Every Job Sold Means a Worker on the Dole!

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Meeting during Dundee day of action against the cuts SOCIALIST Send to: Socialist Press, 31, Dartmouth Par Thousands of jobs in the steel industry are being auctioned off by union leaders at a time of mass unemployment in an effort to make the working class shoulder the cost of the industry's £520 million annual losses.

Following the agreement for the early closure of plants at Hartlepool and East Moors, Cardiff, BSC is now offering well-publicised cash handouts for steelworkers in Ebbw Vale if they will depart quietly for the dole queues.

Collaboration

Saddled with a union leadership that is dedicated to collaboration with British Steel Corporation management, and involved at the highest level in "worker participation" ; steelworkers have been offered no real alternative to management's "voluntary" redundancy While press reports were orchestrated to maximise the figures involved for long service workers in the pay-out no leadership has emerged among the threatened steelworkers that is prepared to spell out the realities of the situation-that every job sold by an older worker today is a job snatched from youth and the unemployed in the future.

concessions The starting point for a principled leadership in the steel unions has to be the defence of all jobs-no concessions to the profits crisis of British capitalism or the international recession.

While shipyards, the car industry, the railways and a host of other industries slash production and attack their workforce in an effort to safeguard their profitability, of course there is less and less work in a shrinking capitalist market.

There is no answer in making concessions management: after every wave of "voluntary" redundancies the diminished number remaining in work lace speed up and further rounds of wage control, while the employers draw up new plans for cutbacks.

Thy anh ancier ic to ctart by challenging the 'right' of the employer to impose redundancies-insisting that the dwindling amount of work available to be shared between the whole workforce at no loss of pay.

This must be combiner 1 by the election of trade ut lion committees to open the books of the employers and uncover the facts behind the cutbacks, to enable a real fight to take place.

How much of British Steel's £520 million "losses' finds its way into the outstretched palms of the private suppliers, manufacturers, bankers and hauliers?

How much more steel production could be utilised if a socialist programme of useful public works was launched?

It is by challenging the employers' offensive from such a standpoint, and pointing to the necessity for a socialist solution that steelworkers can take steps to strike a blow in defence of their own jobs and those of countless thousands more workers in other industries.

Break the.coalition

They must fight througt their unions and the Labou I would mation Workers Name. . Address Post Darl Party to break the anti-socialist Lib-Lab coalition, and for a programme that includes nationalisation of major industry and the banks without compensation under workers' management.

Meanwhile every job must be retained, and attempts at compulsory redundancy must be fought by occupation.

The slightest concession given to management at this point will not only allow jobs to be savagely attacked, but also open the door for an all-round onslaught on conditions. a serious struggle had been offered.

The NUT conference which starts this weekend in Blackpool must resolve to reject all forms of wage control in the future and to base next year's claim on full restoration of the value of the Houghton award plus cost of living rises based on trade union figures.

MORE DETAILS like more inforbout the alist League. to: WS 31, rutt irk TITC PHOTO: John Sturrock, Report Bill Sirs 5 issues 10 issues 25 issues 50 issues I would 1 Name .

Address PRESS unity between Garner strikers and other sections of catering workers. By isolating the strike they hope to create the best conditions for a sellout.

Black supplies

The new strike committee must now follow through the fight for the Region 1 Committee to implement the following policies:

*No talks, no return, until the bosses recognise the union!

*Mass picketing to be organised every Saturday.

*Black all suppliers, supplies and maintenance.

* A regional levy to finance the strike.

All messages of and donations to th e strike fund should be s ent to: TGWU room 84 12-13, Henrietta Street, London WC2.

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