Len Wagstaff (ASTMS)
When 100,000 steelworkers downed tools last January, it was not only in reply to BSC's insulting 4% wage otter, It was also in response to Charles Villiers statement that 52,000 jobs were at stake. Areas like S. Wales were to be reduced to the industrial deserts they were at the height of the 1930's slump.
The BSC is not alone, however, in trying to recoup its losses by closing plants and throwing thousands on the dole. German steelworkers, only last year, struck for 7 weeks against redundancies and, slightly earlier, French steelworkers led a 100,000 strong protest against plant closures. Nor has Japan been spared. 16 out of the 59 biggest furnaces have recentl! been shut down.
But what is behind these lay-offs? Is it because of a shortage of steel? Is it because raw materials are not reaching the plants? On the contrary thousands are being thrown on the scrap-heap because there is a glut' of steel in a rapidly shrinking market.
And what is true of steel is also true -as the dole queues show - for engineering, textiles and coal.
OVER-PRODUCTION This problem of 'over-production' has its roots in the end of the post-war "boom'. Building on the ashes of the war and using the technology developed in the war years - industry expanded. More and more workers were hired as Tory ministers scoured the colonies in search of new sources of labour.
But capitalism cannot expand indefinitely without leading to a crisis. As each industry manufactures and sells more goods, markets inevitably become 'saturated'. There aren't enough customers. Production is cut back and workers begin to be laid off.
Isn't this what is happening not Mass action needed to stop closures only in steel but, for example, in cars? Why is British Leyland threatening 40,000 workers with the sack? Because, as Michael Edwards recently put it, there are too many cars in a 'glutted' market.
And these workers, when laid off, undergo a decline in purchasing power which means sales are cut back elsewhere. A vicious circle is set up and the economy spirals into depression COMPETITION In a situation of world recession, however, British industry is at a sharp disadvantage compared with its 'foreign' competitors. Its old-fashioned and outdated techniques mean that, in the sharper competition that develops for declining markets, it increasingly loses out.
The Thatcher 'solution' to this problem is worse than the disease.
In its attempts to make industry more competitive - through rationalisation schemes, mergers and speed-up - it will only create more unemployment. The new techniques brought in will not improve working conditions but - as at British Steel - be used to throw thousands on the dole.
Moreover, financing these new schemes means diverting money merely exports unemployment'. This will not only lead to workers in different countries competing with each other instead of uniting in a common struggle against an ailing system. It will also provoke similar measures in France, or W. Germany, leading to a 'trade war' in which workers of all countries lose out. to pour more money into ailing in state aid to rationalise such firms merely takes place at the into Chrysier to stop it going the expense of..10,000 jobs!
FIGHTBACK The only way to begin the fight not create the present crisis and should thousands of workers be of inter-capitalist competition as recession looms?
where redundancies are planned, against the introduction of new plants.
Likewise, calling upon the state industries is equally utopian. Pouring DISRUPTIVE expense of jobs. What happened in 1976 when the Labour government was urged to pour over £55 millions bankrupt? It 'rationalised' itself at Robinson sacked.
against unemployment is by starting from the premise that workers did should not have to pay for it. Why thrown on the scrap-heap because A central demand should be that, 'work-sharing' should be introduced with no loss of pay. Workers are not marchinery. On the contrary, it is to be welcomed if it benefits the workforce - who produce all the wealth and does not lead to thousands of them being thrown on the scrapheap. SURPRISE This demand, already popularised by many unions - such as the POEU - in the call for the 35-hour week, is central if jobs today are not to be maintain that they cannot afford demand should be raised for 'opening the books', so that representatives of the workforce can find the real state If the company is in difficult straits, then the call should be made thousands be thrown on the dole because of the "inefficiency' of a Equally important, the unions must campaign and fight for those unite the amployed and unemployed alone. in a common struggle, the unions should boldly campaign to increase KILL - not decrease - public expenditure on schools, hospitals and other services which would provide jobs Bob Swart (T&GWU)
Recently, Leyland workers voted 9 to 1 against strike action to reinstate victimised Longbridge convenor Derek Robinson. Robinson's dismissal is a major triumph for 'whizz kid' Michael Edwardes who made it into a clear battle for power. What went wrong?
