THETORIES would have it that they are neutral in the engineering dispute. Industry Secretary Sir Keith Joseph insisted that' we are not taking sides in my way'. same repeated by Margaret Thatcher in a speech last week at Milton Keynes.
All of which, of course, is sheer bloody nonsense!
The Tories wall caployers John Nott, Trade Secretary, as good as said so on BBC radio when he cagineering unions of leading their sembers down cliffside berumings to their own destruction'.
Why did 76 engineering firms last year make contributions $120,300 direct to the Tory Party, if not because they could rely Tories to back them against mions?* Just because the Tories have not (as yet) imposed an incomes policy Registered with the intentions quite clear in the things she thing other words, rocket.
Meanwhile see their accused the attempts to defend jobs.
concessions on the unions' demands totalling That is why strongest employers' on the taking the the confrontation undermine escalate. And Post Office as a newspaper does not mean they are doing nothing.
Far from it. Thatcher made Tory other said at Milton Keynes, when she said that unless there is higher productivity there will be fewer jobs. But higher productivity in their books means fewer jobs anyway. In unemployment Employers' Federation is taking the lead for the bosses in resisting union Above all, the employers are determined to give been shorter working seek without loss in pay.
biggest and •federation Led sing lock-bing in provoking to the lactic of two-day class. stoppages and force the unions to that's the Confederation of British: Industry has thrown all its weight behind the Have no illusions, the houses and banks will be doing their best to see that companies hardest hit by the strike get enough credit to sit it out. Their side will be exercising their own class solidarity.
There are cracks in their armour.
smaller firms deserted the EEF and settled. Those employers who can keep production on a three-day week are less keen on lock-outs and lay-offs than Rolls Royce: Most dramatic has disclosure that Weinstock intends to pull GEC out of the federation after the dispute is over second largest company in the EEF.
Those cracks must be turned into gulfs. Make no mistake about it — this dispute is our class against their It may be the engineers doing the fighting, but they need us behind them all the way. *Facts from Labour Research Lid. for