Speke return wrong way to fight closure

Scan page 9

SOCIALIST PRESS * Send to: Socialist Press, 31, Dartmouth Pari Subscribe! ast Workers at Speke who voted seven to one to return to work to save wrong step.

The workers returned to the tracks on Monday after 17 weeks on the streets, operating the faster line speeds which sparked off the strike in the first place.

Set against the threat of closure, this may appear to be • diversionary issue, the defence of which was not paramount.

Speed up

But for Leyland the strategy of speed-up and the strategy of closures are complementary strands in an all-out attack on the workforce.

A defeat on one issue is a blow against the whole fight.

The membership which has shown its determination to struggle has been defeated on the question of speed up because its leadership was unable or unwilling to draw the connection with the fight needed to save the factory.

The vote came at a mass meeting of 3,000 workers, only 1,800 of whom were strikers. To have pulled a majority vote for staying out under these conditions would have required a five to one majority among the strikers themselves.

Official

It is no accident that the decision to take the vote at a meeting including workers not on strike follows on the decision to make the strike official by only two weeks.

The TGWU made the strike official at the same time as the company made its first official noises about closing the plant.

The first step in heading off a fight against closure was to end the strike.

Clearly the move by the union bureaucracy was not the only factor. The seven to one vote reflects a majority for returning to work of nearly four to one among the strikers themselves. To have persuaded the strikers to stay out meant effectively opposing the propaganda being printed in the Press and on TV and radio.

The failure of the plant was blamed on the workers' 'laziness'. "Extremism" was said to be rife in the plant. Red baiting was the order of the day.

Attacked

The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool, the Most Rev. Derek Warlock, called last Thursday for the men to return to work and for the plant to be kept open. In doing so he attacked the workers as being the cause of the decision to close.

The workers at Speke must now urgently alert themselves to the fact that the arguments of their union officials and the arguments of this representative of the Vatican are identical.

Any campaign backed by either would be limited to appeals, lobbies of Ministers who have already refused to intervene and a final appeal for volunteers for voluntary redundancy.

Individual workers cannot be expected to effectively combat this smokescreen isolated and without leadership.

Yet the mass meeting to end the strike was only the Moss Evans, TGWU leader second mass meeting of the whole strike and the first since November.

Such a style of leadership is a negation of proletarian democracy-which demands that the leadership rest on the authority of the workers. It is also a serious error since it is through mass meetings, through discussions over tactics and the countering of propaganda that the working class develops and learns in a dispute.

What comes next? A joint committee of five unions has been set up at Speke to fight the closure. Already it has announced that no mass meeting will be held for about four weeks.

It is in crises such as the one at Speke that the need for a revolutionary leadership, able and willing to base itself on the independence of the working class and the defence of all jobs and conditions is most sharply posed.

Without one Speke will undoubtably close. already too late to be wasting time looking to right wingers Stalinists lead opposition.

Transfer

Speke workers will be quite right to demand that such so called leaders refuse to allow transfer of work to ake place and demand tha hey back their actions. Bu they cannot look to them for leadership or trust them to give backing. At the moment when an occupation is posed, when the determination of the work force to defend their jobs clashes with the determination of the Coalition Government to defuse ches struggaes of the workine moment when the right wingers and Stalinists will enly desert to the enen d the 'lefts' will crumt Speke workers must choost leaders will prepared to make no compromise with the independenc of the struggle 5 issues 10 issues 125 issues 50 issues I would 1 Name .

Address Above all they must never forget that every convenor or senior steward who voted last month for the Edwardes' plan voted for the closure of Speke.

Workers must demand the building of a truly representative committee to run the fight, to demand the opening of all books and accounts, all plans and projections relating to Speke. This must be linked to a call for genuine nationalisation under the management of the workers and for a programme of public works for the workforce to carry out if enough cars cannot be sold.

Work sharing

The workers must also demand work sharing on full pay where all work available is shared out among the existing workers, without penny being lost from their pay packets.

These: demands will bring them into conflict with much of their present leadership and with the Coalition Government, whose main aim 1s to axe jobs and defend profits, in this case in the private industry which feeds off Leyland.

If that happens new leaders must be found ready to fight for the demands and the Coalition must be broken.

'Left' MPs must be told that either they fight for the programme necessary to save Speke or they keep quiet about pretending to be on the side of the workers.

Unemployed

Preparations should be made to form a delegate council of action at Speke to defend the factory, drawing in all labour movement bodies, including the unemployed, women trapped in the home and all workers' parties and organisations.

Such a fight will threaten the bureaucrats who control the unions in Leyland and the ability of the Coalition to govern.

That must not be allowed to interfere with the defence of Speke.

The workers at Speke-the whole working class-do not owe the union bureaucrats or the Coalition Government a living.

OCCUPY SPEKE!

EFEND ALL JOBS WITHOUT LOSS OF PAY!

FOR A PROGRAMME OF PUBLIC WORKS UNDER THE MANAGE MENT OF THE WORKERS!

.£1.10 .£2.20 . £5.50 £10.00 issues. I enclose the sum of £ . ff. London NW5 1HR

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

the plant from closing' have taken a seriously