cluding a substantial minority at Luton, amused by the results of their short-lived strike.
leaderships involved obligingly ran a mile to pick up and deliver the new offer.
The original claim for £25 across the board, plus shorter hours. longer anc workers conveniently ment additional 0.05 UCL the WOrKerS looked strong set for give in at to lay the But abdication like Duffy their downine factors innumber of workers declined the last four through 457,500 in 1979 to this period decline has place, this time in Photo: JOHN HARRIS National and Local Government Officers support with 2000 people attending.
at Ellesmere Port's works canteen last week were offered a pudding called 'Luton crumble'. But many of the workers, inweren't The company moved but an inch and the union 1979, were osI through comeven cent strike.
Wing profits, industry suffered decline WaLes. tivity resulting reductions staffing losses. cap. off, Tories were SURINCI break the the prevent mosphere confidence among car workers. i ne was the workers cull ally.
their years. But Muhammad Idrish on a demonstration in Birmingham protesting threatened deportation. The demonstration, backed by. Muhammad's union the tone set bv the election and the gallop to the right of the TUC, combined with the steady erosion of union organisation and militancy, meant that the majority of Vauxhall workers were ready to seltle for the Ged.
For. al these reasons the fact and the outcome not be taken an dicator of likelv developments the coming. autumn wages round Already Ford workers nave put in for a l› per cent flat rate increase while at British Leyland they due only cent the second half of acal seems more and more liketle for 5-6 per cent, the NCB having made what they declare to be a 'first and final offer which practice means about 3,8 Colt average earnings.
Fight For the rest of the public sector, it's possible that the fire fighters will be the first to break through ¡nalcner s o per cent casn limit on pay.
loday tnere are more issues facing solely size of their wage packet. Privatisation, cuts, shorttime working, redundantion just some that spring to mind.
against his Association, achieved magnificent A fight around pay can no longer be successful in the long term unless combined with a fight to defend services, jobs and the unions. This also involves offensive, to contront head on the wide. ly accepted Tory fallacies workers cept with open arms the the 'free market' economy.
The necessity of a joint trade union-Labour Party campaign for a plan which fights the Tories and puts the cost of the crisis onto Tne employers state should be the aim of and the Labour Party.
Within such a frame work, fights like Vauxhal can be given a focus. The HUTS step towards realising such allu Labour Party action must be taken by the left wing of the movement organising around such a plan.
Next year's TUC Congresses must see the left on the offensive around such policies instead of reucating verore tne union leaders who engineered the Marylebone workers picket Thatcher last May N District from the Federation for all Asian workers on a mass picket of the GM Plastics factory in Redditch near Birmingham. The mass picket was called to protest against the sackings of nine workers whose only crime was to join a trade union — the National Society of Motor Mechanics. Donations and messages of support to J. Langford, Sandwell Secretary NSMM, 70 Lionel Street, Birmingham B3 IJG.
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that it is all for the com- righten heir belts and ars
о В ВУ ANCIES HEN.