builing workers union, UCATT, are living up to his best traditions. Dave Sheaton, the full-time official of the T&GWUl has denounced the strike in hysterical terms and has sent a Telex round T&G branches telling them not to strike.
In contrast to this the striking scaffoldets, who now include all the scaffolden on Tyneude, have mothing to hide. Their strike is a model of working class democracy in action.
Regular mass meetings are held to take all important decisions, and the day to day running of the strike is in the hands of a democratically elected strike committee. With the help of local students a regular strike bulletin is producod two or three times a week to keep all strikers informned of developments and inform other workers in the area of their struggle.
One of the main demands the scaffolders want taken up is that the T&GWU, to which they all belong, should make the strike official.
NEW SUPPORT It is the democratic organisation of their strugee which has laid the basis for winning support for the scaffolders. Only last week delegates from the strikers spoke to a mass meeting at Motherwell Bridge Offshore site at Leith, and to the stew ards committees at the Robb-Caledon shipyard and Parsons-Peebles Engineering and at the Bovis-Myton In Aberdeen the scaffolders spoke at the Hull-Russell shipyard and to stewards at Aberdeen Docks, a well as at a meeting in the University. All the meetings were set up by the International Marxist Group in Scotland, and the stewthe whole labour and student movements, as we have seen in the way the police and Special Branch are using the so-called "Anti-Terrorism Act"
"Furthermore, the Eldon Square dispute has raised the buming ques tion of to whom Labour Governments and Labour Councils are resp onsible their cronies in the ruling class, or to the working people who elected them in the first place. We should be demanding an enquiry into the building programme of the local Labour Council, to be carried out by delegates from the trade union movement, and for resources to be put into municipal housing. schools, and welfare buildings which will benefit the working class into costly "prestige projects".
MASS PICKET The scaffolders themselves are well aware of these problems. Last week they supported a demonstration by students protesting against the closure of the teacher training college at Alnwick. Now their aim is to build a mass picket outside the court on 10 March when the ten imprisoned pickets come up for trial.
Every militant in the Tyneside arca should fight for token stoppages and lake time off to support the demonstration outside the court on 10 March. Further messages of support for the scatfolders strike and the demonstration should be rushed to the Strike Committee, cjo Eddie Brady, 86 Benwell Lane, Newcastle (tel. 0632-32365).
Newcastle -not Newcastle were on the march, and several union branches sent deleg ations, the majority of the demonkers Revolutionary Party.
and extreme hostility from the trade union burcaucrats and the Communist Party, the march took the question of the Shrewsbury pickets into many sections of the labour movement and correctly posed the need for a general strike as the only way to free the two.
However the WRP (the main force behind the Wigan Building Workers Action Committee) simply saw the march as a means to build their own orgunisation. Instead of fighting for the maximum unity of ayal of the two by the TUC and their allies in the Communist Party.
ian ends.
The Wigan to London march to free the Shrewsbury 2 finally reached London on Saturday 22 February. Though 80 striking scaffolders from strators were supporters of the Wor However, in the face of inactivity the march.
all those forces opposed to the betr Newcastle scaffolders on Saturday's march to free the Shr the WRP pursued their own sectarIn order to do this the WRP have broken every noon of working class democracy. In Liverpool, Manchester and Coventry, members of the IMG who wanted to support the march were paysically prevented from selling their papers and carryine their banners on the march.
Even before the coach to London left Newcastle last Friday mght, three members of the IMG who had fought for a C20 donation to two. the march through the local National Union of Students were grilled by WRP members before being allowed to travel. Then they accusa us of not wanting the march to be a success! Workers Press has even panted slanderous Lies accusing other revolutionary organisations castle. of 'cunspiring with the TUC against The sectarian practices of the WRP cannot aid the fight to free the two. It is only by allowing all orgunisations of the working class to put their point of view, and involving all orgunisations in joint actlon, that a real campaign can be built. Working class democracy is a necessity if we are to defeat the manoeuvres of the trade union bur caucracy and the Communist Party The Wigan march can still provide a start. The support it has mobilised in various areas can lay the basis for action committee campaigning for strike action. Scotions of the labour movement like the Kent and Yorkshire miners have gone on rocord calling for i one-day stoppage. They should set a date for the strike as a first step to a general strike to free the However, we must not limit the struggle to the Shrewsbury pickets Under the Labour Government there have been more attacks on pickets. Most recently ten pickets have been arrested at the Eldon Square scaffolders dispute in NewOnly a united campaign on all these fronts can really seize the initiative from the bureaucrats and (British section of the Fourth Inter. national)
97 Caledonian Rd., London N.1.
7 would like more information about the IMG and its activities Red Woekly 27 February 1975 Page 11
----- pull-quotes -----
International Marxist Group