Supporters of the Chile Solidarity Campaign took part in a picket of the Chilean Embassy last Friday calling for the release of Bautista Von Schouwen and all political prisoners.
Von Schouwen, a leading figure in the MIR, was arrested on 14 December and has since been tortured. But the junta still refuses to admit even that he is being held. Friday's picket was part of an international campaign which The strike committee al Maclaren Controls is to meet shop stewards from other companics in the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation group this Saturday to discuss the is to be held in Manchester.
Meanwhile the management has been holding tiks with a special negotiating team from the Scottish TUC, in an attempt to come up with a settlement which will end the five-week occupation of the Maclaren factory in Glasgow.
The dispute began 11 weeks ago with a strike over a wage demand. The factory was occupied when the management began to move plant and materials to Germany in an attempt to re-start has been launched to save his life.
Meanwhile, action against British Government collaboration with the junta received a further boost last week when dockyard workers in Portsmouth voted to black a Chilean warship which had arrived for minor repairs. The AUEW district committee took the initiative in this, and it was then taken up by the dockyard Whitley Committee. The workers' action was Lorries were turned back by a mass picket at the gates of A L Dunn (Nuneaton) Ltd, an engineering plant in Coventry, on Saturday. despite a police decree that only four pickets would be allowed at each gate, and the arrest of several pickets.
The strike and subsequent lock-out of 83 Asian foundry workers at Dunn began six weeks ago, when the management sacked a shop steward because of an overtime ban in pursuit of a wage claim. The firm has a six-year history of hostibty to trade union organisation, and with haif of the labour force composed of Indians and Pakistanis, they have, on many occasions, used racism to setting up of a combine committee. The meeting divide the workers, The management is presently running the Foundry with scab labour, and other sections of the factory The strikers have heen subjected to intense intimidation. They are being refused social secunty benefit, and the police have threatened to arrest pickets on suspicion of being illegal immigrants. Pickets have been prevented from day.
mittee in the town. alleged incident. shop stewards.
STOP PERSE:
SELL-SU backed up by a demonstration of Portsmouth Polytechnic students to the dockyard on MonA large number of factories in the Portsmouth area are involved in work for the navy, and moves are now being made to continue the campaign by setting up a Chile Solidarity Comspeaking to lorry drivers, and the police have told drivers to go in to the factory, and that the strike is unofficial. Two leading members of the strike committee have been arrested and workers. charped with assault, both several days after the Haringey Trades Council calls racism conference The strikers have received support from the District Committee of the Transport and General Workers' Union, who will probably declare the strike official, and the Indian Workers" Association has also given assistance. The mass picket last Saturday came after a circular from the strike committee to local The strike committee has issued a leaflet appealing for components produced by scab labour to be blacked. Dunn, which also trades under the names Coventry Apex Engineering. "Burbages Engineering', and Coventry Art Castings, supplies aluminium components to a number of well-known vehicle manufacturers WOTACT The address of the Strike Action Committee is cle 154 Churchill Avenue, Coventry. Trowbridge conference discusses crisis Eighty trade unionists attonded a conference on the procal crisis called by Trowbridge Trades Council, near Bristol Two speakers from the South Wales executive of the NUM hit out at the TUC', attempts to get a settlement to the miners' struggle at the expense of other sections of the working claat, and Paul Davidson of Birmingham CATT Juint Shop Stewards Committee explained the initiative of his committee in calling for an indefinite strike in the building industry to obtain the release of the A resolation freen the trades council was passed calling for full support for those fighting the three-day week and Phase 3, and for the release of the Shrewsbury 3, An addendum, moved by IMG and supported by IS, called for the setting up of an action committee to arganise such support This was passed, but referred back to the trades council on the casting wole of the chairman, a CP member, preventing any decision on concrete actiun from heing taken. Newport workers vote support for miners At a meeting of Newport Trades Council last Friday Two face workers from Postyprid NUM spoke on the miners' pay claim. Ranjid Assam from the T&GWU in the local Cronptoe Parkinson factory mored a resolation which was passed unanimonsly, pledging sapport for the fight of the miners, and committing The trades counci to organising a public meeting in Newport, to publicise the miners' case. The Punty. pridd miners promised to supply a speuker.
A member of the Society of Civil Servants moved the vote of thanks, and after the meeting members of the society, and of the Civil and Professional Servants Association, undertook to distribute several hundred leafiots, explaining the miners' staggle, to workers in the huge Business Statistics Office in Newport. Prison picket for one of Shrewsbury Three An 80-strong picket outside Nottingham prisen last Saturday demandod the release of John Jones, one of the three jailed building workers who is held there, Future action on this issue in the area will include a conference lo carly February to discuss industrial action to free the Shrewsbury 3.
The packet Followed a demonstration organised by Nottingbam and District Trades Council which was called on the basis of the slogans: Free the Shrewsbury 3', Support the miners and all workers in struggle against Phase 3, Sack the Torks not the Haringey Trades Council is to hold a delegute conference on racian on 3 Feburary. There has bean serious concero in the local labour movement at the influence of racist organisations in this area, which has a large black population. During last year's local elections the National Independence Party registered a very high poll, in once case being only narrowly defeated by the Labour Party Rhetoric dominates Manchester conference The Chairman of the General Council of UCATT, Bert Scith, chaired a delegate conference in Manchester last wokend, organised by the Manchester Coordinaling Committee of Trade Luonits The conference called for support for the Shrewsbury defendants, and for the release of the 3 jailed building The Coordinating Committee, In which the CP has the feading influence, presented a lengtley resolution to the conference which talked in vague terms An amendment moved by an IMG member called