into its fourth year, the blacking of essential anumonia supplies threatens to halt production of the company's steel tubes.
Domestic Chemicals of Exeter, the original supples, are now blacked throughout the South West, after breaking an agreement not to cross the Fine Tubes picket line, Calor Cas has also received similar treatment - at the hands of ICI (Severnside), where the convenor informed ICI management in April that unless Calor Gas undertook not to supply Fine Tubes, sub-contractors" lorries would not be loaded with ammonia from ICI. Fine Tubes' response has been to issue writs against ICT and the At the same time there have been some setbacks in the blacking campaign. At lhe end of March the strike committee received a letter from the Joint Shop Stewards Committee at Rolls Royc, Derby, informing them that thi blacking of the engine division's products was being lifted because 'we could not peopardise to deteriorate. W.3. production situation at Fine Tubes continues In particular, morale on the shoptloor, where the workforce has dropped from 250 at the beginning of the strike to around 140, is extremely low. Over 60 blacklegs have left the company in the past six weeks, and many have experienced difliculty in finding work cisewhere in Plymouth, since local employers are concerned about upsetting their own workers. On the day of the national picket in March which was broken up by police, workers at Arrow Hart held a one hour sympathy stoped local support for the 72 me mating strikers, This was one of the first signs of organwho are determinud to break the Americanowned company's opposition to trade unions. Hammersmith and Kensington Trades Council is holding a dance and social in support of the strike at Fulham Town Hall at 7.30 pm on Saturday, 2 June. Tickets at 75p from I. Hoskins, 6 Bishock Avenuo, Acton, London Michael Price in large part the manifestation of the continual struggle between the classes over the distribu. tion of income. Within this struggle, price rises are a major weapon which capitalists use to restore or enlarge profit margins, Their ultimate suceess depends on the strength of the workers' reactions to declining living standards and on the ability of the capitalists to pass on increased costs in the face of competition. But inflation is a dangerous weapon to use. As all classes try to overcompensate for falling incomes, the situation tends towards hyperInflation in which the whole monetary system could collapse. The faster the inflation the nore drastic are the political measures necemary to control it.
Inflation continuously redistributes income from workers to capitalists, from both towards land and house owners, away from those with fixed incomes, from creditors to debtors, from weak to strongly organised workers, and within the family. At many levels therefore, it shatters established equilibris and clarifies tbe conflicts within capitalism. Inflation 15 a wea. pon which capitalists both need and fear.
mention of a policy, It is good propaganda, bur