months in which to prepare its own membership and the trade union movement for this fight. So far, Scanion has done nothing so prepare the fight. What is now required is for the Union to lead industrial action by the mass of workers to smash the Act. This is the task that faces the Union executive when it meets on 14 November. Given such an initiative from the engineers, every militant in every branch of industry must be immeciately prepared to generanse the struggle against the Act.
If the engineers" leadership fails to move onto the attack, the consequence will be a very serious setback for the working class. No one should have any illusions on that score. And any talk from Mr. Scanion about his defeat at the TUC conference and lack of support from the TUC must not be allowed to obscure the truth: that unless the working class gains a leadership which is prepared to stand up and defend attacks come from, whether from an employer or from a court, from the newspaper barons or Parliament, then it is not going to be able to defend its own living standards and organisations. As the fourth British strategy since 1969 for dealing with the Irish problem grinds to a halt, Whitelaw's position as Gauleiter of the North becomes more and more insecure, the need to build a solidarity movement in support of the irish struggle more and more urgent every day.
MAJOR CHANGE Whitelaw's speech on television in July which preceded the invasion of Free Derry was the announcement of the fourth major change of course for British imperialism in Ireland.
Since the establishment of Free Belfast and Free Derry in August '69, British imperialism has used a number of different policies for dealing with the crisis. All the policies were calculated in different situations and at different periods to serve the same strategic end - to protect British interests in Ireland. But exactly because it was dealing have had to be tried at different times to achieve this end, and have failed. From August 69 until August *71 - despite some diversions, particularly with the introduction of the Public Order Act in 1970 and the invasion of the Lower Falls in July 1970 in the immediate aftermath of the Tory return to power - the basic policy was one of Containment and Reform. To avoid provoking a Southern backlash, and therefore endangering British interests in the South, the British policy was, not to smash militarily Free Derry and Free Belfast, but to use the British Army to contain the revolt in these two areas while the Stormont regime was nudged onto the road to reform. The theory was that the further Stormont was pushed towards reform, then the quicker would the contained revolt in the Catholic areas ev(To page 8) pay ladder. Many of them take home only £14 a week. In the past they have accepted the local government manual workers agreements as a standard for their own settlements. This would have given them a miserable t2.40 before the freeze. Now they are to be outlawed in a struggle even for that. But there has been strong opposition from the rank and file to the 4 claim put forward by the union leaders. Strike action in support of an £8 claim has already occured in Bristol and Gloucester, and this has found support elsewhere leading to the creation of a national Alliance of Stewards for Health Workers.
If the hospital workers do join battle with the government (officially or unofficially) then objective of smashing the pay freeze. Such a policy, which must be applied to every wage struggle from now on, will start the death agony of the Tory government.
INDOCHINA WAR See pages 4 and 5
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solidarity action must transform the struggle into a united working class upsurge with the