Blow Against Wage Controi Toolmakers Slam Scanlin

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"Who do you represent: the government, the management or the membership?" This pointed question, rammed home to AUEW President Hugh Scanlon by a bitter meeting of 3,000 striking Leyland toolmakers last Friday is one that is being echoed amongst thousands of workers in every sector of industry.

The question pinpoints the role of the trade union bureaucracy as guardians of the government's wage control policy, collaborators with management, and policemen over the working class.

AWAKENING

It knocks on the head any notion that the toolroom workers are not up against the Social Contract. And it sounds the note of an awakening working class groping for its political independence-the death knell of bureaucracy.

In voicing this the toolmakers are not an exception-but the clearest reflection of the voice of the working class.

Scanlon of course is one of the foremost enforcers of the Social Contract. Last summer he brought the AUEW to the point of split as he railroaded acceptance of the 5% wage limit through the union's national conference in defiance of the rulebook.

Since then he has stomped the country defending every aspect of the government's policy, and using every means of intimidation at his disposal through union committees to break the resistance of any section of workers in struggle against wage controls or the brutal speed-up measures being forced in throughout the motor and engineering industry.

ONLY TEN VOTES Yet last Friday, face to face with 3,000 of the 1.2 million workers he supposedly represents, Scanlon could only win a puny ten votes for his proposals.

This came in a week in which the separation of the trade union bureaucracy from the membership was vividly exposed RIGHT! WE'RE GOING SCABLON/ TO HAVE SOME IMMEDIATE CHANGES.

bureaucra the worke throwing into the balance the 11. continued existence of the 5% pay limit which was never accepted by the membership and Jones is now preserved only by dictatorial measures exercised by increasingly discredited full-time officials.

Under these conditions wagecutters in the Labour government are confronted with a real dilemma on the toolroom strike.

SCABLON of their atic leaders is sweeping srs movement, TIM Whatever course of action t take, they must be guided by knowledge that everywhere working class is moving onto offensive against wage-cutting speed-up.

And in Plessey's the Kirkby work-in, with widespread solidarity action, is an indicator that workers are ready to occupy plants in the event of closure given the slightest hint of leadership.

The government and the TUC have three possible options in proceeding against the toolmakers.

EXTREME WEAKNESS They can press Scanlon to go for expulsions or suspensior 1 from the AUEW-in the knowledg ge that this would be from a posit ion of extreme weakness.

They can move throug the NEB for an announceme of closures and rationalisatic of Leyland-risking a wavi of factory occupations, and complete alienation of tho se sections of workers not on strike.

Or they can move tc ›wards Cont'd Back Page, Col hey the the the and International News. Pp2-3 THF strike. Back Page Film Review -p8 Million Year Pollution Threat - p9 French Revolution pp-/ CDLM Statement Festival of Healyism p4 Workers in four Merseyside plants of Plessey Telecommunications last week excluded management from the factories following the company's announcement of a national total of 4,000 redundancies to be made on June 2nd.

At the Kirkby factory, which is to be closed down, the deter mined reaction of the 378 (mostly women) workers to the March 2nd announcement was to begin a work-in only two days later.

Management have been excluded since then except for half an hour the following Thursday so that wages could be paid The redundancies come as the result of decreased demand by the GPO for the electro-mechanical switching equipment produced in the factories But at the same time Plessey are engaged in rationalisation made possible through the change to the production of the all electronic egalpinent Ala nOW required by the GPO.

SOLIDARITY

As a result, three factories (Kirkby, Sunderland and Speke are to be closed; 1,300 jobs lost at the Edge Lane factory in Liver pool; and a further 700 install ation workers will lose their job: nationally.

At Edge Lane, Speke ano Gilmoss where installation workers fear that they will be amanaet the donmed 700) white TUVI collar workers were until Monday preventing management from entering the factories as an act of solidarity with the Kirkby workers.

But despite this lead, no actior has as yet been taken by the Sunderland workers or by shop floor workers at the Merseyside factories apart from Kirkby. To begin a serious defence o jobs Plessey workers must fight to take real control of productior into their hands.

This can begin at Kirkby and other plants by taking the super Cont'd Back Page, Col 3

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