the workers' movement.

The, pay policy is already reeling under the battering of a wages offensive-correct leadership in such major disputes as that at Leyland can deal it the final blow, and open up the possibility of a fight for an alternative

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supply of engines, leading to a drop in production from 15 trucks