IMGpapers 1976–79

Newspapers of the International Marxist Group and its forerunners, 1976–79

WHAT A BLOODY NERVE!

Socialist Challenge No. 78, 11 January 1979 · p. 1 of the scan · 353 words

The scan: sc-n78-jan-11-1979.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive, opens at this page)

Uncorrected machine reading. This text was read by machine (Apple Vision OCR) from a scan of a newspaper page, and the page was cut into articles by machine, at the headlines found by their type size. Nothing has been corrected: expect misread words, text from a neighbouring article, and titles that are the machine reading of the headline, some of them only fragments. Quote from the scan, not from this page.
How this article was cut and titled: headline found by type size in the OCR geometry (split_tabloid.py); 1-3 of 5; machine-segmented newspaper page; uncorrected Vision OCR.

page 1 of the scan

country is in crisis.

the stories are the same.

warnings are the same.

unions.

say the power of the unions must be curbed.

They threaten to use troops against strikers.

They say sacrifices are essential if the economy is to survive.

WHAT A BLOODY NERVE!

•Selfish? Lorry drivers are paid a basic wage of between E50 and £53 a week. Last year the transport and trading industry made a profit of E437,000,000, an increase of 18 per cent.

•Greedy? The wage rise the drivers of oil tankers have just won is worth between £3 and 24 a week. in 1978 Royal Dutch/Shell had a profit E3,670,000,000 and Petroleum of 22,186,000,000. From Margaret Thatcher to Michael Foot the They say the country is being held to ransom by the They say working people are selfish and greedy. They They say trade unionists threaten the sick and elderly.

Page One •Too powerful? The SEEKSOT local and central Government cannot 'afford" to pay manual workers a decent wage is because of the high interests paid on money borrowed. The basic wage rates of workers in the public sector is between £40 and £45 a week. Last year the banking industry made a profit of 21,250,000,000.

•Sacrifices? Last year Lord Grade, a director of Associated Television, was paid E210,000 CCP Pocock of Shell Transport was paid 113,000. Sir David Steel of BP was paid £96,502. W R Price of Vauxhall was paid £101,842. Rowland Wright of ICI was paid E96,363.

The rich and the powerful talk about 'the crisis'. The crisis for a lorry driver is the weekly food bill, the crisis for a hospital porter is the electricity bill, the crisis for a refuse collector is the gas bill. The crisis in the country is the CRISIS OF INEQUALITY.

Inside: Tariq Ali on Islam Next week. Women in iran Jim Callaghan spent the weekend in Guadeloupe.

the crisis IRAN'S VEILED OPPRESSION Others weren't so lucky The crisis is of inequality

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So for the umpteenth time in the umpteenth year we are told the From the Daily Mirror to the Daily Express

← OUR FUND DRIVE Stop the cuts - build the Fund DriveHaulage industry A lorry load of... →

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