Shipyard Leaders Yar Vote for the Dol
Socialist Press1979 1979-08-29Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 1 →
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With only a handful against, a union delegate conference of shipyard workers in Newcastle last week voted for an 'orderly transition' to the dole queues of Scotland and the North of England.
This was the response to British Shipbuilders' decision to close yards and scrap 6,000 jobs.
The words orderly transition' were those of Boilermakers Union chief Chalmers, declaring his opposition not to the destruction of whole sections of the industry but only to the means of carrying it out.
His opposition merely to 'compulsory' redundancies and the imposition of a token overtime ban confirms his reformist politics to be as bankrupt as the shipbuilding industry whose viability he staunchly defends.
Certainly the employers are annoyed that the various sanctions decided on at the Confed conference are to be implemented. But they, like the union bureaucrats who proposed them, are well aware that such measures will not save a single threatened job.
Slump
Just as with steel where Chalmers' co-thinkers have similarly ducked calling all-out action and supervised the industry's gradual run-down over several years), the capitalists in Britain are gripped by a huge international slump in these major sections of the While Confed leaders talk starry-eyed nonsense about a 'revival'| in 1981, the drive towards rationalisation intensifies.
'Yet key delegations in full of the right-wing's line included those led by prominent members of the Communist Party who are actually in the leadership of yards on the closure list.
Though their left reputation undeservedly gained during the UCS struggle against Heath, was based on the correct tactic of occupation, they show no sign of raising this demand against the latest attacks.
Instead it has been the Communist Party who have championed the one day protest strikes.
As with steel, seizure of workplaces in line for the axe must be accompanied by a campaign for elected rank and file trade union committees to open the books of the industry, its suppliers and bankers.
A programme of useful public works must be worked out to provide alternative employment as part of struggle for a planned socialist LONDON RKERS SOCIAL LEAGUE Public Meeting V'T LET TURI COME ANOTH CHILE
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Conway Hall iday Septembe 7.30 p.m.