TO THE mutual surprise of union leaders and the employers, over two million engineering workers joined a one-day strike on Monday in pursuit of their wages and hours claim.
The claim is for an £80 minimum time rate, two days extra holidays, one hour off the working week with a commitment to a 35-hour week by 1982, and an April 1979 date of settlement. The demands have been correctly described as 'moderate' by Terry Duffy, the right-wing president of the Amalgamated Engineering Workers.
The surprise is that the one-day stoppages Monday's second have received widespread support. been promolca any enthusiasm by the union executive, which had previously AUEW national committee to accept the employers' offer of £70. Nor is the claim of any substantial benefit to the majority of engineering workers; the only real difference it would make would be to overtime rates.
Economy What the stoppages show is the militant workers. The demand for a 35-hour veek is especially popular with the ank and file, which shows just how out of step was the decision of the union leadership to water down the original claim for a shorter working week by pulluIg off the Registered the Union of the such They have not great urged the demand until 1982.
For part that its last offer is 'final, the HEr's huster.
35-hour Post Office as a newspaper.
the Employers' Federation is maintaining although an increasing number of individual companies are reportedly agreeing to settle on the union's terms. An all-out union strike would be the surest way to test the AUEW executive is only talking of extending the strike on an unlimited Name. surtant Published by basis to individual companies geographical areas.
Ine engineers • dispute has importance beyond the claim itself. In the AUBW it shows that the recent successes of the right wing In have destroyed potential for rank and file militancy.
What is lacking is an alternative leadership, since the official left' in the union - the Communist Party Domestic: 6 months, £5; 12 months, Abroad: Airmail, $16.50. Surface, £10 per annum •Multi-reader institutions: double individual rate Address I enclose a donation for the Fighting Fund of Cheques, POs and Money Orders should be made payable to 'Socialist Challenge'.
For and its Broad Left allies — has gone along with the executive's decision to drop the demand for an immediate 35-hour week.
But the support for the strikes is the also an indication that the working the class as a whole is in a mood to give the Tories and the bosses a hard time when negotiations for next year's pay round get under way in a couple of weeks' time.
SUBSCRIBE NOW £10 Complete and return to: Socialist Challenge, 328 Upper Street, London N1 --- < Relgocrest Lid. for Socialist Challenge, 328/9 Upper St, London N1. Square.
time. victory actions THE National Front are intending to hold their first ever 'Rock against Communism' gig this weekend. They are hoping to gain some political clout by using a Central London venue, so NF youth organiser Joe Pierce has booked Conway Hall in Red Lion Coincidentally, against Racism will be staging its own gig outside Conway Hall at the same Assemble at Russell Square tube, 7pm, Saturday 18 August. PIERS Corbyn, well-known housing militant conyicted for resisting the eviction of squatters from London's Huntley Street last August, will not be going to prison. His original 28-day sentence was reduced on appeal this week to 200 hours community service and £50 [as against a claim of £190] to cover damage caused by a bucket of water to the Sheriff's suit.
Piers told Socialist Challenge that at regarded Ine decision as a clear "it recognised that my were part of political campaign rather than an individual breach of the law'.
Printed by East End (offset) Ltd, P.O. Box 82, London E2
----- pull-quotes -----
T.G.W. UNION
OFFICIAL STRIKE
NF and RAR gigs to coincide
No jail for Piers