Stop the talks-'l thought it was a with Tories! lioke, and lauahed joke, and laughed

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rightly been paid to the police's violent arrest of Ron Brown (Labour MP for Leith) at the demonstration in Glasgow (September 1) outside the Scottish TUC's meeting with Thatcher. But what were the STUC General Council members doing at the Why were the leaders of the Scottish trade union movement meeting the CBI and the head of the Tory government in the plush surroundings of Glasgow's 'Holiday Inn'?

Do they believe that an appeal to 'Reason' will make the capitalists see the merits of a socialist system of production? Or is the STUC General Council just a shower of spineless bureaucrats who haven't got the stomach for head-on confrontation with the Tories?

What happened at the STUC-CBI-Thatcher gettogether was entirely predictable. The STUC produced all sorts of figures showing the disastrous levels of unemployment in Scotland (as if it were news). Thatcher replied by saying that nothing could be done about such unemployment, that there was no money to pay the NHS workers, and that this was all very unfortunate but necessary if the British (capitalist) economy was to become competitive again. End of The STUC should have boycotted the meeting, just as they should be withdrawing from all the bi-partite bodies in which STUC bureaucrats collaborate with CBI and government representatives. May Brown's comment. after her husband's arrest indicated a much better Stan Crooke reports on Thatcher's visit to Scotland - and the STUC's meeting with her line for the STUC to pursue: I would like to get my hands around her throat.' But to expect a fighting lead from the STUC is like expecting pigs to fly. Many of the union bureaucrats, including the STUC deputy general secretary John Henry, came to the meeting fresh from a 'fraternal' visit to the Soviet 'TUC' In the course of the delegation, Henry praised the 'major part' played by the Soviet 'trade unions' (which are not trade unions at all, but effectively prisons for the workers trapped in them) in decision-making and economic planning and control in the Soviet Union.

EXCUSE ME.

WHICH WAY 1O THE delegation spoke of the 'atmosphere of confidence so obvious in Soviet factories' which reminded him of similar feelings in some Scottish factories (Clydebridge? Parkhead? Linwood? Carron? ...?) and leading Glasgow Labour Party member Agnes Maclean spoke of the 'great part played by Soviet women in the factories and public life!

The STUC bureaucrats are therefore at least consistent. Just as they are ready to talk to the Kremlin bureaucrats whose Polish puppets have workers gunned down on the streets, so too they are equally prepared to talk to the head of a government which is massacring jobs in Scotland, and Britain as a whole.

Collaboration with the Stalinist bureaucracy on the one hand, and cap-inhand pleading with the Tories on the other -these two aspects constitute the essence of the STUC General Council's politics. 16-year old Ian Bush Socialist Organiser:

'I CAME back from Cornwall on the Monday. On the Wednesday I was told by the UB office to pick up my Giro from the old school building.

I signed in and they told me to go to a different building 'out of that door' I was new to Oxford, so I didn't know where I was, but a couple of guys posing as workmen said to go on out of the door, where they are handing out Giros.

As soon as I walked out, two policemen onto me and said 'You're under arrest'. They took me into the building and talked about charging me with fraud and deception. I thought it was a joke -and laughed.

But then they took my photograph, made me empty my pockets, took my shoelaces, earring, pendant and my watch.

I was number 35. They stuck me in this room. Fifteen minutes later there were 60 people there, with no ventilation. I asked to go to the toilet - they said 'We'll see what we can do' - and made me wait 2 hours.

I was in the room about 6 hours before I was taken to another room and then in to the CID. The CID bloke offered me a fag and told me to co-operate. He threatened me with violence. Then he realised I was a juvenile.

They asked my parents' name, address and phone number, and then rang them up, despite my objections.

After another 15 minutes or so they took me back downstairs and said they weren't pressing charges, they had nothing on me. I said I could have told them that in the morning.

I eventually read my rights listed on a notice on the wall while my stuff was being given back to me. I was denied a solicitor a social worker.

I came down to Oxford because Derby careers centre told me there's no job possible u stil the end of September b cause I packed in a govi mment scheme. there's more down here.

But now penniless hungry.' seemed like jobs going I'm homeless, and bloody

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UNEMPLOYMENT YOURE LINE? IN IT.