[Published by Folrose Ltd for the Workers Socialist…]
Socialist Press1979 1979-10-17Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 12 →
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Published by Folrose Ltd for the Workers Socialist League, 31, Dartmouth Park Hill, London NW5 1HR. Printed by Anvil Printers, London. Registered as a newspaper at the Post Office venors' meeting.
But the only actual pr ›licy the CP speakers could advc cate was the nationalist call for import controls to keep out "foreign" competition.
Like the reformists on the Confed Executive, the CP shrank from putting the BL cutbacks in the context of the decline of British capitalism, which now requires the destruction of large areas of productive industry in the frantic attempt to raise the rate of profit.
Not one speaker questioned why BL is claimed to be unprofitable; nobody pointed to its links with the highly profitable and privately owned component industry, and the banks.
Manipulation of prices from these suppliers and huge interest payments on loans are the major factor that guarantees BL must remain in the red.
At the same time the possible closure of BL as a whole has mammoth implications for workers throughout the engineering industry.
The full facts will never be revealed by accepting Edwardes figures.
Open the books
The only way that the BL sackings can be effectively challenged is to begin a full scale inquiry by elected trade union committees into the finances of BL, its suppliers, dealers, hauliers and bankers: Open the books to inspection! Expose the profiteers!
The facts revealed will confirm the necessity for the nationalisation, without compensation of the entire automative industry and the banks if jobs are to be protected.
Only a socialist plan of production, under workers' management, can develop rather than destroy the existing productive forces.
Workers throughout the industry must be warned, and mobilised alongside BL workers in the struggle to defend jobs and bring down the Tories.
A crucial starting point for such a campaign must be for threatened plants to be occupied now, to provide a focus for the fight against the Edwardes' plan and forestall attempts at asset stripping. All movement of work from closed plants must be blacked.
No sackings!
Whether or not BL is running down through a lack of orders caused by the capitalist recession, no redundancies must be accepted. Instead the work available must be shared by the whole workforce, without loss of pay: workers must refuse to shoulder the cost of the capitalist crisis.