Hunterston pickets fined

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CAPITALIST class "justice" lashed out with a vengeance last week at Abraham Courtney and John Breen, members of the Amalgamated Society of Boilermakers (ASOB) and the GMWU respectively.

Abie and John were the last two trade unionists to be put on trial for the "crime" of picketing the Hunterston oil rig yard in September 1980. The other 46 charged after the mass arrest of pickets on September 10, 1980, had already been tried and fined £50 each, after losing their appeal to the High Court in Edinburgh.

Abie Courtney pointed out: we're being criminalised for carrying out picketing activity, for defending our jobs and livelihoods. We've both been unemployed since the dispute, and that shows we were correct to fight for the right to work by picketing, since we've not had any work since then."

A fine of £100 each was imposed on John and Abie. This is double the fine imposed on all the others who had been tried. And John and Abie were ordered to pay it off at £5 a weekagain double the rate for others unemployed.

In the months leading up to the trial the "Campaign in Defence of the Right to Picket" set up by local Labour Party members and trade unionists, had worked to build support for Abie and to publicise the political nature of the trial.

It was backed by a considerable number of union and Labour Party branches by the time of the trial, but nowhere near enough.

And the picket of Abie's and John's trial called by the CDRP was poorly attended despite a contingent from the Glenburn yard (Scott Lithgow). Although all left wing groups in Glasgow had been contacted, there was no response from them on the The vindictive. fines imposed on John and Abie underlines the need for the CDRP to continue with its work of explaining the politics of the trial, and right now, raising money to pay off John and Abie's fines.

Send donations to CDRP, c/o Courtney, 72 Tallant Road, Drumchapel, Glasgow.

• Cheques payable to Campaign in Defence of the Right to Picket.