ment" minister Chataway produced anything more than a lecture on the need for the CAV workers to "clean up their image" (iLe. give up their struggle and wait cap-inhand for whatever crumbs the government may have to spare). It is quite clear that the plans of British capitalism to rationalise production and assure its profitability inside the Common Market will not be adjusted for anything as unimportant as the needs and welfare of workers and their families. NEED FOR UNITED ATTACK A t the same time the occupation remains solid, and the CAV workers were never under any illusions that they could win other than by hitting hard at the protits of Joseph Lucas. The occupation itself will only have a limited direct effect along these lines. The real weapon which must be placed at the disposal of the CAV workers is a united attack on the Lucas combine by the whole labour movement.
Recently the occupying workers have developed new tactics with the aim of extending and strengthening the struggle. Straightforward appeals for blacking of Lucas products met with insufficient real support, so picket lines have now been thrown up around all the major plants of the Merseyside car industry to prevent Lucas products being brought in.
There undoubtedly exists widespread sympathy for the CAV struggle in the area, it so far the main expression this has Asians' Strike Advances Red Mole Reporter After the signing of an agreement by the Union and management, submitting almost mands of the strikers, the Laughton ch Hosety Workers' strike Ice Monday, 27 November -Grat day of the pposed return" cond that 41 trainee white knitters had been hired during the strike. This would effectively prevent the Indian workers from entering the knitting section. At a mass meeting the strikers decided to continue the strike until the 41 newly hired knitters had been transferred to other i obs.
The determination of the strikers has now forced the Executive of the National Union of Hosiery and Knitwear Workers, who have continually tried to diffuse the strike, to declare the strike official.
This dispute remains of crucial importance, well beyond Loughborough and the Mansfield Hosiery Company. It represents an important example to all black workers in Britain, as a fight against being used by employers as cheap labour. A successful conclusion to this strike would strengthen the determination of black workers throughout the country.
When nationally the attacks on the working class make the struggle for workers' unity central, this necessitates a fight against organised racism and nationalist feeling in the form of the National Front. The strikers at Loughborough have given us a further lesson. When white workers were being laid off due to the dispute the strikers called for unity to defeat redundancies - an impossibility if racism continued to divide them. The demands of the strikers for democratisation of the Union with full voting parity for black workers, is also crucial for any similar struggle in the future. The struggle for black workers to form caucuses in Unions must always be upheld - this demand also relates to the struggle of women workers, who also form a large proportion of the labour force in the textile industry.
Lastly the importance of solidarity action continiles) The call by the Strike Committee and the Solidarity Committee for national picketing of Marks & Spencer branches (Marks & Spencer own 20 per cent of the holdings of the firm and are its largest customer) remains an urgent task. Solidarity action has been important in this strike in pressurising the Union and in widening support, it must continue to spread the lessons of the strike.
RICH]
Demonstration in support of the CAV Lucas occupation, Saturday, 2 December found has been in the form of resolutions and financial aid. However, as the CAV occupiers clearly understand, only active industrial support can bring a power the size of the Lucas combine to its knees.
The occupation committee, in conjunction with the Trades Council, organised a demonstration for the centre of the city on Saturday, 2 December, This demonstration was undoubtedly an important step forward and was very useful in bringing the issue of CAV to the attention of the Liverpool public. At the same time, however, the response of the organised labour movement was far from satisfactory - only about 600 were mobilised, many of them either from CAV itself or brought out by the revolutionary left. If this demonstration is just the beginning of serious efforts to develop support for the struggle - then excellent; but if tremendous efforts are not made to carry things forward from this point, the reputation of the Merseyside labour movement for militancy and class-consciousness will have suffered a serious set-back. The Trades Council has in fact called for a retreat. But a similar meeting held last month was very badly attended (only about 100 stewards from all of Merseyside) and actually accomplished little. What is really needed is a full day conference of shop stewards and branch delegates from the Merseyside area to draw up a full-scale battle plan against the Lucas combine. The trade union movement is facing very new problems here, and they cannot be dealt with by traditional means at an evening meeting: a full and serious discussion is absolutely necessary. Moreover such a conference should be properly prepared by an extensive educational campaign throughout the Merseyside trade union movement on the issues at stake, in order to ensure the widest participation possible in the work of the conference. Only measures such as these can build the kind of solidarity the CAV workers urgently need in order to win their struggle.
At Saturday's demonstration Dave Martin (T&G convenor for CAV) issued a call to all trade unionists for a complete blacking of all Lucas products. This call must be taken up immediately by socialists and trade union militants across the country. It is the duty of us.all to make sure that the CAV workers do not carry the burdens of this struggle alone: it is a fight in the interests of the whole working-class and must be shared by the whole working-class movement.