["WE'RE still here, and we're still fighting". That…]

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"WE'RE still here, and we're still fighting". That was the message from the mass picket of Laurence Scotts workers last Friday, 8th.

Despite blizzard conditions, about 180 turned up to show Scotts boss Snipe and the AUEW executive that it wasn't just 'left wing agitators' keeping the dispute going.

"The best thing about the picket was that it boostan hour's notice, and he is also involved in a costly court case. And £2 million worth of orders are still shut up inside the Louisa St plant.

A meeting has been arranged at Snipe's request between AUEW district secretary John Tocher and the Engineering Employers' Federation. This is mainly to discuss payment of, pensions and any other outstanding that he would fight for jobs anywhere in the country. But he's given no lead in our case. [Snipe makes machinery for the mines. He even sent out a letter round the Yorkshire NUM lodges telling them that they were going too far on their blacking"

As for their own leadership - the AUEW Executive - the Scotts strikers have decided to use Rule 14 to try to force a ballot of the membership to remove the current Exec. They need the support of 10 per cent of the branches to get this through, and are asking all AUEW branches to pass the following resolution:

"This branch believes MANAGEMENT at St Mary's H spital, L ndon W9. are continuing their campaign to demoralise the worktorce.

Lasi week two workers were sacked on the spot. — the night telephonist and a theatre operator:

The telephonist had finished his shift but had not been relieved. He waited 40 minules for his replacement: • who he knew was in the building: betore he lett to go home.

ry s He had worked at St Mary's for 18 years, yet was charged with gross industrial misconduct and sacked immediately.

The theatre operator had an irregularity with his sick note which certainly was not serious enough for instant sacking.

St Mary's. bosses are using any trick they can think of to pick off workers at the hospital and press on with their plans to close the whole place down. [Dinnington NUM] AS WE go to press, voting for the NUM pay claim is only a few days away.

In Yorkshire area officials have organised meeting on the pay claim and the ballot -and the mood has definitely shifted in a more militant direction over the past few weeks.

If Yorkshire is typical, which is hard to judge, then there'll be a decisive majority for rejection of the Board offer.

At the South Yorkshire region meeting in Silverwood Club, near Rotherham, Arthur Scargill made the point a number of time that he saw rejection of the NCB offer not as a vote to strike but as a vote of confidence in the NEC for them to use in future negotiations to get more cash on the table.

Nerve

But a Socialist Organiser leaflet issued jointly with the Hatfield Main miners' broadsheet 'Hot Gossip' and distributed at the meeting and at pits and other meetings throughout the coalfield, said, 'This is no time to lose our nerve. If we stick fast behind the NEC recommendation, we can secure a massive yes vote, and we can win this claim' SELL OUT