Significance of BL's Cowley witch-hunt

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JACK Cleary (in SO149) seriously distorts my article on the recent Cowley sackings. He does so to such an extent that I can only conclude that he does so in order to more easily polemicise against me.

He claims that I predicted "a purge in every industry and every area of society" as a result of the sackings. And he claims that I see the sackings as a part of a campaign to "smash the labour movement"

Exaggerating your opponents' arguments until they are incredible is a very destructive way of conducting a polemic.

In fact I made no such sweeping statements, although I think the sackings were very serious. The nearest I came to such statements, which I stand by completely, was to say, "Such comments from someone like David Buckle show how deep were the dangers for the workers' movement that had developed at that time.

•Thatcher and Tebbit were sitting waiting to see what they could utilise for their own anti trade union ends"

I think that is a cool assessment. I think the Cowley sackings and the witch-hunt around them was one of the factors which has created a significantly new situation in industry. This can be seen in the pits, was seen in the Stockport Messenger, and now in the hardening of BT management and their injunction against the POEU.

I don't intend to respond extensively on the matter of SL. My article was written in the spirit of fraternal solidarity with a far left group who were being witch-hunted by the media at the time by forces which posed a danger to the labour movement as a whole.

Jack Cleary is clearly incapable of comprehending such an approach, since the logic of his comments would be to provoke a discussion, which even if it did LAST WEEK was announ- ›unced the nearest thing to a mounted telescope.

: So what are black holes, and how do they form?

If all the matter and energy of the universe were evenly spread out, there would be a very thin gas, more like a vacuum than anything we can achieve on Earth, at a temperature only a few degrees above Absolute Zero (minus 273 degrees Centigrade).

However, matter and energy are not evenly spread out. Purely by chance some parts of space would contain more matter than others, and this is where gravity comes in.

Gravity is a weak force but affects everything. When matter 'crystallised out' into hot gas soon after the Big Bang that started our universe, gravity soon caused the gas to accumulate in gigantic clouds.

Gravity made the clouds shrink and get more dense. The pressure made the gas hotter (like air in a bicycle pump).

Eventually, the density • and temperature of the gas (mainly hydrogen) got high enough for nuclear fusion to start.

This process converts hydrogen into helium with the release of vast amounts of energy. The enormous heat generated postNA RN JOHN HARRIS and the press conference gave As a result we had another out to play down the role of BL management w Draw wuay • He says for example that, •'The Cowley management is not the whole capitalist class": I assume we can accept that he means BL management rather than Cowley management, who clearly would not have had the authority to do this.

Well, it is certainly true that BL management are not the whole capitalist class, but it is the single most important industrial asset théy have. Morethat was nearby, but it would also suck in any light that came nearer than a certain distance.

Hence the name, 'black hole' 'Black' because no light could ever leave it, and 'hole' because things fall into it.

The certain distance is known as the 'Event Horizon'. Anyone outside a black hole cannot look beyond this horizon. We can get no information about anything that happens inside it.

For a black hole with three times the mass of the sun, the event horizon would be about 18 km across.

Though we can't see black holes, it should be possible to detect them. As matter was sucked into a black hole, it would be accelerated at a fantastic rate, giving out radiation and disappearing in a burst of ultra-violet and X-rays.

If we can detect gas spiralling into an object of great mass and tiny size, giving out radiation, then we can be sure that we have found a black hole.

And now a telescope on the International Ultraviolet Explorer satellite has detected over someone in Jack Cleary's position could not possibly make a chance remark on it, and any playing down of the role of BL management in the current situation is seriously politically wrong.

In fact very few people in the whole labour movement today would deny the central role of BI: management over the last five years, or see their actions as a local affair.

Take Tony Benn's speech at the Labour Party conference last week as an example; or the recent events at Vauxhall. Even the right wing would not deny it, since they cannot deal with them in the same way.

That is part of the reason for David Buckle's attitude to both this and the hand-washing strike.

The very fact that it was BL who sacked the 15 in this way was absolutely not by chance. It may have come up in a 'haphazard' way, but it was not dealt with as such.

It was dealt with with all the authority BL management has amongst sine employers, ano they were all strengthened by Send letters to Socialist Organiser 28 Middle Lane, London N8. No longer than 400 words please: longer letters are liable to be cut.

it. (Not enough to smash the labour movement at a stroke, of course, but significant just the same. Certainly enough to tell the difference if you are a militant in a key industry).

Perhaps I could ask Jack Cleary if he could name a few more managements who might have taken such an initiative as this in this period? Is there a parallel to BL's 1979 survival plan and the way they implemented it? What kind of effect did that have on the national situation?

Is there a parallel to the sacking of Derek Robinson and what effect did that have on the national situation? Would any other management have carried through the sacking at Longbridge two and a half years ago so effectively?

Has any manage- other ment achieved alf of the even i speed-up of BL? Has any management broken down a powerful shop stewards' movement to anything like the same degree?

For all these reasons it is wrong to see it as just another management acting for its own local interest. Michael Edwardes' book has been such a big seller for all of these reasons. It now plays the role of an employers' handbook on how to fight On top of this Cowley has another significance which should not be played down. It is the only major factory in manufacturing industry with a significant and long established tradition of Trotskyism within it, and which has played a significant role in the situation.

Jack Cleary should be playing up the significance of BL, not playing it down.

ALAN THORNETT; Oxford.

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positive identification of a black hole, using a satellite-