[DON'T GO HINTO THENGA BUNDFOLDH wage control, cuts…]

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DON'T GO HINTO THENGA BUNDFOLDH wage control, cuts and redundancies Having been pressurised into a verbal call for national action to defend thousands of jobs at the threatened Corby and Shotton steelworks, the industry's major union, the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation, has been left in the lurch by craft union bureaucrats and the GMWU.

ISTC leader Bill Sirs, embarassed by mass opposition to BSC's closure plans, had called for a national overtime ban and programme of selective and one-day strikes to oppose the closures.

While such action left out the necessary fight for occupation of the Corby and Shotton plants, and all-out strike action, it would undoubtedly have ¡ET SOCIALIST dramatic impact on steel production and amount to the first national official action against a closure.

But it proved too much for Sirs' fellow bureaucrats called. -particularly blastfurnacemen's leader Hector Smith.

Refusing to make any pretence of defending the able climbdown. independent interests of the working class, Smith has been the most outspoken advocate of speed-up, demanning and voluntary redundancies in BSC.

Bluff porting action.

Under his leadership blastfurnacemen at Shotton have declared their support for BSC's closure plans, and the NUB Executive seems certain to refuse to participate in Sirs' proposed national action.

GWU members at Corby have also been led to vote against any resistance to the closure.

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Six months Rest of the Six months For Please send clear of Socialist lead in the Name. . Address The recent RCN conference defeated the proposal by 3,742 to 2,849, well short of the two thirds majority which was needed.

The RCN has stood as . a bastion of anti-unionism, tying nurses in chains of 'professionalism'-a euphemism for servility.

Both NUPE and COHSE were rightly committed to oppose the RCN's application if it came, but elements of the TUC must have been hoping for a different result, to strengthen their grip.

What the RCN in the TUC would mean can be seen from the way the motion was Corby workers Further steps to turn the So it looks more and former industrial area of more as if Sirs' increasingly North London into a wastehollow-sounding bluff about land were announced last the ISTC going it alone if week with the projected necessary is likely to be closure of the 51-year old Firestone tyre plant at And if this is the case no Brentford-close by the worker should be surprised to see him engage in a miser- defunct AEC plant.

All 1,500 workers face The only tangible way in redundancy in the closure, which the company blame on which such a betrayal can financial losses on their UK be combatted is if the operation and on the disappearCorby and Shotton work- ance of the market for cross-ply force take a categoric decis- tyres. ion to occupy their plants Right wing union leaders at and demand national sup- the plant-whose industrial relations history is described as "impeccable" seem decided not even to go through the motions of opposing the closure as did Dunlop stewards in the closure of the Speke tyre plant.

They accept without ques tion that Firestone should solve its crisis at their expense, and are to concentrate simply on negotiating redundancy payments.' With leaders so willing to see the bosses' point of view it hardly needs a manager to issue Bill Sirs the final notice of closure.

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"Said that the RCN was the voice for nurses and must not stand in isolation. The TUC was a moderating force which also mediates between unions and calls off strikes."

Even this shrewd estimate of the role of the TUC was not sufficient to have a majority into voting for affiliation.

Management tool

The RCN's rapid growth has been pointed to as proof of nurses' distaste for unions. But the allegiance of nurses to the body can be seen to be less than enthusiastic.

With workers by the thousand taking to the streets to oppose Tory policies there is plainly no lack of militancy in the organised working class.

Yet the existing trade union bureaucrats and Labour leaders -whether right or 'left'-have no perspective to offer those workers prepared to fight in defence of jobs, living -standards, social services and democratic rights.

These can only be defended through policies which start from the independent interests of the working class, which, as an • international class, has nothing to gain and everything to lose from attempts to restore the profitability of their "own"

employing class.

In a period where the contraPlease send me more details of the Workers Socialist League.

Name .

Address Send to: WSL 31 Dartmouth Park Hill, London NW5 1HR Price £1.00 Socialist Press, London council received a poll of about à third of that!

Needless to say there are no press witch-hunts against a leadership which claims to speak for 150,000 yet is elected by fewer than 2% of the membership.

Of 50,000 student nurses offered an "advisory' vote only 377 took it up!

The RCN is a management tool with no real grip over the mass of nurses.

Where strong union campaigns have been launched they have shown the RCN can be wiped out. dictions of the anarchic capitalist system force the wholesale closure and destruction of the productive forces of society, only a socialist planned economy on a worid scale offers a way forward.

To achieve such a perspective a leadership is needed which, in today's struggles fights to advance workers beyond trade union militancy, protest politics and illusions that capitalism can be abolished through parliament.

The Workers Socialist League is a Trotskyist movement fighting day in and day out to build such a principled leadership in the working class in Britain and internationally.

We invite all readers of Socialist Press to seek • more details of the WSL and its work and to join us in the struggle for socialism.

STILL AVAILABLE WSL MANIFESTO A basic statement of the policies of the League. Price 15p acluding postage from NW5 1HR CALENDAR plus 20p p&p. 31 Dartmouth NW5.1HR

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SOCLALIST PRESS, Wednesday 21 Norember 1979

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