STUC dampens Lee Jeans march

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STAN CROOKE and report •THERE comes a point where you have to ask vourself it you can win.

The sit-in is otticial and we will continue to back the Lee Jeans workers, but we have advised them that they probably haven't got the necessary muscle to win"

With friends like John Howard, West of Scotland officer of the Tailor and Garment Workers' Union, the Lee Jeans workers hardly need enemies.

The march across Scotland by a contingent of the Lee Jeans strikers seemed the ideal chance to raise the 'muscle' they need to win - and to use their combativity to rally other workers to stand up and fight for their own jobs.

But all the signs are that the Scottish TUC, which organised the 67mile protest, put the damper on it. Instead of a triumphal progress greeted with walk-outs, demonstrations and solidarity along the way, such as the People's March had been the month before, the STUC made sure it wasa non-event irom start to finish.

The march began on Saturday 27th June, led eff by 20 women from the acupied factory. Behind them was a band, a few trade unionists - and over 400 members of the Scottish National Party.

Fiasco

Jimmy Milne, General Secretary of the STUC, mad the gall to denounce he SNP for "political ipportunism of the worst sart" and for trying to take over the march. To *rich SNP leader Jim Sillars easily replied, "If he SNP contingent is sigger than the STUC's, I suggest Mr Milne turns -is anger in another ¿irection' The second day was an even worse fiasco. Paisley and District Trades Council had been given just four days' notice of the march, and less than fifty people set off from the desolate Talbot Linwood factory and marched through a deserted Paisley town centre, followed by not a single trade union or Labour Party banner.

The rally at the end of the 2½-mile march was held in the corner of a park. Jimmy Milne addressed the "trade unionists and girls" , and deplored the small turnout. He had a lot to say about "forcing the government to alter its policies", but nothing about how to help the Lee Jeans workers win the fight for jobs.

Monday, the day the march arrived in Glasgow, was also the day of a rally celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders work-in.

It was a temptation no STUC bureaucrat could resist: to combine a rally about the UCS sell-out (the deal which finished the sit-in involved job losses, no strike agreements, flexibility deals, penalty clauses etc.) with the Lee Jeans fight which the STUC would give their back teeth to be rid oI. around half past ten in the morning. They were greeted by a delegation trom the Fire Brigades Union, people who had come out from Edinburgh, and the Westerhailes Unemployed Workers' Centre.

Throughout the week before, a lot of work Workers Association get workers from factories the demonstration was to pass to come out and greet the women.

Bus drivers left their depots, and workers waved and cheered from office buildings and shops. At the Ferranti electronics works the workers joined the marchers for their dinner break.

ismilin....

CHEMICALS TEAl taken place? Why are PNMRs higher for working class women?

The answer to this problem is not to dump hospital births, though more home births can probably be justified, but to put more resources into providing the sort of environment that the mother wants and needs rather than what the medical profession thinks she needs.

by passive euthanasia, active euthanasia, and finally 'the political climate that led to Auschwitz, Dachau and Belsen' By 1987, he prophesies, no child will be declared alive until three days after its birth, so that the parents can decide if they want it or not!

Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights is Ernest W Lefever who believes that human rights should not be a factor in dealings with other nations. He has also been quietly circulating propaganda material for baby food manufacturers seeking to avoid sales curbs in the third world.

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Ann M Gorsch, is known for opposing federal or even state supervision of toxic waste disposal.

Chief Negotiator for the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency is Gen. Edward L. Rowny (Retd.] who denounced the SALT talks with the USSR.

There is also an opponent of occupational safety and health regulations heading the agency that runs it; a leading supporter of timbering on public lands looking after these lands; and a lawyer who previously represented foreign nuclear industries looking after nuclear non-proliferation affairs.

This is all rather like appointing a pack of wolves to look after the health of a flock of sheep.

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had been done by the Edinburgh Unemployed