Wreckers return

Socialist Press no. 83, 18 January 1978 · scan pp. 11–12 · about 1,628 words

Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 11 →

Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: expect misread words, and now and then a caption or a line from a neighbouring story. For anything you quote, read the scan.

Scan page 11

SOCIALIST

Send to Socialist Press Circulation Manager, 31, Dartmouth The uniform WHAT I ALWAYS IDO...I RULED IT OUT OF ORDER!

wreckers in are back.

Accounts of the lobby. outside the delegate conference of the FBU, complete with pictures of smoke bombs and hair raising accounts of Parry needing police protection from his members, would have been a little flat if our old friend, the dreaded agitator in mocked up uniform had not made a reappearance.

He was first spotted, by union officials and reporters only, at the lobby of the TUC before Christmas and has been keeping a low profile since then.

But in the middle of the Bridlington mayhem, there he was again, pockets stuffed with bombs, villain written all SO I TOLD HIM-LOOK HERE TERRY,IF THEY WERE IN THE AUEW THEY'D HAVE BEEN BACK TO WORK LONG AGO!

5 issues 10 issues 25 issues 50 issues I would I Name . Address over his heart and everyone in sight.

Well almost everyone. The Daily Express tumbled the truth well down in their story (Animal firemen terrorise a town) and the evidence they presented was incontravertable. 'But union officials claimed that some of the demonstrators wearing uniform jackets were not firemen". Which only shows that if you dig hard enough for the truth the evidence always emerges.

Some unkind firemen have assured me that these dreaded animals, standing in line-with notebooks, and savaging every worker in sight, were not real reporters at all. Just werewolves wearing human skin for the occasion.

PRESS actions of Scargill and the NUM Stalinists, whether con unconsciously managed to assist the TUC ir its plan to isolate the fire men's 9-week strike against the 10% limit, and enablec the employers and the right wing to strike a major blow ai the strength and unity of the NUM.

This harsh and bitter lesson will be apparent t more and more miners as the NCB drive for speed-up inten sifies, and as pay packet: remain locked in the vice like grip of wage control.

From it miners must con clude the necessity for i principled, revolutionar! leadership in the NUN capable of fighting and expos ing both the open right win; and the 'left' and Stalinis misleaders.

.£1.10 •£2.20 • £5.50 €10.00 the sum of t..

Scan page 12

This means that firemen move up the "league of their 30% pay claim was demonstrated in table" compared with other workers-but will not the aggressive picket of the recall conference provide increases bearing any relation to the cost If current moves by NUPE and the GMWU bear fruit the firemen could be the first of a series of long-term arrangements in the public servicesThe conference began with a point of order from Strathclyde objecting to police remaining in But one thing that Parry and his cronies will attendance while union members were excluded. A find it hard to take away is the tremendous politic. challenge failed to win the two-thirds majority al education that firemen have received during needed to overturn the ruling of President Wilf From a generally conservative position at the In recommending acceptance of the employers' start of the dispute, firemen reached the point of offer Terry Parry had surrendered to both the seeing as clearly as any section before them the criminal role of the TUC leaders and the problems *A full return to normal working with no be "in the adult male manual upper quartile" and * Agreement that by 1979 firemen's pay would oust the leadership must be transformed into The rumblings at the conference of moves to planned action to carry this fight through, and movements take place annually 'to maintain the After weeks of press rumours about plant closures and massive redundancies Leylands new Managing Director, Michael Edwardes, has revealed a part of his Speaking the Cars to Council, the body on top so-called worker participation, last Monday he announced that Leyland Cars will be split up into four sections, Austin, Morris, Rover and Jaguar Standard Triumph.

He does not spell out exactly what his 'decentralisation' moves mean in practice but it is clear they do not extend to collective bargaining where he is pressing at Bridlington last week.

Police were called in to members ard were present to leadership inside the hall itself.

Barber.

employers' key objectives;

action against scabs.

relationship." forward with the introduction of a rigid centralised wages structure.

One thing Edwardes has made absolutely clear is his contempt for so-called worker i participation in management.

