sympathetic action was "really making it difficult, ' The last thing an employer wishe o do is to sue workmen for vast sums o money. The workmen cannot find £320,000, so one is compelled to seek the assistance of the **There is no question of the court interfering in trade union relations, or in a labour dispute between employers and employees." The function of a court is "lo preserve the status gro The students at the University and at the that if ever they are called upon they will respond. Spokesmen of the men addressed packed meetings of students at each place.
Their message was simple, but to the point and fective. *The men are on strike, they need assistance and some expertise. The students can help, if they will?" The students replied in a practical positive manner, with assistance at the picket, the production of posters for a march bulletin with the approval of the men. Less help was forthcoming from their Labour MPs who refused to comment. (Come the General Election we will see what they say).
Following the use of injunctions the sympathetic strikes were called off and the fish caught by the blacked trawlers could be marketed. Consequently the strikers created and became caught in conditions which the strike brought about. A false scarcity of fish inflated the price of the catch, and the owners are prepared for a short term loss to defeat the men. In these circumstances wages of £80 a week are not uncommon. In addition to which the unemployment is the highest since 1939. with 7,439 out of work. In a vastly oversubscribed register of 1800 fishermen with the sea and not time in port. They would, therefore, above wages and employment prospects, blacklegs are not hard to find In conclusion can it be said that because students and fishermen are "the two most despised sections of society" they can find a common level of activity? When men have a critique of the police which recognises the role of the state, then they are going to know their limitations and logistic weaknesies. In this situation it is logical that students with skills and time, and above all a definite anti-capitalist perspective should be called upon to help.
NEW MILITANCY It is not a coincidence that an upturn in the level of militancy and combativeness of worken should follow on the heels of student combativity. Srudents have shown their theit experience of industrial disputes is limited: capacity for defending themselves, an exumple willinelv imitated by a frustrated, leaderless As the 1970 AEF Annual Conference draws nearer, so the position of Bro. Scanion and his hangers-on becomes less secure.
Scanion's abandonment of the women engineering workers at the last AEF Conference, and the betrayal of the Swansea Ford workers last month, caused surprise and dismay amongst many shop stewerds and rank-and-file workers.
Marxists, however. were not surprised. Indeed, we were saying that Scanion would betray the militant workers back in November 1967, when he was being presented to the engineering workers as a 'Sasiour" by an extremely unholy, and very shaky, alliance of Labour "Lefts", Workers Control Institute upporters, and Stalinists. The atmosphere o he Nov. '67 elections was added to by Fleet Street's descriptions of Scanton as a "hard man of the left", a "boss hater" and so on. Ir was ou the basis of Scanion being a "hard man" and someone who would defend them against the attacks of the Labour Government, that the engineering workers elected him as President. They elected Scanion to fight the Labour Government, and this is precisely what he could not do.
For all his big left talk of socialist societies. industrial demorracy, workers control, ele., Scanlon is dedicared to the preservation and continuation of a Labour Government. The fact that Wilson, Castle, Jenkins and the like are in control of that Government seems irrelevant. indeed, he says of the Wilson Government that * has the capacity to build the type o ociety we would wish to see and is worthy o our continued support." It is only by realising, therefore, that Scanion is nothing more than a Social Democrat, and that he and Wilson are just different ends of the same stick, that we will be able to understand his apparent changes of face If we look back to 1967 after his election, we can see how Scanion immediately adopted a militant posture, coming out agrinst the TUC's voluntary incomes policy, saying that if was * Totally unaceeptable that we surrender our autonomy and independence of action."
Eighteen months later, at a mecting of the Confederation of Engincering and Shiphuilding Unions, he was facing the other way. extolling the virtues of the TUCS "Progattime for Action", and being reminded by Eddie Marsden of the Constructional Engineers Linion that this " merely transferred the right to infervene in unofficial disputes from the Government to the TUC
Once a picture has been secured fora