Is your employer a boarder? Is he holding back goods to benefit from rising prices! This is the question which workers at a Glesgow food warehouse are asking, and dey are taking industrial action to gel the answer.
Seventy drivers and 120 warehouse men at the more think warhous: o Allied Suppliers (Scotland) Ltd. have blacked stocks of 30 tons of lentils since 15 January when the conpany decided to begin to distribute them to some of its 800 retail outlets in Scotland and the North of England.
Lentils are in extremely short supply, and few stores have an on their shelves All lentils are imported from che Lebanon, and costs have increased from El38 a ton last June to £345 in November. Retail prices have shat up correspondinely.
HOARDING INQUIRY
What the workers at Allied Suppliers want to know is why did their employers hold back 30 tons of the cereal they roo ened in November until the retail price had increased Troml8p to 23p a pound in January? And this question, combined with the hlacking, hat so scared the company that it bas taken large advertisements in the Scottish press to justify its position.
The warehouse workers, members of the T&GWU and USDAW, ane demanding that die rest price of die lentil be reduced! And reduced to 18p a pound The workers are also demanding an enquiry into the whole affair. Bat finding body of the capitalist state willing and able to conduct one has so far proved difficult. The Prices Hoard, on a variety of grounds, cannot do the job, despite all the Tories talk of curing inflation at a stroke? And although the management and the union officials are approaching ibe Department of Trade & Industry, the DTi has no power to act in this ares, So far the workers bave not bear very clear about the composition of the enquiry they want. Hut one thing seems very dear, The capitalist state was ciet made do things like reduce the price of basic becad and hutter items of the family Hat the workers should turn to then DAn resourUeL The trade union move ment should hold its own enguiry H public. Membors of the Pay Board, cons umer bodies, and the company, could al invited along to answer questions. If they showed up, all to the good. An audience of trade unionists and vigilant boasewives would soon get at the trich If they failed to show up, the public could waw lisowa conchisions.
The enquiry would publish its findings and the next steps could then be discussed. The support gencrated by the enquiry would provide the hasis either for tougher вив аськи го дого ше соралу ш Sower its prices or to orpanise the distr. ibution and sale of lentils by the workers ІСЛКОСЯ PIONEERS This action at Allied Suppliers is of more value lo ibe workers movement Iban all the pious speeches of the labour leaders about inflation. Actions like these could begin to have seme effect on rising peices, as well as win support for the trade union movement irom amdng many people who have been kidded along by the Tories had increased to 23p. The workers then immediately blacked them a panic when the workers begin to interfero with matters which the bosses think they have every right to keep secret, if the demand of the labour move meat for a future Labour government in freeze prices were met, the hosses would resort to all manner of sabotage, hribery of the authorities, creation of artificial shortages aic. To make any price Incuze elective, workers throughout incast would have to follow che exasuple of A group of women are to hoid a 42-hour fast and vigil outside Brixtor Prison in solidarity with the Price sisters, and the other prisoners on hunger strike. The vigil is being orgamised by the Women in Ireland Collective, and will begin at 9 p.m. this Friday evening. It will Last until the arrival of an Irish Political Hostages Campaign march, at about 3 p.mn. on Sunday, 11 February. march will begin at Claphum Common at 2.30 p.m.
Actor Cyril Cusack, and Derry journalist Eamoon MoCann were adon Thursday. Other speakers included soccer-player Eamonn Dunphy, The IPHC is keeping up the pres sure of its campaien, a car cavalcade through London's West End attract ing considerable attention last Satur day. Leaflets were distributed and balloons painted with slogans leased into the air. Gaelic football players stopped their gome to support an IPHC picket when it marched those at Allied Sappiers, Peerything te be checked, nothing to he kept sucet This would lay the hasis for a meal deterrent over the bosses worker organised to chercise direct coercion against offenders The example set at Allied Suppliers should be generalised and calended acres the workers movement, Why are food price tialeg? Part of the ansier may lie in the factory yard Why not take a look on Monday morning: through playing fields at the buck of Wormwood Scrubs Prison on Sunday Dr. Dominic Costa, and Brian Ruse Smith of the Haldane Society. This indicates the breadth of support for the return of the prisoners to finish Heir sentences in the North of IreSupporters from London and the Midlands will join a picket al GarLee Prison in Market Harborougn nea Leicester. at 2.30 p.m. on Sunday 17 Februnry, Coaches will leave Quex Rd. off Kilburn High Rd., London al 10 an that morning. The return fare is Ll.
Meanwhile in Canterbury executive of the Students Union at the Undersity of Kent passed a resolution last week calling on the NUS to launch a campaign in support of the Winchester Prisoners. And a general meeting of the Union at Canterbury overwhelmingly passed a resolution, lo be debated at the Liverpool Conference of the NUS. calling for the withdrawal of British Troops from Ireland, and the release of all Irish political prisoners.
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Women plan two day fast and vigil in support of hunger strikers
ditions to the platform of the IPHC publie meeting in the Convey Hall
Stocks of 30 tons of lentils sitting in the warehouse of Allied Suppliors in Glasgow, They arrived in November, when the retail price was 18p a pound, but the company did not begin to morn them until January, when the price