Coges-slip Saga Caus

Scan page 10

Burton's are to make yet example, opened up new shops in nation of "cheap foreign impor annthar thancond wnrkers Bordeaux. Lille and Strasboure in division. for The local union leaders and shop another comes on top of the 1,400 redundancies already announced allyubou.

Officials of USDAW, the shopworkers' union which represents those on the new list have already decided arainst any fight and are now simply negotiating the redunlancy i payments, though some memDers nave SUggESIEU mr rare At~ early retirement instead.

While union official Mr. Flood told reporters "Our peol le are appalled at the extent the proposals". ", he put forward not a single policy to defend jobs.

DISASTERS

An examination of even the published accounts of the group over the past few years shows a complex web of operations and a chain of financial disasters which question the job security of any Burton's worker if the firm remains in private hards.

The French 1971, amid great management optimism. By 1977 however Burton's had begun rationalising the operation, closing its last small factory in Paris and pruning office staff.

BOYSWEAR

A boyswear chain "Orange Hand" launched in 1970-71 and "booming" in 1973 had by 1976 begun closing loss-makıng shops.

The Green's camera firm bought over in 1973 was sold off in 1976 for £1.7 million cash after losing £700,000 the previous year.

And Rymans office equipment, forecast as profit-winner, managed to lose £1 million in 1976.

The demand for the opening of the books of the Burton group to elected trade union committees is thus one which is relevant to a wide range of workers both in shops and factories.

In Leeds, for example 700 workers are being made redundant in the Hudson Road garment factory. from "low wage countries" as an explanation for the collapse of the Burton empire in clothing.

This is nonsense in view of the fact that one of the major countries from which suits are imported is Sweden where wage rates run at three times the level of Burton's.

The Workers Socialist League has consistently called in leaflets given into the factory for a campaign to open the books of the whole Burtons empire as part of the preparation for the occupation of the Hudson Road factory.

This call must be taken up along with a campaign to forge links with the shopworkers and other threatened factories in order to wage a joint campaign for the nationalisation of Burtons without compensation.

To An this the anestion of leadership is essential.

The present shop stewards committee has put forward not a single perspective to save a single job in Leeds. To start the fight to save all the jobs it is essential to wage a struggle to change this leadership.

Scan page 11

Angered by the ruthless obstinacy of the extreme Tory council the National Union of protest move, hoping to persuade Oxfordshire councillors to change their minds.

This is the kind of talk which any other jobs.

Teachers, parents, trade unionists from trades councils and other public service unions must

----- pull-quotes -----

redundant. The latest sackings in their high street shops,