Scott Strikers Call for Action from Scargili

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Carol It's a long, long way from May to September, but the Laurence Scott workers - out for four months now in defence of jobs - are lasting the pace well.

They are still picketing the factory 24 hours a day and are as determined as ever to see the fight through.

The offensive against the AUEW leaders who stabbed the workers in the back continues. Over eight branches and District Committees have now called upon the executive to reverse their decision to withdraw support from the strike.

This struggle can be taken a stage further as balloting begins for a range of posts in the AUEW, by working to get the largest possible ballot for the Broad Left candidates.

While Socialist Organiser does not believe that the programme on which these candidates are standing for office is in anyway adeback for the Duffy/Boyd sell-out merchants. We call for a critical vote for Ken Brett (General Secretary), Dave Walters (Executive Council, Division 3), Stan Cole (EC, Division 4), Harry Coutts, (National Organiser), Peter Fawcett (Divisional Organiser, Division 9) and Ernie Jacques (Final Appeal Supported Moreover a number of other candidates, notably Derek Robinson, are standing at District level and should be similarly supported.

In Manchester North, Where Duggie Daniels is standing for District Secretary, he hopes for a 100% vote from Scotts - a factory where in the past the left/ Special offer for the new weekly: £3.50 for three months, £6 for six months, £11 for a year.

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OUR TARGET is £2,000 and our total so far is £471.34. The 16-page weekly devours even Last month we didn't quite make it, so let's see if we can change that in September.

•Send us a donation fighting Left within the Labour and trade union movement.

Donations to: Socialist Organiser, 28 Middle Lane, London No. Ken Gill right proportion would be nearer 60-40.

The names of Labour MPs who support the strikers keep rolling in and there are some very unlikely candidates among them, including Sir Harold Wilson and Joel Barnett.

This week the strikers will be at the TUC lobbying for support, contrasting the General Council's verbal aggression with their cowardice in action.

They specially hope to meet such prominent Stalinists as Ken Gill and George Guy - who sat on the Confed • Executive which denied the workers support.

Picketing and blacking remains the key to the dispute and here the picture looks bleak. With pressure exercised at national level to abide by the Confed decision, the IGWU is now coming into line with Boyd and Duffy.

In the next month, only firm instructions from the TGWU will stop scab drivers from trying to crash the picket lines and remove the valuable machinery from the plant.

A fight inside the TGWU is necessary together with mass picketing of the Openshaw plant.

But if the workers are to have any chance of winning, we have to go once more onto the offensive.

Patrick Spilling JOURNALISTS working for Maxwell's BPC publishing house in London have voted to support colleagues in Oxford through strike action.

The BPC chapel fought a long battle against redundancies earlier this year and have been threatened with closure.

Strike

Nevertheless they voted overwhelmingly to tell the NUJ national executive that they were ready to be called out on strike if a national blacking campaign is launched in support of the Pergamon nine.

The nine NUJ members at Pergamon, Oxford, were sacked six months ago by former Laboui MP Robert Maxwell, three days after striking for better pay and conditions.

Key meetings of the Sunday Times and Observer A firm stand by Arthur Scargill could still win the dispute, and the lUC provides an opportunity to drive this home to him.

Scargill played an essential role in the 1969 and 1972 miners strikes, in the rediscovery and popularisation of the mass picket and the flying picket. He was elected to his present position on a record of While his politics represented the limits of the militancy of the late 60s and 70s (and still today, in my view, provide no answer to the crisis) nobody symbolised more its positive aspects.

In his stress on direct action, solidarity, the unity of industrial and political. and the need to turn the struggle into the unions and into the Labour Party without ever forgetting the primacy of the rank and file, Scargill represented the hopes of a whole layer of militants.

Limitations

But there have always been limitations to Scargill's militancy - especially as the NUM Presidential election approaches.

In a recent interview he said:

"The miners have always given leadership to the rest chapels have still not been fixed at the time of going to press. They have the power to black those papers' colour supplements, which are printed by Maxwell.

The Radio Times chapel THE Financial Times' threat 1o lock out all its 600 printworkers succeeded on Friday 4 September in foreing the NGA machine managers to back down on their wage demand.

The NGA men had said they would strike from the 4th - and the FT, that in that case they would lock everyone out and print the paper by whatever other means necessary Arthur Scargill of the trade union movement... We are in the vanguard of the fight against Tory economic policy"

No, Arthur, just now you are not. The LSE workers are.

A small isolated group, they cannot win themselves. They need your help and you are not helping them.

Few miles

You went all the way to London to be arrested .at Grunwicks. You have not been prepared to march the few miles from Barnsley to Doncaster to stand with the LSE workers at Mining Supplies.

It was the direct threat in Doncaster that shook up. Snipe before. It could do so However, Arthur, it you think that the LSE workers are a small sacrifice to make for the good you can do as NUM President, think again!

Once installed in Euston Square you will find that there will soon be another principle to be sacrificed, another compromise to be stomached, another issue to be avoided - each easier and more serious.

You have issued an 18 page document stating in theory what you stand for as a Presidential candidate. Now show us in practice that has already said it will obey an instruction to black; and a number of chapels in the Book and Magazine sector have said they will support.

national executive is According to the FI itself after the settiement, no 'other means' for a scab FT were actually found.

Nevertheless, the machine managers backed down. The NGA, though giving official support to them, had made no preparations for á showdown.

NGA and NATSOPA have also agreed 1o negotiate a joint press room agreement.

This outcome must strengthe IT bosses for the you stand against sectionalism, and tor using the power of the miners in the interests of the whole working class. ;

Help the Laurence Scotts workers fight the Tories.

You once said "we took the view that we were in a class war. We were not playing cricket on the village green."

That's how the Scotts workers feel now! The hero of Saltley Gates would have used all the force and fury at his command to help them defeat Snipe and Thatcher.

Will the aspiring President of the NUM?

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