RED RAG FORTNIGHTLY EVENTS DIARY FOR READING VOLUME 2 NUMBER 8 PUBLISHED APRIL 12 COVERING EVENTS TO APRIL 27 , 1980 P&P READING ANARCHIST GROUP. NEWS TO RDG 868194/662285 SUNDAY 13 APRIL -10am -4.30pm. Day school on 'industrial Strategy' run by Berkshire Association of Trades Councils and Southern Region Trade Union Information Unit. AUEW, 121 Oxford Road. £2.00 fee. MONDAY 14 APRIL -6am at rail station, 6.15 at cemetary junction. Reading Trades Council will take us in their minibus to the Chix picket line. Back in Reading in time for work. For details CONTACT Alan Hooper, Reading 864067 -8pm Old town hall, Reading Women's Group meets, talking about women in other societies. All women welcome. WEDNESDAY 16 APRIL-8pm Old town hall, Reading Abortion Rights Campaign meets to plan next phase of the fight. Sympathisers welcome. THURSDAY 17 APRIL -7.30, Maidenhead public library. Berkshire Organic Gardeners talk about cuttings and propagation. -8pm, Red Lion, Southampton Street. Socialist Workers Party meets. Interested people are welcome. For details CONTACT Reading 669689 SATURDAY 19 APRIL - 1.30pm. Meet at the Hexagon for the RARC-sponsored leafletting & petitioning in the twn centre FOR day-care clinics and AGAINST the closure of Reading FPA clinics. MONDAY 21 APRIL -All this week RARC will be petitioning at FPA clinics in the area. Come and help. For details of times and places CONTACT Sue Jessup, Bracknell (91) 57296 -8pm Old town hall, women's group meets. TUESDAY 22 APRIL -8pm, Reading Trades Council. For delegates. WEDNESDAY 23 APRIL-7pm, Reading Police Station will be picketed this evening by the ANL and others. It's a year ago today that Blair Peach was murdered by the SPG. Are we going to allow the police to murder our brothers and sisters without even protesting? -7.30pm, St John's School, Orts Road. Meeting of all those involved or wanting to be involved in the Mayday Festival afternoon events. 'The main purpose of the meeting will be to confirm who wants/needs/can have how much space and/or facilities, and where; and to look round the premises. THE TUPAMAROS GAZETTE P2 WEDNESDAY 23 APRIL (cont.) -8pm, downstairs at the Cap and Gown, opposite the tech. Friends of the Earth talking about the politics of environmentalism. Ecology Party and Liberal Ecology Group will make contributions. Reading anarchists will butt in. THURSDAY 24 APRIL -2.30pm, Bulmersge College Room BG14 &7.30pm, Wycliffe Community Centre (next to the church at cemetary junction): Do you know your rights? East Reading Rights Group & Bulmershe Community & Youth Work Course present Housing Rights & Benefits, part of their rights training course, to tell you all about it. All welcome. For more details CONTACT Bulmershe on Reading 663387, x296 or ERRG, reading 666184 -8pm, Red Lion, Southampton Street, SWP meets SATURDAY 26 APRIL -all day, Ruskin college, Oxford. Conference on nuclear power for trades unionists. For details CONTACT SERA, 9 Poland St, London W1, 01-439 3749 SUNDAY 27 APRIL -11ish, leave Reading Station for a London demo About disbanding SPG, amnestying the Southall 342, and remembering Blair Peach. For details CONTACT Jim Fagin, Reading 666660 FORWARD PLANNING: There are two big events coming up for which we must all turn out. Make a dentists appointment for Wednesday 30 April so you can get to the national mass picket at Chix in Slough. In the evening of the same day there's a Reading strike support meeting in Reading. There's Mayday festivities, of course, as well (see attached leaflet), then after that it's all out on May 14. There won't be any public transport on that day, and there will be a mass march and rally in Reading, attended by most of Berkshire's half-million workers. Full details in next issue. In the morning of the same day it's back to Chix. If you've got a car, call Alan Hooper on 864067 so he can fill it with people for the trip to Slough. FILLER: The initial aim of the Nanterre militants (May-June 68, France) was to change reality, to eliminate social obstacles to the free development of creative activity, and the militants proceeded by elimination concrete obstacles. However, a large number of people who became the 'movement' engaged themselves in a different manner. They did not regard themselves as those who had to move against the concrete obstacles. In this sense they were passive. They 'joined a movement', they became part of a mysterious collectivity which, they thought, had a dynamic