The Fund Drive today stands at:
£6,700 There are only three more weeks to go before we reach the target date set for our Fund Drive last November. Up till now the response from our readers, from militants in the labour movement and from IMG comrades has been remarkable. However the last spurt always requires extra effort. If we are to move to a weekly by Easter, the Fund Drive must be successfully concluded by 21 February.
We would therefore urge all our supporters and, in particular, all IMG units to make a special effort to help us collect the remaining £3,300 within the next three weeks.
Further signatories from the labour movement a weekly and contribute to the £10,000 Fund Drive" are (in a personal capacity): Trevor Digby (BISAKTA shop steward) Eric Savage (T&GWU, member Executive Committee, Widnes and Runcorn Trades Council) If you would like to contribute, please fill in the form below. ---Fill in this form and send to: FUND DRIVE, 182 Pentonville Road, London N.1. (Cheques should be made out to The Red Mole). I am enclosing ...........for the Fund Drive.
NAME…...
ADDRESS
and BRIAN SLOCOCK For the past four months the workers at CAV. Fazskerley, have been occupying their factory in an heroic struggle to resist the rationalisation plans of their employer, the giant Joseph Lucas combine, and save the 1200 jobs on their site. In that period the extent of support they have received from the rest of the working class movement has been sufficient to keep the struggle going. They have received financial support from many sections of the tunity in this division among the workers. It immediately stepped up the pressure by threatening the permanent closure of LIE unless it were allowed to reopen. At the same time it manoeuvred to split the workers at CAV by offering the members of the staff unions guarantees of jobs elsewhere in the combine on Merseyside (perked ap by immediate transfer on full salary until the new jobs are arranged). These were, of course, admissions of weakness on the part of the Lucas management: they would not have played these cards if the occupation and the CAV pickets were support from other groups of workers. While these dangers are very real the last two, at least, can be overcome. The committment of the CAV workers to the occupation is firm, and will undoubtedly be kept up no matter what tactical adjustments or errors are made. A more difficult, but equally necessary, task is to convince the rest of the labour movement that tactical concessions by the CAV occupation committee do not let them off the hook: on the contrary, these concessions were forced upon the CAV workers because of the lack of support they were receiving from the rest LUCAS