Everybody knows that Britain faces ever increasing Nobody troubles to conceal this fact any longer. Millions face the sack.
don't work as hard as anybody else. It isn't because of the oil crisis. It isn't because the pound is rising against the dollar.
And although the Tories have a deliberate of unemployment it isn't because the employers have got their own people back into power.
The reason Britain is the sick man of Europe is because for two centuries it ruled the globe.
WaN the world's industrial power. It has fallen victim to all the disadvantages of being first, so that today it has been overtaken by all its major imitators.
The results are illustrated by the situation in two of the industries now in the news, shipbuilding and steel.
A century ago, when Britain ruled the seas, ships of less than tons were big enough to world's cargoes. Today, important commoalues, such as the life-blood of the countries, are carried about the globe by ships three times that size and weight.
The yards on the Clyde or on the Tees were not built to accommodate these. Ships of this class are built in Japan or the USA.
British shipbuilding is unable to keep pace even when it comes to ships of smaller size. Over two-thirds of British tonnage is built abroad, record tor an industrial power. renewed attempt to close Govan only the latest episode in a saga which still has many years to run.
Take steel. A century ago, was made with local ores and lots of coal. Hundreds of steel masters set up business in every nook and cranny of our coal rich country. Here were the roots of the industrial revolution. Today steel 1s made on where ships can dock with thousands of tons of iron ore from abroad. And steel is made with an oxygen lance, using only the minimum of coal.
This is why BSC steel making to half a dozen oxygen using coastal sites. There is no place here for the old inland coal based mills like Bilston and Corby. But even Sor Socialist Challenge 2 August 1979 this plan will unemployment.
mill large Steel Corporation.
Like
country, Britain technological change.
using will revolutionise the handling side wide. 4OSOIO such need of renoyation.
first development of never be arranged revo vtion as never betore Occupation 100,000 carry the the most oil, industrialised defeat and re-enter the fray.
tackled movement hast time — under Heath. sometimen The is past. Over and 1974. steel factory at Alexandria in Plessey, Navy. wanted o the coast South Africa. wants to restrict 7,000 workers enterprise had Stop the chat and fight Liverpool MARCH to With Thatcher in power, more and more workers will face the sack. The numbers on the dule are likely to grow dramatically if the policies her The working class met Heath's redundancy offensive with a huge wave Much was learnt in those years which needs to be applied today. DAVE leave miles behind. Japan and the USA have both already built a fully integrated steel produce the equivalent output of the entire British DUNGEO other capitalist is facing rapid The introduction of the micro-chip for example, informationof businesses But Britain is least able to the chaliles when traditional industries are in such great The only way to avoid the harsh of the uneven capitalism is reconvert British industry under a single economic plan. But this can under private Britain needs a socialist With the advent of the Thatcher government, the working class has to rally its forces afresh to the struggle for sociaism. "ne labour movement has to pick itself up after four years of Let's take a look at how the labour tar unemployment Under the last Tory government workers faced with redundancy did they had seldom done redundancies were announced they occupied the plant. forces. This was an important break with the hundred factory occupations took place between 1971 us.
A good example is the struggle that took place in 1971 in the Plessey Scotland. a keen rationaliser, had thing bought the factory from the Royal sell off the valuable torpedo making machinery, UCS and take the rest of the machinery to plants in southern England and to the low wage economies of Portugal and The workers occupied the plant. assault Anticipating police atack, they ringed it with barbed wire, and alerted the Or lUSC.
whom private already made Will I get paid my dole money? berore you go on the march just tell the dole once you are going on ine march and ask for a nonday torm. you wilt get your money paid to you as i What about food and accommodation?
The marchers will be sleeping in big tents we have hired. All food will be provider TreP TO ЯI marchers. We will be collectino the monev from back trade unionists up and down the country What sort of entertainment is laid on?