of its own. By joining the 'movement', their only engagement was to move with it. As a result, concrete people, who are the only ones who can transform social reality, were not going to change reality through their own concrete activity; they were going to follow a mysterious force - 'the mass', 'the movement' - which was going to transform reality. Thus we became dependent on an inexistent power. NEXT COPY DATE 6pm, Friday 25 April. Letters to 31B Milman Road. Donations (paper?) welcome SUPPORT CHIX STRIKERS The women and men of the Chix chewing gum factory in Slough, Berks. Have been on strike since October 10th 1979. Their fight is or the most basic trade union right.. The right to belong to a recognised Trade Union. The strikers, all asians, were forced out the gate by the refusal of the Chix management to recognise the GMWU, to which they all belonged. Earning a lousy 95p an hour, working in poor conditions and suffering constant racist abuse from the all-white supervision, the need for union organisation was clear, and the backing of the strike solid. Since the strike began, Chix have recruited scab labour, in an attempt to break the strike, they are bussed in daily and paid a higher basic rate. An appeal for blacking has gone out, and production is down to 50%, however Chix have managed to hire scab transport to deliver supplies, and there still some delivery firms who cross the picket line regularly. Many of the women have been arrested on the picket line, and have been subjected to humiliating court appearances and heavy fines. These magnificent women and men have not been deterred. They have manned the picket line daily. They are fighting to WIN. This strike must be SPREAD, with almost the entire workforce out on strike and the Factory running entirely on scab labour, the trade union movement must rally around the Chix strikers and give the support on the picket lines that is needed to stop the deliveries and scab labour. WHAT YOU CAN DO. -Explain the facts of the strike to your workmates. Take a collection in your section or department. -Call for support from your trade union branch, shop stewards committee or Trades Council, and invite a Chix striker to your next meeting. -Send messages of support and donations to; Brother Amwar, 271, Goodmans Park. Slough. Berks. -Support the daily picket line from 6.30am. onwards, send delegations to the weekly mass pickets. Every Wednesday from 6am. THE CHIX STRIKERS CAN'T WIN THEIR FIGHT AGAINST ANTI-UNION EMPLOYERS ALONE. TRADE UNIONISTS IN EVERY WORKPLACE MUST RALLY TO THEIR AID. Their FIGHT is Our FIGHT READING TRADES UNION COUNCIL MAY DAY FESTIVAL SATURDAY MAY 3rd 1980 ASSEMBLE: 10.00 am Outside Shire Hall, The Forbury Bring your banners. MARCH: 10.30 am Around Reading. Led by a marching jazz band. RALLY: 11.00 am Outside the Civic Centre Speakers:- Marie Patterson (TGWU, TUC) Jim Knapp (NUR, SE Region TUC) Joan Lestor (MP Eton & Slough) Mike Perkins (SCPS, SER TUC) and Local Trade Union speakers. FESTIVAL: 2.00pm to St John's School, Orts Road 5.30 pm Exhibitions, side-shows, food, Bookstalls, and a crèche. SOCIAL: 7.30 to Lounge Bar, Students Union, 12.00 Whiteknights. Berkshire Youth Jazz Orchestra Motley Crew Dramatic Interlude. Further information: Chris Borgars, Reading 477073 Published by reading trades union council Traditionally throughout the world, working people celebrate May Day. It is an opportunity to enjoy festival events as well as discuss the strengths and weaknesses of our labour movement. We can pay tribute to the courage and tenacity of trade unionists involved in struggles such as at Chix Confectionery and the steel workers. The TUC set an unique initiative last year with the launching of its Campaign for Economic and Social Advance designed to organise opposition to attacks on union members' rights such as the current Employment Bill; to government economic strategy which will increase the number of people out of work; and to oppose the public expenditure cuts which reduce the services available to everyone. May Day gives you an opportunity to demonstrate that Trade Unionists reject such attacks on hard-won rights of workers, women, ethnic minorities and others; to hear respected speakers from the labour movement; and later to join in social events. We in Reading see May Day as an event assisting in maintaining the solidarity and strength of the labour movement for the battles already with us, and for those yet to come.