[DEFEND Calling all young women: fight back against…]

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DEFEND Calling all young women: fight back against the To A day conference open to all young women, organi ırday March 12, 10.30 to 5.30, Wolverhampton ristration £2, unwaged 50p. Workshops on: images ol en, women's unemployment, state racism, the famil;

omen in the labour movement, women's sexuality, men and the Bomb, violence against women, women d education, and a practical session on self-defence.

More information: phone Jane, (01-] 609 3071. Picas: March 8, 7am Hospita. Clapham Common rally: March 19, 1 1am from Church Lane, SW17. dspital:

10am, South London South Side. March and St Benedict's Hospital, arborough from the tion and call for women to be involved in the planning of the march to ensure full participation by women.

And it is left to BIFU to call for support for local campaigns like the Greenwich Signing On Campaign.

The emptiest motion on this subject, though, comes from APEX - under the heading of 'Trade Union Unity" • It builds up to calling on the TUC to denounce - publicly!

- new Tory attacks. Well, that should make us all feel better. We couldn't go so far as to try and stop the attacks, after all!

Things look up a little under "support for working Women" • Here the NUT has a comprehensive motion calling on the TUC to initiate action (though leaving it up to the TUC to decide what "action" is, may not be wise) on child care, maternity and paternity provision, training and job protection.

The TGWU chips in with a call for a campaign based on a Working Parents' Charter to ensure that parents' needs are seen as central in negotiations. It calls for the campaign to be at all levels of the trade union movement: the nearest the agenda ever comes to talking about union members.

Low paid Women at work are also dealt with in sections on 'Low Pay' and 'Training' it is good to see that most unions now accept that "low paid workers" and women workers are the same thing. While the CSU and ASTMS both call for campaigns on the basis that the government won't do anything spontaneously, and the CSU, SCPS and NUPE call for a national minimum wage, it is only NUPE that also calls for opposition to any form of wage restraint, and only GMBATU which calls specifically for the TUC to pay attention to actually organising the low paid women YOU CLASS FIGHTER technic Students Union.

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_Socialist INDI alist INDUSTRIAI Organiser SPE SPEC «We're out solid: it's up to the rest to follow"

ers invaded the NCB area offices in Cardiff Haydn Evans, vice-chair of Penrhiweeibr Lodge in the Cynon Valley, told us:

"We have sent delegations to Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire. In Barnsley, it has been agreed that they will be allowed to address the leadership there before they take a decision about supporting us. If we had wanted, we could have sent coachloads of pickets to the pits direct, but it was decided to approach the area leaderships first.

"We're out solid and it's up to the rest to follow. We're not just fighting for the mining industry, but for others, like steel, as well.

"We had a phone call from Kinneil. in Scotland on Saturday, and they are pledging their full support. That area has had problems, so has Kent, but that should not prevent them supporting.

"Arthur Scarg ,ill is right when he says it er suld spread like wildfire.

"I was a deleg yate to the union's conferenc ¡e in 1979 when we unanimo susly adopted a policy for r rational industrial action in support of Haydn Evans: "Everybody here jobs. The National Executive has now no alternative but to support us.

"People who question the ballot figure being only slightly above the 55% needed, should remember that in 1972 the national percentage was not much more than the amount required, and it was similar in 1974. Besides, a lot of people weren't able to "m fans is ready to stay out for good" vote, as they were already on strike and did not know about the ballot.

"How long it goes on depends on our success this week in other areas.lt might be short and sweet, but everybody here is ready to stay out for good. They know that Lewis Merthyr is only the first of 16 pits for closure in South Wales.

"We've already had pledand of arenant form the Gal ges ul support from ine seaman's Union and the Triple Alliance, and the Triple Alliance is still in being.

"We are organised into strike committees, covering groups of the pits on strike. Our pit is linked with Tower and Abercynon, plus the mechanics and Phurnacite. The last place, which makes smokeless fuel, is still working at the moment, but on Wednesday they will have a mass meeting, and the strike committee will be recommending they come out."

Trevor Bell, who has opposed our action, represents white collar staff who in the main do not know what it is like to work underground. What these people should realise is that we're on strike for their jobs too. SHORTLY after 7 all Monday, over 300 miner vaded the National C board's South Wales t offices in Cardiff. rapidly took over the bi ing, and demanded on 's inloalArea hey uild-

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