Irish car workers win important victory on jobs Sackings in the six

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Residential Care discovered that Susan Shell was a lesbian she was asked to resign and, when she refused, was summarily dismissed.

This case follows others in recent months in which workers have been sacked for being gay. The most publicised have been the cases of Gordon Wiseman. a lecturer in Salford and John Saunders. maintenance worker at a Scottish youth The legal decisions which have followed these sackings live now established that the employment law of Britain asserts that it is "reasonable" for employer to dismiss a worker for being gay if their work involves any contact at all with young people.

This puts tens of thousands of gay people (especjally in education and social services) in danger of losing their jobs and forced to live their sexual lives in secrecy and dominated by fear.

This is a major issue for the whole labour movement.

Susan Shell needs immediate support from all labour movement bodies.

But her defence must also be seen as part of a campaign to repeal the present discriminatory legislation and end the scandal of anti-gay discrimination at work.

Socialist Press readers are urged to put a motion to their union or Labour Party branch on the following lines:

"This branch condemns the action of the London Borough of Barking in sacking Susan Shell because she is a lesbian. It demands her immediate and unconditional reinstatemen:.

Copies of these mottens and/or equivalently wordat petitions should be sent to Gay Rights at Work, 7, Pickwick: Court, London SE9 4SA. assembly workers redundant.

Rumours started " in January that the company was going to phase-out car assembly. The workers responded by a one-day sit-in and picket of the plant.

On March 23 90 redundancies were announced and the entire workforce went into occupation.

Management responded with legal action against the workers and on March 25 they were threatened with jail sentences unless they ended the occupation.

After initial resistance the workers ended the occupation but continued with strike action and a picket of the plant.

Sit-in At the beginning of June a group of workers staged another sit-in detying the court ruling.

On June 10 all 90 workers threatened with redundancy were offered demane analyment in light engineer we saki of pay or benerits Itr were also offered opportunsties of retraining.

The 90 car assembly jobs TRADES In the six counties on 8 June 200 redundancies were announced at the Goodyear factory at Craigavon.

This follows the sacking of 72 workers in the transport department last week and the announcement that a further 210 clerical workers at the factory will loose their jobs by the beginning of July.

The trade union leaders, rather than giving a lead to the workforce in a light to save the jobs have instead appealed to the company to come clean about its future plans which they predict will be the closure of the entire factory.

On June 10, 630 workers were sacked at Courtaulds in Campsie, Derry. This follows the "sacking of the entire workforce at the Carrickfergus factory in february of This year with the loss of 306. jobs.

The Campsie factory has only been in operation for 5years and received £20 million in government funds.

The tide lacon which nas received {t million in government sub sidies made an average profit of £1.7 million in the first nine years of its operation.

The company say that they lost £1.5 million in 1980.

There are no indications that trade union leaders at either factory are prepared to wage a struggle against multinational companies who come to Ireland, attracted by the possibilities of fat profits at the expense of the workers, only to withdraw once those profits are Workers at the Euroweld plant in East Belfast gave a lead to the workers in the six counties by going into occupation in February of this year at the announcement of the closure of their factory-owned by PX O'Neill of America.

• Workers throughout the 32 counties are continually demonstrating their willingness to fight attacks by employers on their jobs, wages and. working conditions.

The firemen, workers in Dublin Corporation's Direct: Works department and employees of the Western Regional Fisheries Board are all threatening all out strike action in the immediate future.

While workers are willing to fight they are shackled by a leadership which acts at every step to hold back and isolate struggles, and gives no policies for action to defend against the attacks of the employers and their state.

• Every resistance against the employers and the government has been built by workers: themselves against the obstacle of the union leadership:

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