Lock-out in Stoke!

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Jeremy 6000 workers at Michelin, Stoke, were locked out on July 11. But instead of getting together in a mass picket, the workers were directed by their leaders to the local Labour Exchange to sign on.

The Light Production Department whose plan to strike from July 11 rather than accept fourshift working triggered the general lockout is not officially on strike.

TGWU officials advised that management had preempted the strike with their general lockout. The workers should therefore. sign on at the dole. No picketing was to take place as they might be decreed to be on strike and have the dole denied them.

The problem with this strategy is that staff are going in to do administrative work and goods are still going out of the warehouse. The union reckons it will take two to three weeks for the warehouse to empty.

Instead of deciding to stop goods going out of the warehouse now they have opted for a waiting game.

They say that workers can best wait out the bosses if they are all on benefit and have public sympathy because locked out rather than on strike.

This is extremely short-sighted. Two or three weeks is a long time. Passivity can breed demoralisation. There is a danger that the militant Light Production Department will become isolated.

It will, if the bosses have their way. On Tuesday management asked workers in the rethread and cycle department to go back to work on Wednesday. They have sent out letters asking each worker in the Light Production Department to come back to work - under the four-shift system. JOHN HARRIS On Tuesday the stewards indorsed the unions' 'get the lole' strategy. Convenor Gordon Iowle said they want to talk to he company and appeal to ICAS (the government arbi- NE ration service). He denounced me he letters sent to workers in the NE ight Production Department as tee a provocation'. are A better strategy than the one hui n question would be to massicket the warehouse.now. That finı vould stop goods leaving and tan elp prevent erosion of support ex} nd division of the workers. loc: top press of I mass meeting on Wednesday reo lecided overwhelmingly to ontinue to refuse to accept an nanagement's terms. • mo from Jeff Slee, £30; Gordon Bre rtin Holland, £2, and Christine 50; and £11 from Coventry suppor s. And now — what about the re nonth, and we'll see which grou : 214, Sickert Court, London N1 25 Received Harrogate Midlands Dirmuigıaıı Disminnham Coventry Leicester Northampto Nottingham South and U Oxford Basingstoke Cardiff London North-West Hackney Haringey Hounslow Islington S.E.London East London Lambeth/Southwark Others pelling reasons.

First, Heffer supports the basic principles of socialism as embodied in the party constitution - including the extension of public ownership, so critical to the central conception of the Alternative Economic Strategy.

Second, Heffer has consistently supported the integrity as Party conference decisions on policy - such as those supporting unilateral nuclear disarmament, withdrawal from the Common Market, and the alternative economic strategy. He opposes the watering down of policy commitments to curry favour with the right wing of the PLP.

Third, Heffer makes it clear in his candidate's statement that he supports the policies argued for by progressives within the party on such issues as women's rights and racism.

Fourth, Heffer has taken a very principled stand on Eastern Europe: he has actively supported both Solidarity in Poland and Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia, and has been the driving force on the NEC on these issues.

Fifth, Heffer has supported thè democratic changes within the party and believes in the continued democratisation of the party to make Labour's public representatives accountable to the movement as a whole. His candidature is supported by the Executive Committee of CLPD.

Sixth, Heffer has consistently Heffer, it' simportant that Labour Party members choosing who to support as leader are not misled into believing that Neil Kinnock is a left-winger. He is not.

He represents the long tradition of fudge and mudge in the party leadership. He has gone on record as advocating that the party should promise anything to the electorate in order to get elected - presumably even if those policies conflicted with basic socialist ideals.

He has consistently favoured the expulsion of socialists from the Labour Party because of their political views, and has voted accordingly on the NEC.

He has been responsible, through his votes on the NEC, for defeating key proposals to democratise the party - such as giving the NEC final control over the contents of the Party manitesto.

He has expressed a strong desire for the abandonment of specific policy pledges and has advocated the maximum freedom possible for the leadership when in government: instead, he went to the unprecedented lengths of threatening to resign as Shadow Education Secretary if the party supported policies to restore Tory cuts in school meals and milk.

Kinnock is the intelligent right wingers' candidate because they know that he can be trusted to roll back the gains made by the left in the party over the last ten years.