Liverpool docks stewaras bave wav to dole

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The developments in Liverpool docks since the threatened strike were revealed recently in an article in the Liverpool Echo.

Chairman of the docks shop stewards committee Jim Nolan said they have recently called a series of mectings to discuss the recent company profitability study conducted by the National Ports Council.

It implemented, this report will mean the loss of 1,500 jobs. more speed up and closure of berths.

In response to this attack the leaders of the shop stewards have put forward the following pathetic reply: they are calling for the government to intervene in affairs between the company and unions (ie. for tripartite talks): for the setting up of some kind of National Ports Council (the exact structure of which is unclear) to run the docks; and for a delay in any decision about land acquisition and sale by Merseyside Urban Development Corporation until the 'financial and social repercussions have been examined in depth'.

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 workers prepared to fight in defence of jobs, living standards, social services and demo.

cratic 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 contradintinne of tha anarchir ranit.

alist system force the wholesale closure and destruction of the productive forces of society, only socialist planned The stewards declare their opposition s to compulsory redundancies; say that carly retirement should be on a voluntary basis: and call for a shorter working week and longer holidays.

The latter demand is the only one worth retaining.

The rest is the usual reformust clap-trap which is tantamount to a lash up with the employers to implement voluntary redundancies and to create unemployment by the back door.

It offers a green light for any short sighted and contused worker on the docks to take the money and run.

Abdication

As such it is an abdication by the dockers' leaders of their responsibility to defend all jobs.

There must be concessions on jobs either compulsory or voluntary.

Early retirement is just another form of volunțary redundancy that does away with jobs forever in an area of colossal unemployment and poverty.

The complete acceptance of this scandalous loss of jobs by the dockers' leadership highlights sharply the need for a new leadership committed to a policy of work sharing on full pay The fight for this must be backed up by the demand for access by an elected workers' committee and its advisors to the whole of the accounts of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, the shipping firms and all the other capitalist firms dealing with the docks, so that workers can formulate their own study of the crisis-ridden docks industry, prior to its complete expropriation and nationalisation under workers' management.

Occupation and national strike action in the docks is the key to the realisation of this demand, linked to supporting action by overseas dockers and seamen.

But with the current, bankrupt Icadership of the Mersey docks stewards committee asking for tripartite talks, it is clear that they themselves must be the first to be got rid of it workers jobs are not to be "volunteered" onto the scrap heap.

in l'to!

A WSL Pamphiet 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.

Price 27p including

postage from WSL, BM Box 5277, London WCIV 6XX At a recent meeting of the North West Division of the National Union of Tailors and Garment Workers the main discussion was led by full time official Ralph Don.

He first apologised for bringing politics into his discussion -then went on to talk about the problem of closures.

He expressed his sympathy for those hard-up employers who couldn't afford to eat at the luxury hotel where the employers and union EC were

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