IMGpapers

Newspapers of the International Marxist Group and its forerunners, 1968–1988

IMG Statement on London Bombings

Red Weekly No. 32, 21 December 1973 · p. 8 of the scan · 833 words

The scan: rw-no32-dec-21-1973.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); 4-5 of 5; machine-segmented newspaper page; uncorrected Vision OCR.

page 8 of the scan

Demonstration of Maclaren workers in Glasgow The occupation of Maclaren Controls (a subsidiary of ITT-the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation), in Glasgow is entering its third week. The occupation, provoked OCK OUT threats and the movement of machinery out of the plant, followed a six week strike.

AUEW has been demanding £2.25 for labourers and semi-skilled men, and £5.27 for women-all within the terms of Phase 3. ITT have met none of these demands, offering across the board increases for men of 12.00 and 64.06 for women shift hall for folk concerts while the Directors' Suite is to be used as a creche. Corporation workers have agreed to keep water connected in response to fIT deats To shut if off, and a fight is on to get the same undertaking from electricity workens. MACLARENS MUST WIN The Maclaren occupation raises not simply the issue of redundancy or wage increase but can become a focus for a mounting wave of struggle around all the central issues which face the working class, If it is defeated, then other struggles around Phase 3 could be dragged down with it As a Maclaren's kallet states: Our fight is your fight, We want the right to a decent living standard, the right to op and the pressure on ITT, will very much depend on mass public support from the trade union movement.

PUBLIC SUPPORT Collections have been organised, and motions of support are poaring in. Clydebank TASS branch passed an immediate riotion of support and sent ES. John Brown En pinecrs have shown the way with a 20p per lead collection decided by the membership, to be discussed again each week Yarrous are taking up the question, and money has been offered from due UCS fighting fand. Support has come from stadents, community organisations, and the womens liberation movement, while local shopkeepers are donating food purThe AUEW Shop Stewards Quarterly on Satunday will also be discusing the ques tion, They need to call for factory meetings collections, pledges of support, and demonstrations of public support in Glas One dangor is that the trade union leadership in Glasgon, fearing that the tsue will escalate beyond their control, will attempt lo confine the action. On Satur day's STUC demonstration against Phase 3. there was no speaker from, or reference to Maclaren DIRECT ATTACK IT's strategy of slare them out' has received a severe set-back already. But it will not be long before another fack Is tried. Theme is a real danger of a direct attack on the factory, but the police will not move in if the political price is too high. It has to be made clear that any such attempt wouid provoke a response as big as that at Saldley Coke Depot This mcans obtaining pledges of physical support from local organisations, neighAs we go to press no one has positively claimed responsibility for the latest Lon don bombings, although the press cam paign is rolling down its, by now, well worn channels As before, the behaviour of the police has been ghoulish. There is a mountain of evidence that bomb warnings in Bal fast have been dalerately ignored. On top of the unexplained failure to clear the aren of the Old Bailey blast in the summer, we now have the ill-explained failure to clear the area of the Horsferry Road bomb Our attitude has not changed aither. It would not be strange if Republicans decided to retaliate by hitting at targets in London. The treatment of the Winchester prisoners is a scandal. Whila UDA and British Army, convicted murderers are allowed to surve their sentences whare they choose, the Price sisters and their comrades are brutally force-fed to breek their hunger strike and keep them in England, Unlike the British press, and some sec -tions of the British left, we try to envisage how the world looks from Anders. town. Forcible feeding is a deliberate insult to the Rapublicans, they recall the death from force feeding of Republien militant Tom Asha in the 1920s, ange fills them, and makes them more detar mined to fight a callous enemy. We reassert our umminering solidarity with the Provisional IRA, and all other forces fighting British Imperialism, whe ther or not they ara responsiblu fo these bombs, Wr will keep up our struggle on behalf of irish political prisoners, to build the Troops Out Movement, and to campaign for self-determination for the Irish people.

But again we rapest our conviction that a bombing campaign in Britain, if the IRA is responsible for these bombs, is tactical ty mistaken, The development of mass political support for the m-patriation of the prisoners, and to get the troops out is a slow Job, but a bambing campaign cannot help this work and can potentially confuse and demabilise sup port.

But our solidarity with the Republican struggle is unconditional, and we se those latest event as a challenge to Increase our palitical work on the irish I question.

Junta man Chased through

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