Engineering employers split ALL-OUT STRIKE CAN WIN CONFED CLAIM

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Oxford parents in picket at rail station protest to Tory Minister Carlisle at the complete closure of nursery facilities by Oxfordshire's Tory council.

Prostituting political principle is not on any written agenda of the Tories conference on Zimbabwe.

But it has been one of the main activities of the principal delegates.

The leaders of the Patriotic Front and the Smith-Muzorewa regime have skipped over previousty insurmountable' obstaces with an agility amazing even from such well-trained politicians.

Progress towards compromise seems in fact to have outstripped the most optimistic Tory timetable for the talks.

This haste to reach a settlement of the war is the product of the increasingly oppressive economic and political forces bearing down on both the guerrilla leaders and the racist Salisbury government.

Protracted war and continuing sanctions on trade are dragging the economy of Zimbabwe closer and closer to a total breakdown.

Sanctions

For the white bourgeoisie, and its smaller black counterpart, the lifting of sanctions is imperative, and this necessity increasingly dominates their politica arguments.

But the effects of the war are not confined to Zimbabwe.

The 'front-line' states-in particular Zambia-have suffered severe economic consequences.

The bourgeois nationalist leaders of these states are thei putting their best efforts into torcing the Patriotic Front leaders to agree a peaceful settlement.

Kaunda and his colleagues are also goaded on by fears that their own regimes may come under threat from any further escalation of the war in Zimbabwe to involve the masses more deeply in the struggleespecially when the armed militants of the Patriotic Front Continued page 2 Kaunda About 500 engineering firms, including 60 members of the Engineering Employers Federation, are now said to have conceded the national pay claim being fought for by the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions.

And the giant GEC combine is planning to leave the EEF after the present dispute, with its succession of damaging one day and two day strikes, is over.

So while the early efforts of the press to foment splits and divisions amongst engineering workers have almost completely failed, the solidarity and cumulative impact of the strikes and overtime ban are clearly splitting the employers.

Profit-hungry In a clear indication of the divisions now emerging among this, the most profit-hungry and viciously anti-union employers' bodywhich forms the very backbone of British capitalismone defecting employer told the Financial Times:

"We • can admire employers solidarity, but our business and our customers must come first"

And though most employers are still holding. out, it is this same instinct for self-preservation amongst whole sections of engineering employers which has meant that the Rolls Royce-led attempts by the EEF to spread a national lock-out throughout the industry have failed so miserably.

Interest rates

Smaller employers, already struggling under the Tories' sky-high interest rates and the effects of the soaring value of the pound on export prospects and imported goods, have shown no inclination to join Rolls Royce in shutting down production altogether.

Though Rolls management appear to have negotiated arrangements with certain customers to allow them leeway for late delivery of aero engines, they too face possible loss of orders and huge costs from the shutdown, including the full pay being given to laid off white collar staff.

Other, weaker, employers, though no less eager to deteat the sinkes clearly feel unable to take such an expensive, and so far unsuccessful gamble in the face of a determined working class.

Faltering

This faltering position of the employers and clear signs of divisions in their ranks points to the necessity for the unions to step up the action.

If the employers, despite obvious encouragement from the Tory government, now visibly shrink from a total shutdown of the industry, then a total shutdown is precisely the move necessary to force them to settle the full £80/39 hour week claim.

Terry Duffy and the other Confed leaders who have deliberately restricted the scope of the strikes must be opposed on this at every level in the unions with demands that they call all-out action.

To inflict a defeat on the EEF, or to precipitate a major split in its ranks, would strike a dramatic weakening blow at the Tory government, whose policy of confrontation has so far been energetically adopted by engineering employers, alongside management of ITV, Chrysler/Talbot and Vauxhalls.

And in strengthening the massive forward movement of the working class, (which has already made 1979 the biggest year for strikes since Heath was toppled in 1974) a victory in engineering can create favourable conditions in which to challenge and replace Duffy and other right wing union leaders, whose policies of class collaboration stand fundamentally opposed to the necessary mass action to bring down the A revolutionary leadership, capable of matching up to the tasks and possibilities of today's situation, and fighting to mobilise the working class in defence of its class interests, must be built.

Conference

The Workers Socialist League is supporting the 3 November Conference of the Campaign for Democracy in the Labour Movement (details p.11) which offers workers from engineering and other industries the opportunity to discuss the political programme and perspective on which this fight can be taken forward.

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by atrioti