council's policy of confrontation and its decision to send home refuse workers who had refused to cross a picket line.
Somerset TGWU NORTH Somerset ambulance workers in NUPE, TGWU and COHSE were among those who defied last-minute union to postpone national one-day strike Wednesday of last week. When they returned to emergency-only cover Thursday, however, they found they were locked out unless they agreed to work normaly.
Avon ambulance workers then met and decided to strike indefinitely until the lock-out was lifted and the Somerset drivers paid for the time lost as a result of it. Three hours later management caved ambulance stations around the country WCIC meeting without exception, phoning in Socialist Challenge 1 March 1979 page 4 By John Ross AFTER some hesitation Communist Party came against the TUC/government concordat on 17 February. the Morning Star editor Tony Chater wrote:
"The so-called should be thrown in the dustbin the alongside the social contract, of which it is no more than a half-resurrected ghost...
fact is that right-wing Labour and trade union leaders will try in every possible way movement back straitjacket of wage restraint.' The sentiments expressed in Chater's article were unequivocal enough. The same cannot be said for Communist Party leaders have done in practice. and, Thus CP member Ken Gill, who sits on the TUC general council on behalf of AUEW/ TASS, Morning Star the day after the the out concordat was follows: *...because council determination not to allow this concordat... [concordat] to be used as an excuse to introduce an incomes policy, it was not necessary to oppose the document.
An opportunity to clarify the the contradiction between Chater's and Gill's available when dominated Liaison Committee lead CURE into the Defence Unions holds its conference on 10 March.
As usual the organisers are not circulating their proposed resolution prominent advance. Any resolution will, at best, be given to the delegates only when they walk in the door. quoted in the signed little practical guidance.
the general Support expressed concordat and statements the CPsuch policies of Trade conference in the Morning friends.
But if the politics of the Morning Star are what the CP for years. conference organisers come up with, the delegates can expect denunciation national strike in the public columns. sector; a call for other groups There throw support the public sector struggle; a recall Labour conference to repudiate government policies and start cooperation the fight for socialist ones would signal a unions'. meaningful fight against the But they have not been put forward in the Morning Star.+ The reason isn't hard to find.
A fight for such policies would mean a head on conflict with Star's "left' One such friend is Alan
NATIONAL LINION O