ali emanating Westminster as Labour's election defeat.
these year industry country could hope to meet presented • by August.
The Tory hatched by Africa they could take on of in opposition. SHOULD you hear a chuckle from the Palace of the steel strike enters its fourth week, there is a good chance that its perpetrator is James Callaghan, architect of The requirement for the British Steel Corporation to break even this - a demand which the steel West. European wei was government. From that stems the 2 Callaghan's per cent pay offer to the steelworkers and the 52,000 redundancies required government was willing recipient of the plans for steel the Department of Eric Varley, and the steel unions were among those the Tories considered and beat listed in the schedule drawn up by Nicholas Ridley when the Tories were Last week the EEC's social affairs commissioner pointed out that the government hadn't bothered to apply for relief funds to help cushion the suggests that were eager for The militancy of the steetworkers has no doubt begun to change their The last thing that Thatcher wants is for the pay strike to spill over into a struggle against the with the kind of action that the AIR OT miners and railwayworkers in South steel If the TUC can hold back that as it is seeking to do, Tories are likely to look for some way steel corporation's and hope that the Blastfurnacemen can sell their members a James But as the days go by and the steel blockade bites deeper into the economv.
becomes increasingly A victory for the steelworkers on pay could dent the Tories' strategy, but not shatter it. With cash limits at hear of their plan to pin the earnings and jobs in the nationalised industries and the public remain the Tories' 'weak" category, not least those at BL, where t openly talk of it leading to generalisthe unions are presently balloting on a pay offer Margaret Thatcher is determined to win her spurs as the leader of the most right-wing British government this side of World War Two.
'non-intervention'
strike was accompanied week by a slight intervention in the gas prices will be pensedrop islation with the proposal that Dius 10 per cent a formula which workers would do well to apply to wage claims.
Still on the stocks, of course, Prior's which aims to outlaw closed shops and effective picketing. The rumour is that the proposals will include giving employers a free hand to sack strikers. The steelworkers are showing how effective pickets can be mounted - in spite of their union leadership - and we may yet see a concerted effort by the police to confront that The steel strike does have the potential to setback the Tory government to tae point of its departure. Rank and file leaders in the strike Led strike action. That clearly needs to be the objective of our arguments and actions. action being called by the official leadership of the labour movement The parallel the piecemeal way in which the the government nopes lo working class.
The steelworkers and the South Wales have opened the way to a shove that the government will not be able to resist.
Bill, latest The disparate days of of Trade carve up the and railwayworkers industry, UNS action Saturday 26 January, 10.30am, Friends Meeting House Euston Road, London Credentials from Jim Hiles, 137 Wanstead Park Road, Illord, Essex.
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Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions