The Internationai Iobs Massacre

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buacel case be independent class action tight. For a workers govern- buds hile such complaints are an to challenge the right of the ment!

Published by Folrose Ltd for the Workers Socialist League, BM Box egistered as a newspaper at the Post Office. Signed articles do not It is not only in Britainwhere unemployment is now the worst for 30 years -that recession and rationalisation are taking a savage toll on jobs.

The capitalist system internationally is throwing workers by the tens of thousand onto the scrap heap.

In Holland, the jobless figure of 229,500 is a new post-war record.

In Spain unemployment at 1½ million is now a staggering 11.2% of the workforce.

And in the USA over 1 million more workers have been thrown onto the dole queues in the last two months alone, as Carter's recessionary policies have thrown the economy abruptly into reverse.

Alongside the rise in unemployment has gone a massive crisis in a wide range of industries hit by falling markets and cut-throat international competition.

At the forefront stands the car industry, which in both Britain and the USA recorded May sales down by a catastro. phic 33% on last year's figures. Giant US car firms Ford and Chrysler have seen their sales fall by 41% and 34% respectively and are carrying huge losses in the US market, while market leader General Motors is doing little better.

Short One US carworker in every four is now temporarily or permanently laid off.

In Britain, where BL workers were laid off earlier this year, total unsold car stocks are now estimated at 400,000, and both Vauxhall and Ford have now announced production cuts and lay-offs.

Elsewhere in the engineering industry there are similar cutbacks: Perkins diesels last week put 6,500 on short time in Britain; International Harvesters are already operating on short time; and in the USA Massey Ferguson is to shut down production for an extra two months this summer.

CAS The good news this week is that we have now topped £2000 in our £3,000 Special Fund and with the total now standing at £2106.45 we have to raise £893.55 by the WSL Summer School in July to complete the target on time.

One supporter has been very'enterprising and got himself sponsored to give up smoking. We received a first payment of £13 this week and are reliably informed that anything up to £60 could be coming our way (not to mention the fact that the comrade concerned should enjoy better health The plunging market for cars and other vehicles has brought a parallel slump in the component market. Last week Lucas announced the closure of two plants and 3,000 redundancies, over and above the 1,500 jobs already axed this year through "natural wastage"

• Other component firms, particularly in the Midlands, are also engaged in redundancies and production cutbacks.

At the same time the textile industry, boot and shoe industry, potteries, steel industry and even the computer industry are similarly engaged on rationalisation, closure and redundancy programmes.

And thère is worse to come. Last week Sir Peter Matthews, the chairman of Vickers, the engineering monopoly, warned of the devastating impact on firms large and small of the Tory policies of a high exchange rate for the pound, high interest rates and economic slump on the home market.

"Industry is not infinitely elastic. As a business shrinks it reaches a point from which recovery is either not possible or extremely slow."

I NE as a result of giving up his unsavoury habit).

Perhaps other readers and supporters would like to follow the example of this comrade and raise some cash for the WSL in the process.

On a less cheerful note, however, the Monthly Fund continues to come in too slowly. We should have received at least £225 by the time we went to press to keep on target but we have only received £157.70 leaving us a long way to go to catch up..

We have. stressed time and again that the inflationEchoing a similar prediction by ASTMS leader Clive Jenkins on the lack of investment plans by major industry, Matthews pointed out that:

"Many companies are forced to devote all their attention to the immediate impact of today's orders, cash flow and profits.

is hard to recall a time when planning ahead for even two or three years has been so uncertain."

Matthews' arguments are borne out by the growing fallure rate of British businesses: collapses are up 17%; compulsory liquidations up 20%; and receiverships up by 34% in the first quarter of 1980.

Growing complaints Such growing complaints by top industrialists have now even been taken up by the government run Manpower Services Commission, which has forecast unemployment of over 2 million at the end of 1981, and protested at Tory cuts of £114 million in the Commission's The Health Service group of NALGO has voted in favour of action-if necessary strike actionIF I 60 UP, AREN'T YOU SUPPOSED TO GO DOWN?

UNEMPLOYMENT FED TIGHTENS indicator of the unease among weaker sections of the capitalist class and the state at Thatcher's "cold shower" treatment for British industry, none of them offer any guidance to workers who bear the brunt both of redundancies and the speed-up inflicted in the hunt for increased profits.

The fact is that a bankrupt capitalism can offer workers neither the right to a job nor a secure standard of living. And jobs are under similar attack not just in Britain but throughout the world.

The answer must in each employers to protect their private profits at the expense of the workforce.

*No to the nationalist policy of import controls: confront the bosses' attack!

*Defend all jobs! For occupations, strikes and blacking action to force a policy of work sharing on full pay!

*Open the books of the employers who threaten redundancies or refuse wage increases, and of their suppliers and bankers! Prove the case for their nationalisation, without compensation under workers' management!

*Remove the Labour and trade union leaders who won't against any form of actionto the delight of AUEW leader Terry Duffy.

26% increase