Grunwick- Blacking Isthe Only Answer

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SOCIALIST The Lib-Lab coalition government is training a "third force"-the Special Patrol Group-as picket-busting, anti-union shock troops. This is the lesson of Monday's mass picket at Grunwick.

Systematic beating up of pickets was the method adopted by police.

About 8,000 pickets defied the APEX leadership and responded to the strike committee's call for support.

A group of about 60 pickets blocked the Chapter Road gate for about an hour. Then the police violence really started.

Police charged this group of 60, grabbing them by the hair or anything they could grasp, and then pushing them into a line of police.

Pickets were then forced to run the gauntlet of kicking punching and tripping. As soon as a picket iell, three ot four police jumped'on them. kicking furiously to the head and the body.

But this was only the start. As about 500 pickets formed up with arms linked at the end of Chapter Road, a squad of 200 Special Patrol Group was brought up in vans.

In wedge formation these SPG thugs charged into the line of pickets, punching and kicking at all in sight.

Kicked

Again any picket who fell was brutally kicked by groups of SPG heavies.

Once this section of the picket was split up, they were pushed along the road, kicked and punched by the SPG.

Anyone protesting or trying to take the number of policemen involved was savagely beaten.

One picket dragged into a police van had his face pushed through a windowand with his face a mess of blood was sat on by other SPG men.

arrests Few arrests were made at this point. Orders were clearly restricted to physical attacks on pickets. All the time anti-union, anti-communist abuse was hurled by police-attempting to goad pickets into resistance.

The scab's bus did not even go through this YOUR MAN AT THE TOP entrance. The display of force was for one purpose only: to test out the military discipline and training of the SPG.

Dispersing

After the picket, a protest march went to the police station. As this protest was quietly dispersing, out again rushed the SPG thugs-punching and kicking, and this time making arrests-which eventually totalled 108.

The Grunwick Strike Committee has announced it will be calling for a one-day strike in four or five weeks time.

Sone strikers are also to go on hunger strike on the steps of TUC headquartersdemanding blacking of services to Grunwick.

They have also called for local workers to apply such blacking unofficially.

Meanwhile Home Secretary Merlyn Rees spoke in Parliament defending the role of the police--while 'lefts' still confine themselves to verbal protests. 'Left' Eric Heffer-where does he stand?

The Grunwick struggle is a microcosm of the class battles ahead. Conspicuously absent, however, were the Yorkshire miners who could soon be confronting similar attacks on their picket lines.

We must fight for support for the one day strike, centred on the demand for blacking both locally and nationally.

At the same time workers must intensify demands that the 'left' Labour MPs break from this strikebreaking coalition and actively mobilise support for workers in THERE ARE SOME PEOPLE IN THIS MOVEMENT STAGE OF OURS....

DOOR TV HOWEVER, I HAVE EVERY CONFIDENCE IN THE FUTURE..

As the strike at the Metropole Hotel for a £50 minimum wage entered its fifth week, GMWU Regional Official Romp organised a meeting of scabs in the hotel to elect new scab shop stewards.

This act of back-stabbing sums up the hostility of union officials to the strikers who have dared to challenge the traditional low wages embodied in the wages council structure accepted by both bureaucracy and employers.

From the very first week of the Metropole strike, in which they attempted to disband the picket lines-GMWU officials Tilston and Romp have done everything they could to impede the struggle.

Now their efforts are directed to preventing the spread of the dispute to other sections of hotel workers.

The Centre Hotels branch, which had faced two postponements of their meeting The officials WHO SAY MY MEMBERS WILL NOT ACCEPT SACRIFICES., ON TRIKE WELL HAVE NO TRADE UNION WRECKERS MERE, ...CLEAR OFF!) on the £50 claim finally met management last Thursday.

But the unprecedented attendance of National Official F. Cooper and an assortment of Regional full-timers was arranged to intimidate workers.

Although the f50 claim was lodged, the decision on a management offer of only 13% was postponed until November 22.

Official rebuffed

Rank Hotels workers, having rebuffed Tilston's attempt to whittle their claim down to £46.50,. met a management offer • of only 10% when delayed negotiations finally opened last Friday.

Workers at Grand Metropolitan hotels on the other hand submitted their £50 claim as long ago as Augustand have only just heard from Romp that the claim "is being considered".

Weakness

lengths to vhich have gone t sabotage the indicates but their Name. .

Address Violence at an earlier mass picket £S0 minin not thei weakness.

Important

Despite the inadequacy of the f50 figure therefore, and despite the numerical weakness of the Metropole strike, it does have a crucial importance in the struggle against low pay in the catering and hotel industry.

Reactionary union leaders cannot be ignored. They act again and again to disrupt and confuse the membership. They must be fought and To do this hotel workers have to see beyond the problems of their own branches and develop the campaign for the £50 minimum wage-answering the derisory offers from management by coordinated strike action.

PRESS * issues issues issues issUeS . (Over would like The almost endless ability of print union leaders to stall off escalation of the Darlington dispute was demonstrated again last week, when the NGA executive issued a call for 'talks' with the NUJ.

Plans for escalation throughout Westminister Press had already been drawn up by the NUJ and were being presented to the emergency committee on November 3 when the call came.

Immediately the emergency committee abandoned the plans until these talks have taken place.

Joe Wade, NGA General Secretary, gave no clue of what his proposals to the NUJ would be but he made it clear that continued support at executive level would depend on agreement.

Wade is expected to be making his inevitable bid to sell out the strikes in Darling. ton and London before they can be spread.

Wade An all-out effort must now be made by NUJ members to get the national executive recalled immediately and have the strikes put into effect.

The mood among journalists throughout the group has once again swung heavily in favour of supporting strikes. The strategy of the General Secretaries appears to be to frustrate that support by a series of never ending manoeuvres.

The call to escalate wa: first made by the Westminste Press NUJ group chapel in early September.

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PHOTO: Andrew Wiard, Report. Wiard PHOTO:

NGA delays of strike