But the delegates voted for a plan of action which seems to have been drawn up in the expectation of distinctly milder weather.
The resolution moved by the Liverpool Trades Council called for a national day of action to be held during the week commencing 18 March. "The form of action to be decided by meetings of workers at factories, docks, building sites etc, but mass support for a national demonstration in London and lobby of Parliament should be a first priority The platform did not seem to notice that by March we might be slap in the middle of a miners strike, with the country on a 2-day week, and the Tory Government fighting for its life. Under these circumstances, a national day of action on Shrewsbury would hardly be noticed by the Government-whereas indefinite strike action over Shrewsbury could put the boot in once and for all.
CP VICTORY
The Trades Council line is even more short-sighted in view of the ruling by the High Court last Friday. The appeals are now set to start on 19 February, one month before the action proposed by Liverpool Trades Council. The platform adjusted to this situation only by calling for a lobby of the Appeal Court on the 19th.
The Conference was anolber victory for the politics of the Communsst Party in the Shrewsbury campaign. The CP believes that the official leaderships can be activated only so long as the rank and file do not take any independent initiatives which might antagonise them. In this conception of the world, the new opportunities. created by the struggles of other groups of workers such as the miners are in practice irrelevant, and the objective needs of the situation, such as the need to respond speedily when militants are thrown into jatl, are ignored.
Those who spoke of the need for tough and speedy action to release the Three were said to be ultra-left and unrealistic. One speaker after anotber spoke of the widespread ignorance developing other struggles of the working class over Shrewshury, that the national press had totally ignored the trials, and diet it would not have been possible to get a movement like the one which released the dockers from Pentonyule. We'se got to start where the lads are, not where we would like them to be, as Pete Carter gut it.
It would certainly be foolish to claim that every worker, or even the misjority of the move of William Warnes Rubber Co, said a strike on Red Weekly B February 1974 Page 2 ment, understood the issues at Shrewsbury and speedy action is imperative. Any serious working class leader would try to find a way to seive this very real dilemma, instead of harping on exclusively about the subjective deficiencies of the movement.
FLYING PICKETS
A solution could be found if the building workers in the major centres-a group of workers who are substantially educated over Shrewsbury - took the lead in strike action. Flying pickets would then he available to spread the struggle to groups who aren't. Thus the tasks of getting a strike movement under way and of educating other workers are not in the least contradictory. It was precisely to combine these two things that the flying picket was insented-the very weapon the 800 delegates were supposed to be there to defend.
In any case, political backwardness over Shrewsbury is not just simple ignorance of the issues. What is really at stake is whether workers are prepared to act, It is quite useless for a string of CP speakers to record impressions about the mood in their particular localities. unpressions which generally contradict one another depending on the point being made. What is needed is a practical test of the willingness of the workers to act in defence of the Three. The flying picker is the best test so far: devised.
But the CP are opposed to a builders' strike -official or unofficial, As Kevin Halpin put it: "The huilders can't lead... We must kill this stone dead.' This of course is exactly what the CP has been doing. The North Wales Defence Committee told men to go back to work on I January, and the Birmingham UCATT resoluLon for a national stoppage starting in the Birmingham arca was killed hy a wall of suence.
MINERS STRIKE
Only two speakers understood how the miners strike provided a new opportunity for including the fight to free the Three, Cathy Adams, a NUPE shop steward and member of Southwark Trades Council, spoke about the need to go beyond solidarily with the miners, and for all workers betrayed by their leaders over Phase 3 co re submit their claims, Terry Barrett, Chairman of the Barking and Dagenham Defence Committee and convenor the 18th was pointless unless building workers were prepared to take action. On the other hand, take indefinite strike action. He went on to say that a building strike around Shrewsbury should be linked to the miners' strike, and that the miners should explicitly have as one of their demands in a strike the freeing of the Three, This is the way forward for the campaign. A miners' strike, where picketing becomes the key question for the miners and the millions of workers who will be in solidarity with them, could be used to deepen and escalate the struggle over Shrewsbury.
The NUM should immediately adopt as official policy the demand for the release of the Three and an end to the trials. It should be added to the demands at present contained in their claim.
The NUM should aiso conclude reciprocal agreements with the T&G and UCATT at all levels under which these unions would join the miners in strike action to free the Three, to free manpower for the miners' mass pickets and to and should include apcakers from the NUM DEFENCE OF PICKETING Liverpool Trades Council also decided to accept an amendment which said: The aim of this Conference should be to establish close links between the miners strike and the fight to free the Three. However, this was not mad clear to the conference, so most delegates will be unaware of the implications of the amende resolution. The Trades Council should clurify this by taking the lead in organising action alo these lines, such as making a public approach 1 the Lancashire NUM delegate who spoke at th conference in a typically sectionalist manner on the theme of the energy crisis! -or by takin the lead in organising an action such as a mass picket which includes a large body of minens.
A loint struggle by miners, building worker and others wround the defence of picketing conid provide one of the avenuer along which the miners strike cowid be turned into a general strike.