Mass pickets at LaBour

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Southwark's Labour-controlled council to account.

FROM April 1. 18-20 year olds living at home will lose the housing benetits from their supplementary benefit.

This amounts to a cut in dole ot €3.10 per week - about one eighth of total benefit.

Fowlers Yard Youth Project is a scheme organising facilities for youth in Dutham. Many of the youth involved in the project are unemployed and directly atfected by the benefit cuts. The Youth Project therefore organised a lunchtime demonstration against the cuts on Thursday 22nd.

Although arranged at short notice, the demonstration drew support from local Labour councillors. - and many townspeople signed a petition protesting at the cuts. Students, themselves facing Tory cuts, along with Durham LPYS, also took part in the march, but the majority of those involved were local unemployed youth from the Youth Project.

Some weeks previously the workers had been locked out for refusing to accept the productivity scheme. Their union, GMBATU, negotiated a return to work pending discussion of the scheme.

Dunlop in the past has transferred Slazenger production from their Lancashire factory to both Atlanta, Georgia and the Philippines The workers have put a 24 hour picket on the gates.

The police have been there in force. Two van loads of them, with dogs, have been keeping their eye on the pickets, many of whose husbands are on strike in the coalfield. That is perhaps a reason why Dunlops have taken this action at this vital time. GMBATU regional official Joe Kitchen eventually agreed to meet stewards at Dunlops Slazenger factory on Monday 26th, five davs after the strike began.

Kitchen had previously told the stewards to get back to work. but the stewards impressed on him that they would continue their 24 hour picket until management withdrew their package of wage cuts. speed-ups, and redundancies.

Solidarity between Dunlop strikers and miners is being built By Dave Green MASS pickets are being organised every Monday in the dispute at LaBour Pumps, Wellingborough, where management sacked 37 union members for supporting a suspended fellow worker.

At the first mass picket on Monday 15th, 80 picket were faced by almost as many police (even though Northants sent hundreds of police to the coalfields).

Police arrested one picket then - and another two (Socialist Organiser supporters) on ThursThe pickets are. however. surcesstully stopping lorries.

The AUEW (the strikers' union) is organising a district levy, and also a fund-raising gig. The strikers are calling for a trade union boycott of LaBour Pumps.

Donations io LaBour Pump Strike Fund. Treasurer. T.C. Puckerin. 6 Palmer Close. The Links. Wellingborough. Northunts.

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Durham benefit cuts protest