Part of Tuesday's demonsmation outside Mold Crown Court, where sight building workers are now an trial, facing charger arising our of picketing during last year's building strike. Some of them are alto invoived in the trial of 24 bundling workers on sinier charges which is due to apen in Shrewsbury inter this year. It was annouriced at the demonstration that all 24 defendants wish take part in a march from London to Shrewsbury in the ten deyr before the case opens Public meange will be held in every major centre along the route in Government's pay policy The meeting recognised that there in an urgent need for solidarity with the 24 building workers on trial in Shrewsbury and Mold for their picketing activities, some delegates stressing that the case was as important as that of the Pentonville 5.
It was suggested that the September LCDTU conference would be ah important opportunity to push forward the campaign in defence of the 24, before the trial opens at Shrewsbury in October.
New Upsurge here moves come just when the Chrysier workers have shown that the fighting ability of the working class remains undiminished. Moreover, the decisions of the engineering workers' conference have placed one of the industrially most powerful groups solidly against the TUC-Government talks and any form of wage restric non, on paper at least, The engineer. ing pay ciaim, if seriously fought for.
could set this decisive section of the class on a direct collision course with the Government.
With the inspiration of the Chrysler strikers behind them, and the practical focus of the AUEW decisions before them, the mass of workers, who have only gone along with the El + 4% settlements on an interim basis, can become more willing than ever to go into struggle.
Rank and File Must Lead The LCDTU is quite correct to demand that the TUC bureaucrats take up the fight against the Government. But this is not at all sufficient. The unwillingness of the Communist Party, which is in the leadership of the LCDTU, to break away from its alliance with the left bureaucrats bas had disastrous effects on the rank-and-fle movement in the past, and it could do so again in the future. At the same time as striving to create the broadest possible fighting unity in the trade union movement by pushing the burenucrats into action, we must also be preparing the rankand-tie to assume the leadership or their own struggles.
Serious Campaigns A major showdown with the Covernment in the only way for the working Delegates from 35 of the best organised and most important factories and shop stewards' committees in England, Scotland and Wales voted last Saturday to organise a massive lobby of the TUC when it meets in September at Blackpool, calling for an end to talks with the Government and an all-out fight against the pay laws. The delegates, from the 'sponsoring bodies' of the Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions and brought together largely through the influence of the Communist Party, also decided to follow up the lobby of the TUC with a recall conference of the LCDTU, This is to be held later in September, and will take up the questions of defending pickets and campaigning against the class to win a victory. But such a fight cannot be won without widespread unity in struggle, and the use of the most militant tactics. This means moving towards a genera! strike. Previous LCDTU conferences have Talled to lace up to this reality hamstrung by the weaknesses of the Communist Party's strategy.
Last Saturday's meeting was absolutely correct to assign top priority to campaigns in defence of picketing and against the TUC-Government talks. If these campaigns are seriously conducted, they can serve to warn the Goverament that we will fight back, they can strengthen the hand of rank-and-file leadership aguinst the bureaucracy, and they can give the mass of workers renewed con fidence in their ability to struggle.
The immediate need is for the es tablishment of Shrewsbury defence committees in every area to mobilise LAC issue.
Similar steps should be taken to ensure the maximum involvement in, and awareness of, the forthcoming TUC lobby.
Plan the Way Ahead But those of us who are prepating the fight against the Tory Government and the employers must abo plan out where wo are headed. We must state openly that a general strike is on the cards, and prepare both ourselves and the mass of workers for this sort of confrontation. 1018S ToU critical question which will face the LCDTU in September.
This conference must include wider layers of the rank-and-file leadership than ever before. And it must be so conducted that the delegates have a genuine opportunity discuss policy questions seriously, and work out in detail a strategy for the next stage of struggle. The last conference represented a have since boen charged with violasenous step backwards in both trese respects, If this error is not corrected, then all the moves the LCDTU is now Taking will come to nothing critical questions facing the working class movement, then the September Conference could become a decisive force in setting the whole movement on the road to victory in the class stragple ordar to bring the case to the attention of the widess possible sepions of the bbour movement.
FUND DRIVE TARGET £300 PRICE 5p 29th JUNE 1973 NO.S
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But if the LCDIU is prepared to The right-wing has launched a big take the right approach to the