When Derek Robinson was sacked last November - for signing a pamphlet attacking Leyland management's "recovery' plan -the response of the workforce was immediate. The very next day, Longbridge closed down. Canley, Castle Bromwich and Brown's Lane had walk-outs and mass meetings were held in many other The size of the action was so great that even the press - which was solidly behind Edwardes' move - began to have doubts that he may have miscalculated in taking on such a key figure as Robinson.
What undermined this militant action was, quite simply, the intervention of the AUEW Executive. Refusing to make the strike official - despite requests from the workforce and other unions, such as the T&GWU -they ordered the men back to work and announced their own inquiry into Robinson's activities.
They then sat on the issue for over two and a half months to allow the steam to go out of the affair. When they did eventually publish their findings, it was in such a way as to provide Leyland management with enough ammunition to keep While critical of Leyland for sacking Robinson - and calling for his re-instatement - the bulk of the union report turned its fire against their own convenor. The three-person inquiry team criticised Robinson for 'disruptive action', said he had no right to sign the pamphlet and concluded that he had been guilty of 'serious failings and lack of responsibility in relation to his duties as convenor.
Edwardes actually made use of much of this criticism by reprinting it on leaflets management handed out to the workforce in an attempt to fuel a shop floor resistance to any form of 'reinstatement strike'.
Moreover, while the report called for strike action to get Robinson his job back, it carefully underlined the fact that it would understand if the workforce took no action and that no disciplinary measure would be used against them.
Naturally enough, after undermining the initial response to Robinson's sacking, sitting on a report for almost three months and then making the bulk of it a criticism of their own convenor, the Duffy leadership were hardly spurring their members into action.
This was reinforced by the fact that they warned that strike action would be 'extremely damaging and that it would, in any case, be limited to the Longbridge plant The Edwardes' management, sensing the demoralisation among the workforce from this lack of leadership, moved quickly in for the kill. Just before the vote on the Executive's proposals was due to be held, they announced that 50,000 jobs might have to be laid off because of the low sales performance of BL cars.
This threat was intended as a clear warning to workers in Longbridge that, if they were to strike, its impact would be negligible and they might not be re-employed anyway.
Is it any wonder that, with jobs at risk and with a union leadership that couldn't even defend that of one convenor - let alone 50,000 workers - the Leyland workforce voted overwhelmingly to stay at work?
THREAT There can be no doubt that the dismissal of Robinson is a real blow for rank-and-file organisation in Leyland. It is already being used by a victorious management to prepare for even stronger attacks on the workforce.
The recent deal proposed by Edwardes - a meagre 5-10% increase coupled with a whole series of productivity strings - is clearly designed to erode still further union rights and working conditions. Clearly, Edwardes sees the back-down over the Robinson dismissal as the 'green light' to a management offensive.
In order to ram home his proposals, he is still keeping the threat of mass redundancies and plant closures over the heads of the workforce.
POLICY Despite the Robinson dismissal. however, Leyland workers obviously do not intend to take this lying down. In a recent ballot of the members, over 90% voted for a clear rejection of the deal.
What Leyland workers lack is not militancy but a clear policy to defend jobs and working conditions - something that the AUEW Executive, and even the shop stewards Combine headed by Robinson, were unable to provide.
Indeed one of the reasons Leyland workers refused to strike in favour of Robinson is that, quite simply, they had no answer to the threats of plant closures he was dangling over their heads.
These answers have been provided by the steelworkers who have been faced by the same problems only on a bigger scale.
Instead of backing down before closure threats, they have declared mass action in favour of a decent living wage and in favour of work. sharing (with no loss of pay) against redundancies.