Christmas brought no gifts from management for the strikers at Commonwealth Smelting Limited, Avonmouth. With management insisting that 114 sackings and wage-cuts for a further 400 are not neg otiable, and threatening a permanent close down or the site, the ten week-old struggle is becoming increasingly bitter. This was reflected in the seasonal greetings to management in a Xmas card issued by the strikers:
*Keep your presents Aussie, Keep your cuts in pay, Keep your undermanning Keep your fumes away.
We've had enough pollution We'd rather have Christmas pudding Than lungs full of lead from you.* Bitter though the strike is, the strikers have remained solid over the last fortnight. Delegates from CSL have addressed workers I south wales, Where appeals have gone out to 300 miners lodges. A commitment of support from Cardiff dockers has been gained and tours of other areas are being considered. Strikers also took part in a hospital workers demo against the cuts on 19 December (see page 8) and have spoken to Ashley Down ward Labour Party.
A setback came, nowever, wnen a resotaton tom bam University ADIMS Branch to the union's Divisional Council, urging support for the strike and an inquiry into scabbing by ASTMS members on the CoL site. was voted down Management could not run the site if ASTMS members were not doing TGWU members jobs. ASTMS workers up and down the country must demand an end to this scabbing and so remove management's last prop.
Recently attempts have been made to involve local left MPs Ron Thomas and Tony Benn in setting up a meeting with management so talks may continue. While the support of Labour leaders for the strikers is useful, a more pertinent way to help une workers demands would be to demand that these leaders mobilise support in the labour movement for the strikers.
In particular Ron Thomas, a member of ASTMS, should be doing everything in his power to get the Divisional Coun cil's decison reversed. Both he and Benn carry a lot of weight, particularly in the local labour movement. They must be forced to throw this behind the ten week-old struggle of the CS workers for the right to work and against wage-cuts.
For messages of support, donations, information, speakers etc., contact Mike O'Dea, 10 Eldon Terrace, Bed minster, Bristol.
out any delay. all they found were three hunting rifles, a pistol, two carving knives, and a 17th century lance.
Nevertheless, the regime was fully aware that the continuation of such an experiment - small peasants successfully overcoming their problems by pooling their resources and organising their work collectively - could have highly undesirable consequences in opening up an alternative in the agricultural north, whose population presently provides the only mass base of any importance for the right wing. Torre-Bela must be crushed withAnd so, on the night of 11-12 December, the Santarem cavalry regiment moved in and arrested not only the co-operative workers but also members of the neighbourhood commission in the village of Aveiras.
SELF-DEFENCE
This illustrates one of the major problems facing the vanguard of the workers' movement in Portugal today. Although the workers' strug gles developed at a very rapid pace over the summer and autumn, they were dependent on one thing: the sympathy or active support of the soldiers. If a strike, housing occupation or land seizure was threatened, the response was simply to call on the friendly troops at the local barracks. This led to a potentially dangerous division of labour which masked the essential problem of workers' self-defence.
The failure to deal with this question is now In the last issue of Red Weekly we spent a considerable amount of space establishing the facts on the Lisbon events of 25-26 November. This was necessary both to avoid any charge that we wante to avoid certain questions, and to get rid of the pseudo explanation of the PRP and the IS that the Communist Party started a rebellion and then sold it out.
The real development of events is clear. The Azevedo Government staged a provocation which at least militarily had been prepared beforehand. A sec tion of the extreme left of the army, unfortunately operating at least partially to a pre-decided plan, fell into this provocation and staged a disastrous adventure. But the PRP, while it had been politically supporting and projecting officers indisputably involved in the events right up to the eve of 25 November, did not organisationally initiate their acton