On Friday 12 October about 4000 peopie, mainly engineering workers, marched through Sheffield to protest at the arrest of cight pickets outside Footprint Tools Ltd on 21 September, A number of factories in the Sheffield area stopped work to take part in this display of solidari ту.
The demonstration showed that the police attack on the pickets at Footprint hus convinced the Sheffield working class of the need to defend the right to picket.
There is a danger, however, that this issuc could be used to divert the struggle away from the strike at Footprint. Only 200 people answered the call for a mass picket outside the factory on the morning of the demonstzation. In fact, the Communist Party in Sheffield is deliberately pushing the issue of the right to picket at the expense of the fight to re-instate Pete Wilson, the victimised Footprint Shop Steward. For some weeks the CP leadership in the Shelfield area has been confronted with a clear choice: either they call a district strike, and thus cncourage a level of militancy which would take the strugele out of their control and damage their relationship with the Union bureaucracy, or they sacrifice Pete Wilson and accept a defeat which would set back preparations for the struggle over the national pay claim. They have clearly chosen the latter course, and are pushing the Foofprint strike into the background in order to soften the blow.
The most effective way to defend the right to picket is to mobilise the workers who marched through Sheffield last Friduy in order to close dowa the Footprint works until Pete Wison is re-instated. The right to picket can only be deContinued calls for mass pickets at Footprints have now become substitute for serious action head on. through a district strike.
TERRY CRAWFORD fended hy meeting the challenge of the state In this situation the constant appeals for mass pickets serve little purpose. Engineering wurkers find it difficult to take such pickets serious ly when Caborn, the AUEW Districe Secretary. polices the picket lines more effectively than the police themselves, instructing warker-to stand on the pavement so that the scabs can go into work without interference. They will nol be laken seriously until the full force of the AUEW in Sheffield is used in the strugglesimply closed the conference without even taking the last item on the agenda, a Declaration of Aims.' MG militants delegated to the conference had intended to propose that the 100 delegates should be coapted on to the Action Committee which had culled the conference. With such wide representation an Action Committee could have formed the hasis for a Council of Action emhracing not only industrial militants, but also representatives of other groups in the locality tenants, students, Jonsewives. pensioners- facing attacks from the Tary Govern ment. A Council of Action could also have organised the mass of the population in support of the miners The actions of the CP mean that even the opportunity to unite the local labour navement around struggles like that at Footprint Tools in Sheffield, and in preparation for the coming battle against Plase 3, to fall. Phase 2, the Tory government clams, conquere the domestic conses of inflation, What remained was caused by rising world prices which were beyond tbeir control. This claim is one of the principal frauds of the new Pay and Prices Code which forms the basis of t'hase 3.
Of course, it is true that the general capitalist crisis is leacing to worldwide inflation. But the effect of this on the prices of imports into Britain has been massively exaggerated by the constant devaluation of the pound in the last two years. And this devaluation has not been beyond the control of the Tories, Il has been a conscious part of their policies to produce rapid growth, most ot wbose beneitts goes lo profits. The devalutaion has allowed Bricist ex porters to avoid excessise price rises in foreign markels in foreign currencies and at the same time to take a fatter profit in tenns of sterling. But for the working class the devaluation has had the effect of ruising the domestie cost of living and cutting real wages In Phase 3, the same process will go on. Exporters are not subject to any price control. And it is highly probable that fuzther devalutaions of the pound will swell their profit margins. But also in other respects Phase 3 is subslantially more generous to profit margins than Phase 2 The first benefit comes from the new regulations about price cutting if profit margins rise to moore than the "base level" (the average of the best of the last 5 years) Under the old regulations prices should have been cut to bring profits down to this base lewl. There were scarcely any examples of this in practice because of the rise in raw material prices. Under the new regulations, however, when costs go down so that the hase profit margio is exceeded then prices need only be reduced by 10 per cent of the excess. This might well become important in
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tiptoes at Footprint
and Profits