gineering works was set alight by an anonymous scab during another picket of the Salford Electrical Lestruments factory in Ecoles on Monday The Gardner's men were supporting members of the clerical workers' union, APEX, now in their sixth week of strike action for El +45 and a one-third reduction in the male/female differ. ential as a first step towards equal pay The solidarity of the Gardner's men is in clear contrast to the belavuur of the shop-floor production workers at SET (which is part of the GEC combine) These workers, many of whom are in the AUEW, have rejected calls even to black materials coming into the plant. The picket was also supported by a number of let't-wing groups as well as members of Women's Liberation, and together with the strikers they blocked the gate which management had chained open. However at 8.00 a.m. precsely the police moved in, whereupon APEX official Peter Scott informed the picker chat be wouldn't like any arrests so would they please clear a pach. It was while the police were enforcing this that the banner was set alight The scabs were then escorted through to shouts of "Get up off your knees you'll find you te bipeer than the managerent' Compared with last week's mas picket, the support on Monday from the Confederation of Shiphuikling and Engineering Unions was disappointing. Clearly if this struggle towards equal pay is to be succeasful it will need much mote support than it bas so far received. Such divisions underline the importance of the moves cow being made by the CSEU and the Manches ter and Salford Trades Council to establish a rank-and-file frade union liaison committee with the aim of supporting ail trade unionists in struggle. •Joe Roberts 1 Micheel Price independents since the rajors control their own crude, has doubled in the last few months and threatens any day to rise abose the 'posted" price — the basis on which the ronjors pay taxes to the producing countries. This would stimu late new demands from the producing coun tries for another rise in the posted price which would lead to further inflation.
Alreudy the rise in the market price has sharply lowered the profits of the independents, nowhere more than in Italy where Inflation fears have kept the retall price of petrol fixed since 1969, It is the decision of the independents to cut back production which has led to Italy's petrol shortage. It will be one of the firat problems of Rumor's new Centre-Left government to choose hetween solving the supply crisis and adding to Italy's surging inflation, Petrol shortages, therefore, are the tip of an iceberg - not of an energy crisis but of the growing world-wide problems of the capitalist system.
Last Friday, 100 delegites from building sites all over London picketed the Dean's site in Batterses to demand that "no lump labour operate on the site. After an hour, Alan Tattam (UCATT organiser) informed the mass picket that Dean's had been forced to withdraw lump labour from the site.
Despite the enthusiasm among London bubding