United Vided

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April 8 is the date in the forefront of the thinking of union leaders in steel and British Leyland.

*It is the deadline set by BSC for steel unions to obtain a return to work on the Lever commission's pathetic 15.5% pay offer;

*And it is the date put forward for the start of all-out strike action by 85,000 manual workers in BL cars against management moves to impose a 5% pay increase linked to savage union-busting strings.

Frightened beyond belief by the growing strength and militancy of the working class as demonstrated in the steel strike-where full-time union officials have been ignominously thrown off strike committees and the increased power of the rank and file has brought successive defeats for ISTC leader Bill Sirs-the bureaucracy are determined at all costs to prevent these two major struggles linking up.

This means last minute moves to knife the 14-week steel strike, coupled with brazen moves led by the AUEW bureaucracy to sabotage the call for strike action by BL negotiators.

It has been plain every since the steel strike began that right wing union leaders Bill Sirs and Hector Smith were looking only for a suitable pretext to move for a return to work.

Despite occasional militant speeches, Sirs has consistently struggled to keep the issue of pay-BSC's insulting 2% pay offer-separate from the swingeing programme of closures and 50,000 redundancies planned by the Corporation.

This crucial weakness is in no way a reflection of the mood of the membership, for whom the issues of pay and jobs have been increasingly seen as one and the same: in Port Talbot, for instance, mass meetings of both manual and craft unions have voted to stay out indefinitely until all jobs are safeguarded, no matter what the outcome on pay.

Sirs however has continued start out not from the indeendent interests of his members in defence of jobs and inditions, but from the "viabily" of the steel industry, and he need to restore profitability • the basis of "sacrifice" by opfloor workers.