Monday's meeting was his first contact with the collaborators on the Cars Council since his appointment yet he had given three press conferences and organised numerous leaks.

"Counter-proposals"

His contempt however does not stop him making the 'participation' structure central to his method of enforcing his policies.

The response of Stalinists and the right wing on 'particof living.

protect Executive "protect" the FBU their nine week struggle. build a conscious alternative.

ipation' has been to present 'counter proposals" to Edwardes' ambition to cut back Leyland Cars.

Instead of proposing opposition to redundancies and closures by the occupation of the plants and a fight for work sharing on full pay they propose increased productivity as the answer. benefitting nobody but the employers. that confront even a 100% solid official strike.

Steel union boss Sirs How he imagines increased productivity can save jobs and not lose more was revealed by Derek Robinson, leading Stalinist convenor at Longbridge.

He said that the present 850,000 production figures (which incidentally the company can't sell) should be increased to one million with no increase in the workforce.

This means speed-up and "no-strike" guarantees, leading to an inevitable 3 or 4 day week and massive redundancies if the extra cars are not sold.

So yet again the Stalinists are trying to tell the capitalists how to run their businesses.

Asked what would happen if workers wouldn't accept this speed-up, Robinson replied that they would have to accept Edwardes plans.

Sure enough, one of the leading left-talkers in the combine, John Powers, Senior Steward at Cowley Spares has replied:

"I'm supporting the new chairman [not of the union, but of the capitalist company] because he can either kill us or cure us. If Michael Edwardes can bring back profit, we can negotiate against that. I support him."

All this is taking place when the corporate bargaining plan is being negotiated which contains "no-strike" clauses unchanged and the incentive scheme which contains such clauses as one whereby workers would have to increase their efficiency by 12% every three months in order to achieve the same bonus as the previous quarter.

But all this is being consciously covered over-not just by the company but also the senior stewards like Robinson and Powers who Edwardes Kinnock Jobs must be defended in every factory through occupation and the fight for the sharing of available work with no loss of pay.

Meanwhile three so-called 'lefts' members of the Tribune Group of MPs, have put their names to the Parliamentary report that advises a steady reduction in jobs, accompanied by speed-up and closures in the steel industry.

Jo Richardson, Neil Kinnock and Russell Kerr have gone along with every attack on workers carried out by the Lib-Lab coalition Now. they have gone a step further and joined with Tory MPs to draw up a complete plan for cutting back the workforce in the loss-making British Steel Corporation.

Too big

Everyone has been told that BSC losses are astronomical, some £520 million per year, or £1.5 million every day. The figures involved are too big for pocket calculators.

But these Labour MPs, with the acquiescence of the leadership of the steel unions Robinson have sat down to draft proposals for "phasing out"

thousands of jobs while workers on the shop floor are deliberately kept in the dark as to the real causes of these gigantic losses.

It is obvious that the losses are not caused by overmanning. The estimated loss for the coming year is the equivalent of paying 520,000 workers a salary of £100,000.

Depression

The crisis in the steel industry is directly related to the chronic depression of the world capitalist system, and the fact that production n British industry is still at the level of the three-day week.

There is not even any respite to be gained by permitting thousands of jobs to be lost in BSC.

There are no other jobs to go to, and the plight of those remaining in the industry will deteriorate still further.

Yet, astonishingly, at the very point that closures and sackings are being discussed, union bureaucrats have agreed to the implementation of a new extension of 'worker participation' in BSC.

Determination

This commits them to using their positions to force home speed up and "voluntary" redundancies on their own members, and is a further indication of these bureaucrats' determination to assist the all-round attack on their members.

The issue here as in British Leyland is for trade unionists to elect committees with the task of examining the books of BSC, and showing who profits from BSC's losses.

Which private suppliers and manufacturers benefit, and which banks cream off fat interest payments?

Work-sharing

And on the basis of this information workers must step up the fight for work-sharing on full pay for the whole BSC workforce and for the nationalisation of these sectors as the beginning of the planned, integrated and nationalised industry that will be possible under socialism.

Meanwhile the collaborators and job cutters that comprise the Labour and trade union leadership must be removed.