[Over 900 workers at the Meccano plant on…]

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Over 900 workers at the Meccano plant on Merseyside a week ago took over the factory and are holding a 'work in' with a view to the setting up of a workers' cooperative.

The move was in response to management's sudden announcement on Friday November 30 of the closure of the plant without any notice.

A positive sign in the struggle has been the apparent willingness of the leaders of the six unions to question management claims that the factory was making a loss.

This was evident during the interviews with the press, at which representatives of Socialist Press were present.

AUEW convenor Bernard Riley and Metal Mechanics union convenor and secretary of the joint stewards committee John Lynch spoke of the workers' attempts to obtain an independent report on the financial state of the firm.

They declared themselves in favour of a full trade union investigation into company claims that the plant is not viable.

This is a refreshing departure from the seemingly endless round of closures on Merseyside where workers have time and again been sold out by leaders unwilling even to question capitalist viability.

The workers at Meccano must press home this policy by demanding that all books and accounts of the firm, together with its parent company Airfix, be handed over to the elected trade union • committees responsible for carrying out this investigation.

Access i must also be demanded to the books and accounts of the banks, suppliers and retail networks that 'service' the company.

Interest payments

The latest company report states that although the firm claims to have made a loss of £920,000 in the last six months and the parent company made a loss of £659,000 as a result of this, these figures were dwarfed in the same period by colossal interest payments to the bank of over £1 million!

A worrying development came on Monday December 3 when officials of the main union at Meccano, the GMWU, (consisting overwhelmingly of women workers) were reported to be in favour of ending the occupation of the plant in favour of the work in' tactic.

This-like that of attempting to set up a cooperative -is a dead end that must be rejected. The establishment of a cooperative within the existing capitalist crisis would inevitably mean that the interests of the Meccano workforce-the right to a job, a living wage and good working conditions-would be sacrificed in a vain effort to compete in the anarchic jungle of the capitalist market place where all is relegated in the hell for leather scramble for profit.

For every successful firm there is another that must go to the wall.

The clear need is for the toys industry, as part of the engineering industry as a whole, to be taken out of the hands of the profiteering employers, and placed under the social ownershir of the working class. • In practice this means the nationalisation of the toy industry, without compensation, • under the management of elected trade union committees, as part of a socialist planned The press has also tried to direct workers' attention to the large number of "foreign' imports, a position which is being opportunistically played upon by trade union and Labour Party 'lefts' who are calling for import controls as substitute for serious action to defend jobs at Meccano and elsewhere.

Strike action

Nationalisation will not be won by alliances with British capitalists which simply palm off unemployment on to the backs of workers overseas.

Nor will it be won, in Parliament either, as these traitors maintain.

It can only be brought about by demanding that the union leaders organise national strike action in support of the occupation throughout the industry. The demand that dockers black all Airfix goods must be extended through a vigorous campaign of flying picketing to bring the parent company to a standstill.

Those Labour lefts such as Heffer and Loyden who have visited the plant to register their verbal support must be pressed to carry the fight into the Labour Party.

This means fighting to remove the right wing Callaghan leadership and all those who say we have to allow the l'ory government to remain in office for its full term and who oppose action to bring them down.

They must be forced to campaign for the extension of the fight against closures such as at Meccano into a generalised action to force the Tories out of office. To facilitate this struggle it is necessary to build local committees of action consisting of delegates from all labour movement bodies.

Such committees can prepare the action ' to support and extend the occupation and bring down the Tory government through mass strike action.

*Extend the occupation through national industry-wide strikes!

*Open the books of the company, the banks and retailers to elected trade union committees, to reveal the need to nationalise the toys industry, without compensation, under workers management, as part of a socialist planned economy!

*Work sharing on full pay!

*Build councils of action!

*Oppose all import

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MECCANO FOREWT