Shut Down This Bomb Factory

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BUT WHAT FOR?

Work will be "resumed as soon as possible" declared the Ministry of Defence last week as it reluctantly bowed to public pressure and closed down the plutonium-handling areas of the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston.

This "work" consists in manufacturing and refurbishing British imperialism's nuclear weapons stock, as well as research into new, more lethal bombs and shells.

The fear that most haunts top military chiefs is that the closedown could hamper the ability of the British capitalist class as part of NATO to play its full role in intimidating the workers and peasants of the world and threatening the nationalised property relations of workers' states in Europe and Asia.

Lethal

Indeed the revelation that so far 12 of Aldermaston's thousands-strong workforce have been subjected to dangerous levels of plutonium merely highlights the fact that the plant itself is designed to provide British capitalism with the deadly means for deliberately exposing thousands or millions of workers to lethal amounts of radioactive fall-out and contamination.

Rather than arguing for the Aldermaston plant to be reopened with new "safety" checks, the trade unions concerned--the TGWU and the AUEW-should be fighting for the complete closure of the weapons research unit, with the entire staff being kept on full pay until such time as a planned programme of research into the uses of nuclear energy, sunder the control of elected trade union committees, can be launched.

Meanwhile attention must also be directed towards safety standards in force at other nuclear establishments.

The Aldermaston scandal seems likely to cause disruption on Atomic Energy Authority projects which are at least nominally peaceful in contentincluding research into industrial reprocessing of nuclear fuels and the disposal of radioactive waste.

The trade unions concerned must call on the labour movement as a whole to play a role in lifting the shroud of the Official NEEDS Secrets Act from the activities carried out in these establishments, and enforcing trade union control over the application of nuclear energy.

To carry out such a fight, the reactionary Labour cabinet leaders who have shamelessly conspired to finance the warmongering actions and preparations of British imperialism must be removed.

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UST PRESS, Wednesday 30 Page S

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