[SHOTTON ISTEELWORKS STEELWORKS Steelworkers march against closure in…]

Scan page 1

SHOTTON ISTEELWORKS STEELWORKS Steelworkers march against closure in 1975 While plans were finalised last week for the axeing of 4,600 jobs, union leaders uttered no more than a feeble whimper of protest.

1,600 jobs are under the axe at the Shelton steelworks in Stoke, where the blast furnaces have been closed and the British Steel Corporation are only waiting to conclude compensation arrangements.

And plans were revealed for an fl million onvern. ment backed investment plan at the giant Singer sewing machine factory in Clydebank-bringing a loss of 3,000 jobs out of the present 5,000 workforce.

Meanwhile in what could be the biggest blow of all an announcement is expected this week on the proposals for rationalisation of London docks, where management are hoping to get the green light from the Lib-Lab government to shut down the Upper Docks-the India, Millwall and Royals, with an immediate loss of 4,000 jobs and an estimated loss of a further 20,000 related jobs in the area.

Empty talk

These closures and sackings have followed hard on the heels of the shut down of Leyland's 3,000-strong Triumph plant at Speke on Mersevside And all this takes place at a time when Labour leaders are claiming that the economic crisis is all but over!

In each case trade union officials and their hangers-on within the shop stewards movement have done nothing more than head off any moves to prepare a PHOTO: Andrew Wiard, Report serious fight against the planned sackings, and talk emptily of their "deep concern" at mounting levels of unemployment.

At Shelton, steel union bureaucrats-themselves sucked into increasingly open collaboration with BSC management through "participation'-left plant stewards alone to fight the closure threat.

The powerful response they obtained-from nearly all the unions on the plant, and from dockers at Immingham who voted for solidarity blacking actionshowed that if any national lead had been given, a major fight could have been taken up against BSC's savage rationalisation plans.

Bitter harvest

At the Singer plant workers are reaping a bitter harvest from the misleadership given by AUEW convenor John MacFadyen, who last year bemoaned the company's failure to invest in Clydebank.

Now the real meaning of capitalist investment in this period of slump has been revealed in an £8 million scheme that will slash nearly 3,000 jobs in this high unemployment area.

But neither MacFadyen nor Scottish AUEW Executive member Gavin Laird have taken steps to fight this cutback. Laird declared that "The unions will behave logically and not of his fellow officials, is the logic of seeking piecemeal reforms from capitalism in crisis. STEELWORKS London dockers, too, face a similar bankruptcy of leadership in the struggle to prevent the closure of the Upper Docks.

Rather than declare that the TGWU will mobilise its 500,000 strong membership in the London Region and its entire national docks membership to defend these jobs, officials have already offered to make concessions on demarcation and on dockers' hard won working conditions.

No preparation Steelworkers everywhere, Singer workers and dockworkers must learn the bitter lesson of the Speke closure, where hot air and empty rhetoric on the 'evils of unemployment' and the need to fight the shutdown were used by officials and stewards for months on end.

They made not the slightest preparation for occupation of the plant or a fight to open the books of the employer to expose their plans for increased exploitation of the whole workforce in Leyland.

As an international monopoly, Singers makes huge profits. The demand must be for work-sharing among the whole workforce at no loss of pay.

Expropriation

If the management choose to sack thousands of workers, the fight must be for the expropriation of that management, without compensation, under the management of an elected workers' committee.

And this fight must centre on occupation of the EPLF interview ... Garners conference Leyland round up. Clydebank factory and the election of a committee to open Singers' books.

British Steel is supposedly a 'nationalised' company -but one in which the purse strings are in fact held by the privately owned suppliers, the big manufacturers, and the banks.

The fight to defend jobs in BSC must set out to expose this hidden exploitation and establish the case for complete nationalisation of major industry and the banks.

On the docks, too, the demand for nationalisation of the National Ports Council which last year netted a cool surplus of £41 million must be a central part of the fight to defend jobs in London's Upper Docks.

Confusion

But instead of putting forward a programme for strike action and occupation on these demands and genuinely fight unemployment as it arises, TUC spokesmen have thrown up a barrage of confusion.

On the one hand they have called increasingly for import controls to prevent goods made by "foreign" workers being sold in Britain and supposedly 'save jobs'.

This reactionary, nationalist policy, which creates the illusion that workers in this country have a 'common interest' with the British capitalist class, is a conscious diversion from action against the employer to save jobs.

In fact the capitalist attacks on jobs are proceedр.11 Steel union leader Sirs: no ficht ing on an international level: throughout Europe steel jobs are being cut back, bringing strikes in Belgium; containerisation has brought a wholesale attack on dock jobs; and everywhere new technology is being used to replace jobs.

On the other hand there is the growing bureaucratic talk of the 35-hour week as a "cure" to unemployment.

For many TUC officials this is also seen as an alternative way of heading off major wage claims after the expiry of Phase 3 of wage control.

This is why so many right wing advocates of wage control have jumped into the 35-hour week bandwagon-led by Jack Jones, Hugh Scanlon, David Basnett, Tom Jackson and Geoffrey Drain.

Yet these same TUC officials stand as the main obstacle to struggles to defend jobs, wages and working conditions against attacks by the employers.

Workers in all industries must beware this fradulent use of the legitimate 35 hour week demand.

The defence of jobs will come not through the rhetoric and arm-waving of TUC officials but through strike action, occupation and the fight for nationalisation.

This calls for the building of a revolutionary leadership in the workers' movement, prepared to challenge the bureaucracy and fight for demands to defend the independent interests of the working class.

The Workers Socialist League is fighting to build that leadership.

----- pull-quotes -----

emotionally" • Unfortunate- ly Laird's "logic", like that