Big dances and discos are being organised or every town we will be in. Several Blackpool, punk rock, rock and reggae bands have already offered their services. September wane we are tenn taem that we've got the right to work we It make sure we have a good time. It will all be free for the marchers. redundant in the area. It took five patient months to bring Plessey to its knees, but the 700 jobs were saved.
The factory occupations of those years met with varying degrees were completely defeated. Some had good leaders, some bad. In some cases the workers gritted their teeth and held out for months. In others, they drifted off to jobs somewhere else.
Nevertheless, for several reasons, the factory workers an invaluable weapon in the fight for jobs. The reasons are worth codifying.
The buildings of towns and cities are owned by private enterprise or controlled by supporters. Municipal buildings and blocks, with their meeting halls and communication facilities, there for the benefit of workers. The factory in which the workers spend their lives is often the best available place in which workers can organise the fight to save their livelihoods.
Bv setor their acts workers fighting for their jobs themselves instead scattering to their homes.
The : oceupation also helps the dismantling of factory. Physical occupation is often more effective in stopping the movement of supplies, machinery and other property, than a picket on the Above all, by seizing employer's fixed assets, the workers can radically alter the relationship of .By laying hold OI employers' assets, the workers can say: 'we will return your possessions to you, when you restore our future to This is often decisive, especially when the machinery for the land is the object of speculative sale.
Occupation of the plant is the best to do when faced redundancy.
Without socialism even
greatest successes in the fight to save jobs are likely to be temporary.
on jobs relentlessly. But these struggles, are indispensable. Some of them leave behind lifelong opponents of the capitalist class. Yet others may open the way to socialism.
The classic case of this is Upper Clyde Shipbuilders. consortium of 5 Glasgow which Heath tried to break up. wanted to close down two of them and hive off the others to private firms. The workers replied by taking over the shipyards. Overnight, workers were at the head of a national movement against the Tory government.
The occupation conventional one. charge of the plant, gates, excluded the Liquidator, and prevented machinery. But they discharged workers from a fighting fund, and finished the ships under the supervision of the shop stewards. This was the work-in'.
The work-in had its pros and cons. Finishing the ships under their own have control was a symbolic affirmation of the right to work. It excited support. But there was the risk that the work would run out achieved, holding completed ships hostage office (The present decision at Govan to give up holidays to finish the Polish order has little in common with this Some of the men call it a 'work-out' rather than a 'work-in'...)
The temendous impact of UCS stemmed basically from two things. First, the workers were in a strategic position. The shipyards were at the • very heart of the Scottish economy, and tens of thousands depended on them. The seizure of the yards was therefore a dramatic event. the Second, the shop stewards seized the chance to raise movement to throw out the Tories. This was the most important. point. Hundreds of meetings on this theme were held all over the country. the workers marched through Scottish miners There can be no doubt that the UCS workers played a big role in building the movement that led to the defeat of the Tory government in 1974 at the hands of the miners.
Heath could have been brought down much earlier if the TUC seized on his predicament. The TUC and Labour leaders launched a determined attack on the Tories at the time of the work-in. Opposition to Industrial Relations Act as well as the the "lame-duck' policy ran deep.
Instead, the The after his first defeat by the miners in • on 1972, and one result of this was that win the UCS workers were forced to make concessions over their jobs that they might otherwise have avoided.
What we need today is another UCS was shipyards the The workers took was controlled the also paid before victory was though there was talk of of jobs political 80,000 Glasgow, talked strike had could have Heath.
wage restraint, the TUC saved Heath thrown away.
experience THE IN UCS. Thatcher's government is ever; bit as bad as Hello' UCS raise mass moyement to sweep her out of power similar to the one that overthrew But there are other lessons to be learned from the Heath period The tremendous head of steam built up Heath was wasted by Wilson-Callaghan government. The chance to introduce socialism was The working class should try to avoid a repeat of this The labour movement should not only occupy the factories it should draw up an economic plan for solving
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Cabinet have announced are applied of sit-ins and factory occupations. BAILEY discusses the great battles with Heath over jobs.