Speke leadership crisis hits action

Scan page 10

SOCIALIST

Send to: Socialist Press, 31, Dartmouth Park Hill The struggle against the closure at Speke No. 2 plant faces very real dangers.

The stewards have put no call for an occupation of the plant and have yet to call a mass meeting to organise a fight against the closure.

In the absence of any clear lead, many workers are saying they will take the redundancy pay.

The more. militant stewards argue that they can't stop anyone taking redundancy pay and can only organise a fight with those workers who want to stay.

Mothballs

They are putting forward a utopian scheme for maintaining the plant in mothballs until a future date.

The fight against closure has to also be a fight against the present leadership stewards committee.

The convenor and senior stewards have gone right along with participatic in, and the Edwardes plan which includes the closure of Speke.

Therefore the fight against closure has to also be a fight against participation.

Any talk of maintaining part of the factory is a recipe for failure, since Edwardes' 5 issues 10 issues 25 issues 50 issues I would l Name . Address closure plan can onl defeated by an all-out pation of the plant.

Confused The IMG, Big Flame and SWP have come together to form a "Trade Union Defence Committee" for Speke on the completely confused basis of uniting all forces to save Speke.

The first meeting of this committee was held on 7 March with about 25 present but only 8 workers from Speke.

Pat Hickey, IMG steward from Rover Solihull addressed the meeting calling for widespread support to stop the closure and to make the struggle at Speke "another UCS"

Of course he forgot to mention that at UCS the workers accepted massive speed-up and redundancy and that the struggle was in no way a victory for the working class which remained entirely in the hands of refórmist and Stalinist misleadership.

The Liverpool Trades Council was praised for having pledged support and organising a conference PRESS * Lo London NW5 1HR against the closure.

However the most likely speaker on the platform of such a conference is Stalinist Derek Robinson, Longbridge convenor and chief participator in the Edwardes The "Defence" meeting in no way tackled the immediate question which is the struggle for a principled leadership in Speke that can give a clear perspective to the workers of how to fight the closure.

Diversion

This fight must be central and the committee that was set up can only be a diversion if it fails to confront this task.

The closure can only be fought on the clear basis of occupation of the plant and withdrawal from participation.

Instead of collaboration, the books of Leyland and its subsidiaries must be opened to an elected committee of trade unionists to show the need for the nationalisation of Leyland, along with component manutacturers and other car monopolies as part of a planned, integrated car industry, under workers' management.

.£1.10 .£2.20 . £5.50 £10.00 issues. I enclose the sum of £. 51HR