All Out -mon

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Hyndburn, and £29 from the Oxford With a better flow of contributions, could print extra of our Trade Union cracy supplement this week, and help organise for the conference on March Send contributions to Socialist AN all-out strike by ASLEF train drivers is the only sure way to defeat the attack on their pay agreement and working conditions launched by the British Rail Board.

Many members - spearheaded by the Scottish Region - have been demanding this policy since before the start of the two-day Only a firm, all-out stoppage will build up cumulative pressure on British Rail, and give a lead to those NUR members - especially guards - who reject the vicious productivity strings imposed upon them under the pay deal signed last year by Sid Weighell.

Already in Manchester and in Kings Cross in London NUR guards have embarked on a series of lightning strikes in opposition to the 'flexible rostering' proposals accepted on their behalf by Weighell.

Plainly Weighell is determined at all costs to prevent any further growth of the rank and file rebellion against his sell-out hence his frantic efforts to press-gang ASLEF into a hasty settlement.

At the same time BR has encouraged Weighell in his sabotage by provocatively deciding to pay NUR train drivers the 3 percent they have withheld from ASLEF - apparently without achieving prior agreement on 'flexible rostering' Indeed the combination of BR tactics - threats to suspend strikers; attempts to 'buy off' the majority union in the industry; and an all-out war on working conditions won in struggle by ASLEF 60 years ago -shows that what is at stake is the effectiveness of ASLEF as a union.

Yet so watertight is the union's case that it has united the ASLEF Executive and its membership in a way not seen since the national strike of 1955and even secured unambiguous endorsement from TUC General Secretary Len Murray.

Murray's involvement in the negotiations at ACAS however raises severe doubts as to the value of his support - which may well simply be the public face of an intensified effort to force home a sell-out.

ASLEF members - left isolated by the Ford sellout and the miners' vote -are now at the forefront of the resistance to the Tory attack. But they are not the only ones under the axe.

The public transport system is being decimated, to the benefit of no-one but car industry and road haulprofiteers.

railways.

Huge fare rises are being enforced in London and the West Midlands, and London Transport workers face major job losses in the wake of the Law Lords' judgment.

ASLEF's fight to defend itself is a necessary condition for the fight for an integrated, nationalised transport industry, to be run as a public service.

And steel workers are facing a new wave of 15,000 or more redundancies, on top of a zero pay increase.

An all-out strike on the rail would offer a lead to these sections and could build into a movement that could force back the Tories.

ASLEF members in their branches and mass meetings must take up the Scottish demand that the Executive immediately escalgroup - it's not enough!

page 7). But we're hamstrung.

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