The Enquiry met in early June and and that the Report would be out in weeks. At the time the strikers cut that this was too long a ad to wait. But it became appalat the Regional T&G were in ary, It took Brian Mathers ten is to inform the Department of doyment that the Asian workers involved in a trade dispute, the result that they did not get i security for that period. Four onths late, the Report is now out.
The ex-strikers see the Report as a vindication of their demands. The Report sees the existing productivity ystem as the root cause of the dispate, and argues that the payments.
ntem has to be totally renegotiated to bring it into line with national agreements.
This, the Report adds, will be to the benefit of all sections of the workforce-a point the strikers always. made. Naturally the Imperial workers will have to vet carefully ny new payments system, but it ems unlikely that it could be as und or such a swindle as the resent set-up.
The Report, comes out for the rapping of the two year eligibility rule for stewards, which was operated to discriminate against Asians. It also comments on the low number of stewards at Imperial. The workIN Кометы tined up behind the management and behaved and spoke in such a way as to increase the racialist fears and prejudices of the white workers. They, together with other leading members of the Leicester District T&G, engineered a racialist one-day stoppage on 23 July lor the victinusation of the strike committee. All of this is swept under the carpet with a glib phrase about emotionalism. Strikers from Imperial Typewriters lobby Transport & General Workers Union headquarters in London forced the T&G to face up to some of its responsibilities as a union to all its members, regardless of their colour, The argument of Mathers and others is that the black workers went loo fast, provoked a backlasli, and allowed the NF to intervene.
This is pernicious rubbish. The NF were able to pet u toe-hold in this dispute due to the bureaucratic, right-wing, and, at times, racialist approach of the local officials. managercut.
doing Anthony Reed-Herbert, a mem ber of the NF Directorate and gauleiter for Lercester, claims in the current issue of Spearhead that the Imperial dispute was un advance for the NF and all patriotic British workers, He claims that they have members and supporters at Im perial from shop floor to senior Certainly they do have someone in top management who regularly gave the NF detailed reports about the negotiations, But their influence is now declining fast, due to the high morale of the Asian workers Also they cannot claim responsibility CONFERENCE OF RADICAL SCHOLARS OF SOVIET AND EAST EUROPEAN STUDIES up the fight against racisms on the shop foor and in the unions And organsations and policians lik kanch Powell and the Notional Iront Whe are treme legal a hose of sayeet among working poonle trough racism, hust bo exposed as the thorouchly ante worse as Tea nans BRey are for the one day white workers strike. Thar was mainly Weaver's RESPONSIBILITY The Final responsibility for the white backlash falls full square on Mathers and the National T&G. J1 is impossible to fight racisen and the NF by advising the bluck workers to he respectful and quiet and hope that the menace sorenow gook away.
If the T&G took its resolutions agrinst racialise seriously, then it should have waged a serious cam paign on the issue within its membership. It should bave intervened at Imperial when the workers first raised their complaints-way back in February. Enereetic action (hen would have stopped.any backlash. would have cut the local right-wing down to size, and would have stopped uny NF intervention.
But they diln't. It was the victory of the black workers that has given the preconditions for unity of all workers at Imperial and a serious fight against Tucsm and fascism in Leicester.
ANOREW JENKINS