Occupy Threatened Plants

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Five years of CLO COOPY 1O yaVE SINSAYS SAYS NO! HOT.

STOP THE CES! L Ca HOREHABER 28 Another week of the Thatcher government has brought another crop of closures, as the capitalist crisis forces on the breakneck pace of rationalisation and speed-up throughout British industry.

Hard on the heels of confirmation that steelmaking is to close at Corby, at a cost of 5,000 jobs, BSC last week revealed plans to sack another 8,000 workers.

6,500 are to join the dole queue at Shotton, where the long-threatened steelworks is to close and another 1,500 at Cleveland.

Meanwhile news that the Massey Ferguson combine harvester plant in Kilmarnock is to close brought notified redundancies in Scotland to over 30,000 since April And British Leyland management, gloating at their ballot victory over the workforce, forge relentlessly on with their two-pronged plan of closures on the one hand, combined with an all-out attack on working conditions and wages on the other.

But what of the union leaders, who get up in conference after conference to denounce the evils of unemployment? What have they done to fight the closures and defend their memhers' interests?

The answer is painfully obvious.

Derek Robinson In not one recent instance has official trade union action been called to resist a factory or plant closure.

Indeed in British Leyland, union leaders have moved from last year's tacit acceptance of the closure of the Triumph plant at Speke, to a position where the Confed has actively fought in favour of the Fdwardes nian for the closure or part-closure of 13 more factories.

And the Communist Party-led BL Combine Committee, which last week rejected the outcome of the ballot and pledged to support workers in any factory who take action to oppose closure, overwhelmingly rejected a specific call for an immediate policy of occupation and token strike action in the threatened plants.

Bluster

A similar combination of militant bluster and ungainly retreat has been shown by the leaders of the biggest steel union, the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation.

Atter months or inaction on the closure of steelmaking at Corby and Shotton, the ISTC a week ago called for a national overtime ban, blacking and selective strikes throughout the industry to prevent the Corby closure.

Yet even this partial action was too much for the other union bureaucrats who sit on the TUC steel committee. They refused to endorse the ISTC call and referred it back to their executive committees.

Sirs, who had earlier Corby demonstration last month declared that the 100,000 strong ISTC would go it alone in the action if necessary, immedlately began to retreat, say simply that the union may go ahead alone-in another two weeks.

And as news came in of the closure deadline for the Shotton plant, Sirs was quoted againarguing not for action to save the threatened jobs, but for improved redundancy payments!

Meanwhile the whole focus of the ISTC campaign is directed away from what must be the crucial bedrock of any national struggle against closures: the occupation of the Corby, Shotton and Cleveland plants by the workforce.

No perspective Why is it that every variety of trade union leader from left' to right wing now finds it impossible to put forward a serious perspective for the struggle against closures and unemployment?

It is because the Tories' desperate moves to force through the rationalisation of British industry can be seriously Benn fears mass USFI splits Hobbes ..

Quadrophenia challenged only by those who reject the notion of making firms "viable" in capitalist terms.

In the present period of chronic recession and crisis, a "viable" rate of profit can be obtained only by a ruthless destruction of the least profitable sections of capital and an intensification of exploitation of the working class.

Blocking expansion Capitalism, as an anarchic system of production for private profit, not social need, now stands as a block to the further expansion of the productive forces-which is the only way in which jobs and living standards can be protected and improved.

Every concession made by the working class to the demands of the employers in this period merely increases unemployment and poverty, and worsens working conditions.

in resisting au reaunaancies, and demanding that present reduced demand in industry be met not by sackings but by a policy of work-sharing on full pay, workers must recognise the necessity to combat capitalist arguments about profitability.

The books of capitalist industry-in the private and state sectors alike-should be opened for inspection by elected trade union committees, to reveal the interconnection between "loss making" sectors and the profits reaped by the PTA Industry axeman Josepli ISTC leader Bill Sirs suppliers, contractors, and bankers.

Such figures will prove that jobs and wages will remain under continuous attack so long as workers remain victims of the capitalist system of exploitation.

They will prove the need for the nationalisation of major industry, without compensation and under workers' management.

Trade union and Labour leaders who refuse to face up to this reality, or who consciously conceal it from their members, now daily prove themselves completely unable to defend the interests of the working class.

In fighting for occupation and for supporting strike and blacking action to prevent closures, workers must recognise the need to combat such leaders.

Councils of Action

Councils of action must be formed in each area to link up win me local avour movement 1nh aramant and provide the means of combining struggles against closure with the tight against the cuts, anti-union laws and other attacks of the Tory government.

Mass action must be built to bring down the Thatcher government and to press forward the fight for the removal of the Callaghan-Healey gang and the formation of a government responsive to the needs of the working class.

For this task a revolutionary leadership is crucial.

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Union leaders reiect call for action STOP THE RETREAT!

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