Glasgow buses Questions

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THE BBC is to seek a permanent injunction against the National Union of Journalists under the government's anti-union laws. The purpose of the injunction is to try and prevent the NUJ from carrying out its boycott of the broadcaster David Dimbleby as part of its dispute with the Dimbleby newspaper group.

Months ago the NUJ journalists employed by Dimbleby went on strike with the backing of their union executive. A month ago the NUJ executive backed down by complying with a House of Lords ruling that their members' action constituted secondary strike action, and was therefore illegal.

However, on March 30, after sustained pressure from the eight journalists and from support they had received, the executive made the strike official again.

Second national meeting for Labour Party workplace branches. "WORKPLACE BRANCHES AND THE UNIONS"

Saturday May 12, Camden Town Hall, Euston Road, London.

Open to Labour Party mem bers in workplace branches c who want to find out more about setting them up. Details from Nik Barstow, 165 Liverpool Rd, London N1, or Geoff Dixon, 1 Pelham Court, 44 Hatherley Road, Sidcup, Kent. who only wait to go to Tynemouth and shout boo at delegates going in.

To meet the attacks made on you, you must be strong and you must be united. So there is no time to waste.

THE Carousel dispute for union recognition and reinstatement, is now entering its ninth month, with the local TGWU bureaucracy continuing its waiting game of hoping that the strikers will become demoralised and jack in the strike.

The TGWU attempted to get the strike called off in the New Year. But the strikers refused to be brow-beaten into surrender. On paper the TGWU continues to officially support the strike but in practice it is doing nothing to help.

In fact, the strikers will again be appearing before the Scottish Finance and General Purposes Committee of the IGWU this month, where the union's "support" for the dispute will again be "reviewed"

The strikers appeared before the same committee in late January for the same purpose. Since the strikers are still receiving recognition for the dispute. But the strikers themselves are still awaiting official confirmation of this.

Donations and messages of support to, and more information from: Carol Rodger, 47 Cuthelton Terrace, Parkhead, Glasgow. trolled Strathclyde Regional Council to press ahead with plans for the closure of three bus garages in Glasgow, Ibrox, Maryhill, and Langside.

The Labour group on the council is a virtual autocracy, with Group leader Dick Stewart at its pinnacle. Dissent in the ranks, not that there is much of it anyway, is ruthlessly stamped on.

In recent years, the bus fleet has already been cut from 1200 to 800. Well over 1000 jobs have been axed, and fares have been raised once, if not twice, a year.

The council has already once been forced to drop its plans for closing the three garages. But at the close of last year, the Labour group leadership revived the plans without any warning.

Three strikes have been staged against the proposals in little over a month. The first was a two hour strike, to lobby a meeting of the Labour group. The two subsequent strikes were 24 hour stoppages. In each case. underground staff struck in support of the busworkers.

Shop stewards from Glasgow's nine bus garages hard also agreed to a policy of non-cooperation WORKERS at Weirs Engineering in Cathcart, Glasgow, have emerged from their four week strike deeply disappointed with the role of Jim Airlie, a Communist Party member elected to the National Executive of the AUEW last year in a left wing upsurge.

The workers, engaged in a dispute for a £15 a week increase, had been locked out by management. They remained united and determined throughout, mounting a mass picket only two days before the strike ended.

Airlie, whose support for the struggle was lukewarm throughout, pressed the strike committee to give up the struggle, brandishing the threat of Weirs management to sack the entire workforce if there was no return to work on their terms. The strike committee voted seven-six to recommend a return to work.

Engineering workers throughout the Clydeside are not fooled by Airlie's talk of a 'tactical withdrawal, and are questioning the role of the man many saw as the standard-bearer of the Left in the

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Stop all coal!

MINERSI JÖHN HARRIS (IFL)

Miners outside the Nottingham area delegate meeting in Mansfield last week STRIKE

Your

Union Needs YOU SOCIALIST Organiser goes to. SOCIALIST Organiser goes to. press the day before the MARA than Ans= hafann National Union of Mineworkers' executive meets on April 12.

If that executive meeting decides to call a national ballot of miners on strike action, that will not be the end of the struggle by any means. So long as the striking areas stay out, step up their picketing, and make clear that they will continue to do so lon the authority of their area decisions) "whatever the national ballot result, it is not impossible to win the 55% majority for action required by NUM rules.

But the militants in the NUM are right to oppose a ballot.

*The NUM right wing's campaign for a ballot is a trick. National ballots are for deciding on national strike calls.

The right wing are not seeking a mandate for a national strike. They are seeking a mandate against the existing area strikes.

*The pithead secret ballot is not the ideal democratic system, even apart from the obviously unfair 55% rule. The great majority of miners have voted with their feet by coming out on strike.

*Miners in relatively prosperous areas do not have a right to veto the fight of those whose jobs are more immediately under threat.

Solidarity

The principle of class solidarity says that Yorkshire, South Wales, and Kent miners have a right to expect other miners to unite with their struggle: - and that principle stands higher than any formalities.

At the very best a national ballot will mean a loss of momentum for the struggle.

Ballot or no ballot, victory will depend on stepping up the pcikets, especially at power stations, and spreading solidarity action.

Victory or defeat for the miners will have huge implications for the whole working class - both directly, in terms of the Tories' rundown of all heavy industry being beaten back or racing ahead, and in terms of the

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strike pay, the committee must have agreed to continue union