Ist Meccano Leads

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As we go to press the giant Airfix Industries seems likely to approach the High Court for an injunction to enforce the eviction of occupying workers from the closed Meccano factory on Merseyside.

This move follows a vote last Thursday by nearly a quarter of the original 1,000strong workforce to reject the company's redundancy payments and fight on in defence of their jobs.

The occupation has lasted right through the 90-day statuitsel notice period-which was only forced upon an arrogant Airfix management, who at first attempted to sack the entire workforce with only hours' notice on a Friday afternoon.

No backing But the action has taken place without any official backing from the major union concerned-the GMWU-which has offered not'a penny piece of strike pay.

In this contemptuous stance towards members fighting to defend jobs in an area of huge • unemployment the GMWU was followed by the AUEW. APEX, which paid out hardship money, is now demanding it back from those demoralised members who have accepted redundancy pay. ments!

The GMWU official-former Meccano convenor Mike Eganspoke demagogically to the press after the mass meeting, declaring that "They will have to carry us out!", , and promising "We will go down fighting"

But as part of the GMWU bureaucracy, Egan must know full well that the struggle has been cold-shouldered by the country's third largest, union, and that his display of militancy is solely for local consumption.

He has never attempted to direct the solid determination of the occupying workers into the fight to force Basnett and the national leadership to declare the, struggle official, or to mobilise supporting action against other Airfix plants and operations.

New employer Instead, attention has been focussed on the utopian search for a new capitalist employer to buy up the discarded factory, as time has ticked by and the struggle has been left isolated.

Yet the Meccano occupation has been the one ray of hope in the midst of a spate of factory closures carried through on Merseyside with scarcely a finger lifted in opposition: everywhere else the role of convenors and union bureaucrats has been to head workers away from mounting the challenge to the "rights" of the employer that is involved in seizing threatened factories, plant and equipment.

. An appeal from the Meccano occupation to the Merseyside labour movement, to public sector unions fighting Tory cuts, and to the broader trade union movement nationally could have had a dramatic effect in mobilis ing solidarity action.

Yet Egan has failed even to mount a tangible appeal to other TGWU members on Merseyside: there has been no attempt even to raise a local financial levy to support the Meccano struggle!

But for all the time that has been lost, as long as the occupation remains unbroken it is still possible to mount such an initiative.

Win support

If Egan is serious about the fight to defend jobs he must break from his past record and take up the struggle to win official backing from the GMWU nationally and mobilise GWU workers in the area.

Failure to do so on his part will confirm the clear impression that he is no more than a left talking bureaucrat.

Meccano workers have given a lead: they must now go all out to mobilise the maximum possible support. This means they must:

*Maintain the occupation! Defy the bosses' courts!

*Demand official GMWU support-full strike pay and fullscalę national blacking of Airfix goods and suppliers!

*Open the books of Airfix! Elected trade union committees must probe the financial juggling that produced the "losses" at Meccano! Show the need for the nationalisation of Airfix without compensation, under workers management!

*Join the fight for General Strike action to bring down the job-slashing Tory government!

*Build a council of action drawing delegates from the whole Merseyside labour movement to defend and strengthen the occupation against court rulings, bailiffs and police!

*No surrender! Defend jobs! MERCANO