Dockers to Strike Tebbit

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All the TUC wants to do SUpIN Mans Sp troops, martyrs, and neroes on Union Day' is to have outside Pentonville Jail when It was the jailing of five mass leafletting against Teb- the five dockers were jailed dockers for refusing to obey bit's Bill. This is grotesquely do nbn d dá z - SOMEWHERE, somehow, and by somebody, a beginning must be made in the fightback against Tebbit's Bill. That's what bitter, angry, frustrated militants all across industry have been saying during these last months.

The TUC has stood by feebly twittering while Tebbit's new blade is fitted into the existing anti-union guillotine.

Now the dockers have said: we'll start it. There is to be a one-day national docks strike on June 10th, the TUC's 'Union Day'.

The June 10 dockers' strike is connected with their fight to defend the National Dock Labour Scheme. They chose to strike on the TUC's day for protest against Tebbit because they recognise that Tory anti-union laws aim to abolish their legal right to strike for such a political goal as ports reorganisation, and thus to cripple their ability to defend themselves.

The dockers know that it was industrial action that stopped Heath in his anti-union drive and made it impossible for the then Tory government to operate their Industrial Relations Act as it had been designed to operaate. They spearheaded that antinn inuiding ite chorkVAnITe dIT Simntanta CnraD the anti-union laws that roused the labour movement to act to get them out of jail and to serve notice on Heath that the labour movement would not obey anti-union laws, whatever Parliament said.

The dockers know that it was unofficial industrial action that stopped Harold Wilson's government from proceeding with its planned anti-union legislation. - In Place of Strife - in 1969.

They know that a one day strike on June 10 is not enough - but it will be a beginning. inadequate and mappropriate. A better name for what they propose would be: 'Day of the timid bureaucrat'.

Their Union Day' though we must support it and build on it - is not ours because their trade unionism isn't ours.

Theirs is the unionism that does not lift a hand in self-defence as the rights and protections gained by generations of workers in over 100 years are stripped away. The unionism of the dockers and other militants is that which inspired tens of thousands of trade unionists into successful and vocal.

35 workers from the, Salford Health Authority travelled to London, setting off at 5.15am. When we got there, NUPE assistant secretary Ron Keating came out to assure us that our views would be taken into account, but that we could not speak to the meeting.

We were refused entry to the TUC building by employees who behaved like bouncers. We sent up a letter but no answer was given. Some of us slipped ir FenDITIC I A unofficial strike immediately WULL AVINAY they heard the news of the arrests in July 1972.

The dockers' decision is proof that this unionism is not dead.

Militant trade unionists should treat the dockers' decision as a marker for industrial action against Tebbit - a landmark that will allow the movement to regain its industrial and political bearings: We must build - which can follow the dockers' lead and strike on June 10, often linking their own particular issues to Tebbit's anti-union drive.

Strikes by even a few militant plants as well as the dockers on June 10 could mark the turn of the tide against Tebbit - and against Thatcher.

Many thousands" of militants are seething with anger at the inactivity of the THIRD READING of Tebbit Bill - Monday May 17.

Protest rally 12 noon to 2pm at Clerkenwell Green, London. Organised Branches Liaison Cttee.

ient out the message that iome workers are prepared • strike. Militants and iocialists should start an mmmediate campaign to m nake this known in the lab›ur movement and to get ›ther plants, factories, and lospitais to follow the dockirs' lead.

The mavement in 10k0 hat stopped Wilson built up lowly after a period of lepression in the labour novement. The decisive urning point was a one-day toppage on May. Day by ome hundreds of thousands if workers across industry.

The dockers' decision neans that now we have the ore of such a movement, o turn the tide.

We must now organise to ›uild a big strike movement

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on the pretext of going to the toilet, but 'guards' were JOHN HARRIS FIGH