As we go to press, the 160 electricians at Chrysler's Coventry plants seem to be settling in for a long strike, despite Chrysler's attempts to break the strike by threatening to sack 8.000 workers and permanently cut operations, if the electrscians do not settle.
This threat will only increase the pressure which Hugh Scanion and Jack Jones have been putting on the Electricians Union, The working dass must be absolutely clear on the issues involved at Chrysler. The future of trade unionism in the combine, as well us the fight against the Tory Pay Board, is at stake Certainly, the claim of local electr icians leaders that they are not fight ing the Pay Board, only the comp any, has alienated support. This has made it much easier for Scanion and Jones, who understand that the obt cetive dynamic of the struggle is against the Pay Bourd, to force their members to scab, thereby destroying even the most basic trade union principles. Only the workers at Lin wood have disobeyed these orders Right wingers like Frank Chapple will draw a lesson from all this. They will point out corectly that Early on Tuesday morning, (Sept "lefts" at Blackpool, are so much hot air when these same leaders are prepared to smash his clectricians into the ground.
The Right will say that this shows the utter futility of any principled stand against the Pay Board. But only by transforming the Chrysler struggle into a conscious fight agalnst the Pay Board, will it be possible to avert further damage to the stra egle against the Pay Laws, Jet alone to trade unionism at Chrysler. If a legacy of hitremess is to be avoided, it will only now be through action by the rest of the working. class. Unity in struggle against the Pay Board can best be proposed to the Chrysler workers by those other groups of workers, such as those al British Leyland striking directly against the Pay Board, and chose like the Hull dockers who are planning similar strikes themselves. Those, such as the Communist Party, who continue to urge reliance on the *left bureaucrats to lead the fight aguinst the Pay Laws, are only par ing the way for further disasters Full Story - Page 3 ipled stand they have taken in soli-