Sounding the

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Alan Thornett, TGWU deputy senior steward at BL Cowley, called on the conference to Alan Thornett: There must be a fight before the Tebbit Bill workshop discusses the fight against Tebbit mobilise against Tebbit We must start, as from today, to ring some very loud warning bells about what is going on in the workers' movement, laced with the legislation which the Tories are now rapidly putting through Parliament to hamstring the trade Already, the Second Reading has gone through Parliament, and we are wall d lew weeks or farty wants of tha Third Reading.

It will then go to the House of lords and hv June the Tebbit Bill will LENILE become law. And nothing whatsoever is being done in the Labour and trade union movement to stop it.

In 1969 or 1971 there were previous similar packages of legislation. By this stage, massive movements were mobilised in the trade unions against it. In 1971 we were lobbying Parliament with TUC support, on the First Reading of the Bill.

Now we are almost to the legislation stage of the Bill and absolutely nothing is being done.

So why is that? Is it that suddenly everybody has gone to sleep? This is something which affects everybody, right through the Taham. 11. - muvement, even the left.

number of things affert this lesbonse We VY C are not at the end of the 1960s, which was a period of rising militancy. We are at the beginning • of the 1980s, and the working class faces a massive offensive from the Tory government with a huge economic crisis and three million unemployed.

That is one side of it, but I think there is a more important reason why we find ourselves in this crisis - the way the Tories have operated, and the. way the trade union leaders have operated.

How did the Tories operate with the Prior Bill? They were careful not to challenge major sections of the working class on secondary strikes and secondary picketing.

So now it is argued that 'Oh well, we have the 1980 legislation and there's not been any really serious situation for the working class under that legislation. so it is lulling people into a feeling that maybe this package is going to be similar.

Prior Law Maybe it won't be so after all.

Last November we stood on the gates of our factory with 2,000 pickets, blocking the gates, the road, everything and there was no challenge from the police at all. This has been quite deliberate in a number of strikes where there have been powerful pickets.

In other actions the law has been used, and the pickets have been restricted to six. The trade union leaders have said, We don't want to contront the law. Call off the strike or accept the picketing limitation'.

And so there hasn't been a confrontation on the Prior Act and that is quite fundamental to the situation we find ourselves in today.

One serious fight against Prior would have completely transtormed the situation we now face against Tebbit Prior and Tebbit are actually going to be brought in together. They dovetail a stage one and stage two. And if stage two isn't fought we'll be in a worse position when it comes to stage three.

So what does the Tebbit Bill involve?

The reason for the