Shrewsbury - New trial starts as strike action discussed IF THEY TAKE COMING FOR US YOU IN THE, MORNING a in defence of the Shrewsbury workers - task now is to mobilise from this for Liverpool recall conference BATL THREE of contempt? The London Trades Council demonstration on Tuesday ended with a lobby of Parliament, where building workers were addressed by Labour MPs including Norman Alkinson, Frank Allaun, Sid Bidwell, and Will Hamiya. possibility of a general clection and concluded by saying he didn't think there would be one. He then repeated the main outlines of the Labour Party manifesto, and declared that a Labour Goverment would return to free collective bargaining. He did not mention voluntary incomes policy.
His speech was repeatedly interrupted from the floor by speakers who wanted to know what he was going to do about the Shrewsbury victims. Atkinson told the meeting that Labour law officers were busy looking at ways of dealing with the House of Lords recen ruling which overturned the right of pickets to stop lorries and to persuade drivers not co cross the picket line, and that others were working on ways of stopping the Conspiracy Act of 1875 from being used against the The meeting felt that all this was very useful but why hadn't Labour MPs used the House of Commons Lo mobilise interest and support for the issue? After all, as one representative of the London Defence Committee put it, they would not free anyone just by reconsidering laws. The only way was to take strike action of general strike proportions Atkinson replied that to raise it in the House would put them in contempt, The matter was sub judice, But as another speaker pointed out, if the Labour MPs really agreed that it was so imortant to force the Government's hand over Shrewsoury, why didn't they challenge the laws The meeting ended with assurances from Atkinson thar they would keep in touch with the developments in the Shrewsbury trials But people had to understand that as MPs they wete severely constrained from doing anything more. 'This branch supports the call of the Birmingham shop stewards committee for an indefinite national strike of the building trade, as the only way to froo the Shrawsbury 3 and defend the right to picket.
To this end we: - call a mess meeting on 1 February of all building the trades council, shop stewards committees, trade union branchos, and other orgenisations to send support to the Shrowsbury 3. and to send donation to the dependants and Defence Committee "Further the branch calls on the Trades Council to support the above motion and to set up a Shrewsbury sub-committee to publicise and win support for the Shrewsbury case I disiake intensely the expression "Three", because there are 24 members of the working class who have been charged with fictitious crimes. I think if we are going to free the Shrewsbury 24 we must bave a policy with regard to the capitalist system, *I agree with the parties of the Left saying we should got rid of the Tories, This is only the first move towards getting on the real road to socialism-not the British Road, with peaceful persuasion, because to my knowledge there has never been a case of the peaceful road to socialism, I think the only road to socialism, British or otherwise, will be by revolutionary We must be determined to bring about really highly organised Councils of Action With these 1 think we could unite the most militant sections of trade unions. When we have done this, we must outline our plans to have forces ready to combat units like the Special Patrol Groups, and also explain that Heathrow was not just a rehearsal, not just people playing soldiers, it was a process of
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Coventry Central UCATI Branch calls for strike action