Oil rig workers stana agains sacking threat

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The six week old struggle of the 900 men at the oil rig construction site at Hunterston, Ayrshire, must be an inspiration to all workers to go into battle against big business and the Tory government.

Although victimised by management, slandered by the media, harassed by the police and betrayed by their own union leaders, they have stood firm in their determination both to secure their jobs and enforce adequate safety conditions.

What began as a struggle against unsafe working conditions has become a fight to defend their jobs against the management claim that the site is now closed and all 900 men Intransigence • The management intransigence has been carried a stage further with their request to Younger, the Secretary of State for Scotland, for permission to breach the seawall in order to tow away the partially completed rig:

At a mass meeting in Irvine last Monday the men again With workers by the thousand taking to the streets to oppose Tory policies there is plainly no lack of militancy in the organised working class.

Yet the existing trade union bureaucrats and Labour leaders -whether right or 'left'-have no perspective to offer those ми 27. workers prepared to fight in defence of jobs, living standards, social services and democratic rights.

These can only be defended through policies which start from the independent interests of the working class, which, as an international class, has nothing to gain and everything to lose from attempts to restore the profitability of their "own""

employing class.

In a period where the contradictions of the anarchic capitalist system force the wholesale closure and destruction of the productive forces of society, only a socialist planned rejected union leaders' efforts to push them back to work.

In ballots arranged by the union officials, the GMWU workers voted to return but the boilermakers decided to fight on by a majority of eleven. It was the threat to the safety of the boilermakers that sparked off the dispute in the first place.

The challenge to the leadership of the Boilermakers Society grows daily as support pours in for the men at Hunterston from the organised labour movement.

Among those who have sent moral and financial support are the workers at Marathon rig building yard at Clydebank and the Trades Councils of Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Stirling.

James Murray, the secretaryelect of the union, who failed to get the men back to work is himself in a weak position.

His recent election to the post of secretary was only secured by 200 votes and there is an internal union inquiry as to malpractices in the ballot. Further dissension at a leadership level has been brought about by the correct decision of the Boilermakers delegation at the Labour Party Conference to swing their crucially important votes behind the resolution for a change in the method of election of the party leader.

This took place whilst two of the union executive members, John Chalmers and James Murray, were absent from the floor of the conference.

All of these tensions may come to a head in a fortnight's time at the forthcoming Boilermakers annual conference.

The following demands must immediately be taken up in the trade union and labour movement:

*A mass picket against and complete black upon any effort to remove the rig.

*Solidarity action by all the rig building yards in the country.

*Increased pressure by all trade unionists upon the leadership of the Boilermakers Society to make the strike official.

*More financial and moral support for the struggle to be sent to the Shop Stewards Committee (Hunterston dispute), c/o TUC Club, Ardrossan Road, Irvine, Ayrshire.

A WSL Pamphlet JUST OUT A new pamphlet produced by the North West Area of the League exposing the betrayals of the trade union leadership in the fight against factory closures and the policies needed to defend jobs.

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