Seamen , Boilermakers, Tgwu ~ Now for the Rest of Us

Where, oh,where in the Labour Party are the demoerats who will come forward and stop this gross betrayal of the trade union movement?’ This question which Danny McGarvey the Boilermakers' leader, posed in his presidential address to the union, on Tuesday, is echoing round the whole trade union movement. With the seamen's strike, the Government's totally unjust and anti-socialist incomes policy has ceased to be merely an unpleasant blue-print, and has become a real end dangerous fact. Mr. Wilson has shown that he will not draw back from smashing the seamen's organisations in order to excercise control over wages. After his generous offer of beer and sandwiches had failed to subborn the Seamen's leaders ("We are not the NUR" one of the strike leaders was alleged to have said), Mr. Wilson has shown his other face to thems now they are enemies of the state", which means that the whole weight of the state will be brought in to déféat then, ; 2 Harry Nicholas, of the TGWU, has already asked the dockers to stand ready for action. The moment. the %oyal Navy moves into this situation, it is vital that the dockers should move out, And if the Government does not learn the lesson then, it is crucial that other groups of workers should join to teach them, Our friends at the airports, for instance, who, in the dynamic technicians! unions, are solidly ranged against the incomes policy, must already be discussing what can be done to aid the seamen. Given this vital aid, the seamen can win, And their very solid fight will take the whole issue of the defence of trade unionism on to a new plane, Already the seamen are going on to the offensive, as their demand "Open the books", which we publish on page 2 reveals, This is the proper answer to th: incomes policy: if there is a crisis in the British economy, it is the responsibility of the organisers of that economy: and no sacrifices whatever can be expected from the workers until they are accorded their rights as policy makers, over-riding the alleged "prerogatives" of managements which stand exposed as prerogatives of inefficiency, inhumaity and greed, Mr, ‘ilson's confrontation with the seamen would not be needed if he would follow socialist policies: but since he is not, the whole Labour Movement must help the seamen, and work for the building of an authentically socialist movement which can help undo the damage which this rift is doing the Labour Movement,