Mike Kidron Replies to Tony Topham

Tony Topham has done a disservice to your readers, In his review of Tony Cliff's and Colin Barker's pamphlet, Incomes Poli legislation and Shop Stewards (The Week, 2nd June), he writes: "The implication of much of the pamphlet's final section is that shop st :wards must break away from the 'dead weight of bureaucracy' and form an alternative to trade unions," He adds, "All reforms, according to their thesis, are 'reforns from above', Topham has cither not read the pamphlet or has read it in order to misconstrue it, for the authors are explicit, On the first they write: "Local bargaining" (i.e., the area of shop steward activity, M.K.) “and national bargaining" (i.se., the trade union sphere, M.K.) "are the two legs on which workers walk, and a man with only one leg hardly walks faster or more strongly than a man with two" (page 66), On the second, their views are put unambiguously in the final section, called "Do-it-yourself" reforms, where they write inter alia that in their daily struggle workers are “destroying the tradition of reformism-fromeabove, They are developing a new tradition of 'do-it-yourself! reforms..." But your readers can judge for themselves by sending for the 136-page pamphlet - 38. post paid to Chris Davison, 83, Greyhound Rd., London N. 17.