Govan workers' bitter

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Send to: Socialist Press, 31, Dartmouth Par Subscribe! jobs, Govan shipbuilders are to make 250 workers redundant and lay off 700 workers immediately after the Easter holiday. Basnett Joint wage negotiations as a "realistic" response to continued government attacks on the public sector.

The NEC's conference white paper on pay policy also sets out the Basnett proposals at great length, despite the rejection of a resolution by last year's annual conference in favour of creating a joint negotiating procedure.

This same paper concludes that:

"A pay policy will always operate in NALGO services and that free collective has never been a reality".

A fine way for trade unionists to talk.

There is an obvious need *Reduce 5 issues 10 issues 25 issues 50 issues I would I Name • Address All the scabbing, boot lcking and grovelliig by Stalinist convenor Jimmy Airlie in accepting the Polish ship order withdrawn last year from the Swan Hunter yard on Tyneside together with stringent no-strike clauses has simply encouraged British Shipbuilders management to put the boot in Hundreds of workers on Tyneside already face the sack as a result of Airlie's scabbing. Now Govan workers too are to feel the lash of the bosses' whip.

Imbalance Govan managing direc Archie Gilchrist said that t redundancies were part of t company's search for ways "reduce the imbalance" workers in the yard.

Already Clyde Confed. district secretary Archie McAlpine has declared a willingness to discuss manpower problems "intelligently" with the employers.

Nor will Airlie mount any opposition despite his bluster last week about refusing to accept the redundancies.

*Our cooperation on the Polish order is based on job guarantees for all the workforce", he declared.

But in fact the agreements he signed last November included not only "complete mobility of workers between yards", , "introduction of work study and work measurement techniques", and mobility between trades, but also a cover-all clause:

"Any changes required that will help make the company more efficient will be introduced at any time, subject only to the normal processes of consultation and mutual agreement"

Talks take place this week between the NUd, the Newspaper Society and Westminster Press over the two month dispute about backpay.

It is the first time in the dispute that Westminster Press have agreed to talk at national level. They are now the only employer to be refusing to backdate this year's 10 per cent rise, and nine offices in the group have been operating sanctions for the past nine weeks.

The Newspaper Society as a whole capitluated after the sanctions were imposed and are now in the unenviable postion of fornting the employers' side of the talks.

The NUJ for its part has set the meeting up without any representation from the chapels still involved, although at the time of going to press, it was not clear whether the chapels would allow PRESS * London NW5 1HR As if all this did not hand over the Govan workforce to the bosses like lambs to the slaughter, the Stalinist-led slaughter, have already cooperated in cutting the manhours per ship from 850,000 to 600,000-with a target figure of 400,000 next year.

Inevitable

Such cuts must inevitably create redundancies.

But for Airlie the jo os of his members rate a poor second to making the industry "viable"

Interviewed by the Observer in Februar he declared that:

"You have to make workers realise they are part of the industry if it is to succeed"

Now Airlie's job is transformed into making workers realise that they must be part of the dole queue if profitability is to be raised at Govan which the head of British Shipbuilders has termed the "jewel of the corporation"

This collaboration and its Stalinist advocates must be decisively rejected by Govan workers.

Work-sharing

All jobs must be defended through the fight for work-sharing on full pay, backed up if necessary by occupation of the yard.

The books of British Shipbuilders and its suppliers must be opened to elected trade union committees to reveal he way shipyard workers are being exploited in the interests of private profit this to happen.

Work by NUJ members on the nine papers has virtu: illy come to a halt and memt Iers of thescab organisation, the Institute of Journalists, are enthusiastically filling in the gaps.

The bitterness of the diswill on the one side to fight over wages, and the determination by the employers not to give an inch to a union they are dedicated to destroying.

Frustrated by the lack of any clear perspective for being able to fight on their pay claim, NUJ members have diverted their militancy to a battle which has now become an important test of their ability to resist management attacks.

.£1.10 .£2.20 .15.50 €10.00 NW5 1H

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