Press barons demand jail SOLDARITY IN THE

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ROYAL CROU ДОСК Organise for In 1972 mass strike action forced the Heath government to release the ailed docke Now, with Prior's law already on the statute book, a follow-up. Bill from Norman Tebbit due to become law soon, and a third Bill in the offing, the newspaper proprietors have decided to have another go.

Their High Court injunction scared the wits out of the TUC leaders. Albert Spanswick, chair of the TUC Health Services Committee, and General Secretary of COHSE, at once called on Fleet Street union leaders to call off their strike (with Spanswick around, who needs Tebbit?).

Under this pressure both NGA and SOGAT 82 climbed down from their strike decision. Only Gerahty and the 1,000strong EETPU membership stood firm, rejecting the High Court's dictate and paralysing newspaper production on Tuesday night.

The action has thus been the most effective solidarity action yet seen in support of the NHS struggle - underlining for all to see the connection between the fight on pay and the battle against anti-union legislation.

After months of feeble TUC protests and empty speeches against the Tebbit Bill, the Fleet Street strikers have at last given a real focus for the struggle - and thrown down a major challenge to the Tories.

If Gerahty is not jailed on Friday, then the whole credibility of the Prior and Tebbit laws is thrown into question: a huge blow will have been struck for trade unionism.

Yet if he is jailed, there is every prospect of reverberating action throughout Fleet Street and other sections of the working class, with the potential once again of a developing general strike against this anti-union government.

We demand TUC action: but we must not wait for them before we begin to organise.

Our task now must be to prepare in every workplace, union branch and Labour Party for a struggle to spread strike action if Gerahty is jailed. Co-ordinating committees should immediately be established between groups of strikers, and steps taken to organise flying pickets and local councils of action drawing together delegates from all working class trade union and political organisations to strengthen and extend the struggle into one with the scope and momentum to defeat the Tory government. • In doing so, we will need to confront the opposition of the TUC leadership who - fresh from their betrayal of ASLEF - have no intention of confronting the Tory government. And there must be a fight within the Labour Party against those advocates of "Parliamentary democracy" who will - as they did in 1972 -oppose mass action to free a jailed trade unionist.

To answer the Tories' attacks we need a leadership which will rest upon the strength of the working class and carry through the fight to replace Thatcher not with a miserable repetition of the Wilson-Callaghan governments but with a genuine workers' government. WANTED SHOP STEWARDS COMMITTEE

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Teoropis One Moral Socialist Organiser no.95 August