May 14: make it the start of real action

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280 boilermakers and 190 GMWU workers engaged in building an oil rig platform at Hunterston, Ayrshire, still remain suspended after four weeks by their: employers, the Chicago Bridge Company.

The issues at stake are the totally inadequate safety arrangements on the site. On Tuesday last the management, after being lectured to by, a representative of the Health and Safety Executive decided to give way to the men's demands and meet the safety requirements.

But they then demanded that in return the shop stewards accept that the workers had been engaged in industrial action.

This would mean that they had broken their contracts and would forfeit holiday bonuses for the next six months.

The management also demanded that the compulsory working week be increased from 41) to 48 hours.

The stewards obviously could not agree to such demands and the workers remain suspended. Maximum solidarity with this dispute on the crucial question of safety is essential. A conference of repesentatives of workers in oil production and related industries is urgently needed to thrash out a programme on conditions and wages.

Messages of support and financial donations should be sent to: The Convenors Office, Ayrshire Marine Construction Site, Hunterston, Ayrshire.

As more unions, under pressure from their membership to take action against the Tories, have called for a one-day strike on May 14, even TUC leader Len Murray has been forced to declare that:

«We want all the people out on that day that the unions can get out. We want the unions to encourage people to take the day off for purposes of protest."

• For someone as reluctant as Murray to use the word "strike" this is probably as close as we are likely to come to hearing a call for all-out action on that day.

The TUC rejected a resolution from the NUR leadership asking it to instruct all trade unionists to stop work-arguing that such a call would conflict with the rules of some affiliated unions.

Boilermakers

Yet alrcady it is clear that with both the NUR and ASLEF pressurising the Transport and General Workers Union to join them in strike action, and with boilermakers and the print union SOGAT already pledged to strike action, public transport, shipbuilding and national daily papers will grind to a halt in what promises to be the biggest strike movement since the 1926 General Strike.

This is not the only parallel with 1926, however. The General Strike was ignominously betrayed by the TUC leaders (see page 8): the 1980 May stoppage represents a move by today's TUC leaders to release the pent-up militancy of the membership and avoid the necessary call to indefinite General Strike action to bring down the Tory government.

Anxious

As the Financial Times pointed out last week:

"Mr Murray was anxious to avoid any impression that the TUC was working for the government's downfall.

On the contrary the TUC leaders are as afraid as the Tories themselves of the emergence of a mass movement of 8.025 NUR leader Weighell £2.00 £4.00 £8.00 £14.00 £9.00 £16.00 £10.00 £18.00 SOGAT leader Keyes the organised working class in confrontation with this government.

Such a movement would jeopardise the bureaucratic control and privileges of the union officials, whose power rests on balancing between the strength of the workers and that of the employers.

Beaten The fact that May 14despite Murray's efforts-reach the proportions of a General Strike shows that the bureaucracy can be beaten back: in the next period it is necessary to push forward the fight for an alternative, revolutionary leadership and for all-out indefinite General Strike action to bring down the Tory government.

For a PRESS struggle against lead in the wage control, cuts and redundancies Send your chaque/P.O. to Socialist Press, BM Box 5277 London WCIV 6XX.

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