Industrial Special Unions versus Tory laws The hour of decision!

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December 8 1983. Sp if sold separately Scots miners fly the flag of solidarity ai Warrington THE BOSSES are take on the unions.

The assets of Britain's biggest print union are in the hands of the state.

The NGA has to make special application to the court-appointed commissioners to pay out sickness and unemployment benefit to its members.

Chapels on Fleet Street have been banned from taking action in support of their dismissed brothers at Stockport.

The Newspaper Publishers Association has ten writs out for damages against the NGA totalling £3 million.

SOGAT 82 has been ordered by Mr Justice Sheen to cancel its order to its members in BPCC plants at East Kilbride, Leeds and Bristol not to print the Radio Times.

Resumption

Sir John Donaldson has ordered the NUJ to resume normal despatch of copy to the non-union T. Bailey Foreman printers.

Those who doubted that the decisive weakening of the trade unions and their pressing into a mould of state control was the central objective of the Thatcher government are seeing their illusions shattered.

Judges, like Donaldson who advised the Tories on the legislation, now take over not only the running of disputes but the running of the unions as well.

Lord Denning calls for the arrest of the organisers of the Warrington picket. Home Secretary Leon Brittain congratulates the well-oiled police machine on their destruction of the Warrington picket lines and promises full support for further police thuggery and violence against other picket lines.

Or rather, "some have had their illusions shattered. But others, like the leaders of the TUC and the Labour Party, seem to be incapable of learning from experience.

Whilst we see firmness and RIGHU Len Murray strategy from the state and employers, behind the labour movement lines the leaders are in disarray. Kinnock, John Smith, Len Murray are crippled by their refusal to break the law. They have not lifted a finger to help those struggling against the Tory laws.

JOHN HARRIS Leon Brittan Yet the position is clear as day - you cannot organise effective industrial action in 1983 without breaking the law. The law is simply a weapon of the employers.

If the NGA is beaten, every single one of Britain's 10.5 million trade unionists will lose so now is the time to stand up and fight.

In this context, the decision to call off the mass picketing was a mistake.

It will be hard to regain momentum. It will be difficult to close Fleet Street again. In only two workplaces - Independent Radio News and the Celtic Press Group in South Wales - did we see walk-outs in support of the NGA.

Yet any agreement in this week's talks with Eddie Shah -any agreement in accordance with basic trade union principle - looks unlikely. He has stood fast in refusing to re-engage the six printers sacked for striking at Stockport and is now retreating on the closed shop.

Despite the difficulties of the situation, union branches, stewards committees, chapels must prepare now for a resumption of hostilities.

This dispute can only be won if it is spread through the print and to other sections of workers.

We must fight directly in our unions for solidarity action. We also have to reinforce a hundredfold the struggle to get the Labour Party and TUC leaders to stop talking to the Tories and start campaigning for all-out action to restore the state controlled NGA to its members and sweep away the anti-union laws.

They should call a one-day general strike in support of the NGA and go all out to campaign for it in the labour movement. They should prepare the labour movement for all-out industrial confrontation with the Tories.

For all trade unionists in Britain, now is the hour of decision for the trade union and labour movement. We must not fail! ey ON THE oLid

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y Ma Starr JOHN HARRIS