IN Nagasaki, the 36th anniversary of the dropping of the second atomic bomb was inter. rupted by an announcement US Defence Weinberger. On 8 August he disclosed that the USA is to go IntO TUl production of neutron bomb.
Douglas Hurd, Tory defence spokeperson, embarrassed by the lack of consultation said, on earth'.
nouice. WHEN Ronald Reagan became President he claimed that the United States was the 'last and greatest bastion of freedom'. In his inaugural address he said, 'Freedom and the dignity of the individual have been more available and more assured here than in any other place It goes hand in hand with stepped up efforts to support the torturers regime of Duarte in El Salvador; with attempts to re-introduce military conscrip. tion in the US; and with plans for a Rapid Deployment Force of 250,000 to be used'anywhere in the globe at a moment's It is the sian of a westerr war machine beset by growing social revolt in Well, there was little freedom and less dignity US air trattic con trollers this week as the!
sacked, fined and Ronald Reagan for daring to go on strike.
Shock The pictures of those strikers being led away it chains has, with the flash of a camera, exposed what life can really be like to trade unionists in 'the land of the free'.
But those pictures have done something else. The!
labour movement throughout the word. now, Taos many dif ferent countries are star ting to act.
In Canada, air traffic controllers have taken action in sympathy. In Portugal, air controllers have decided to ban flights to the USA. The same deci So as occu Australian controllers made by But would hit Reagan hardest would b solidarity action this country. For more air trai States from London than the United British labour movement should act immediately to support their sisters and brothers in the US. Solidarity Such solidarity needs to be organised. That job should fall on the TUC Trade union and Labour Party branches should be flooding Congress House demanding concrete sup port for the US controllers the boycott of all air traffic to and from the USA If for no other reason than, if Reagan gets away with jailing strikers in the US his buddy Margaret Thatche just be tempted to try the same here.