Massev lay-offs
Socialist Press1978 1978-03-01Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 11 →
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AS WE GO TO press, Massey Ferguson have announced that all 4,000 production workers at the Banner Lane, Coventry, plant are to be laid off for three days at Easter.
1,000 machine shop men will be laid off for the following five days-a total of 8 days in all.
The company are guaranteeing five day working only until April of this year.
These developments make even more urgent the demand for opening the books and for the demand for work sharing on full pay to be raised within the plant. (Full story, Despite the grovelling of these leaders it is still open to doubt whether or not they will succeed in forcing home this sell-out deal in a ballot.
Hostility to no-strike clauses and feeling on health benefits are running high.
One guage of the mood of miners is the response to a petition by rank and file UMW members in Miller's home state of W. Virginia - which has attracted 15,300 signatures.
But the key question remains that of political leadership within the UMW.
The brazen alliance of Democrat and Republican politicians with coal bosses and union officials against the miners' demands demonstrates vividly the need to break the UMW and the whole American labour movement from these capitalist political parties, and 10 take determined steps for the formation of a Labour Party to defend the interests of the working class.