THE SOUTH WALES community faces devastation if the British Steel Corporation's plans for cutting back on steel production go through. BSC government that its cuts must be made by 31 March or else!
The estimates that the total number of jobs going in steel will be 15,000. This in turn could lead to the closure of 21 out of the 36 pits in South Wales and the loss of 21,000 miners' jobs.
powerful National Union of Miners. They are committed to fighting the rundown in steel and defending miners' jobs.
The Tories have also to confront the Welsh people, who are beginning to protest at the decimation of their community.
Even the Tory local paper, Western Mail, said: "Wales is destinec to become an economic wasteland and remain that way', So the call for a regional generalstrike on 21 January is likely to gairi a good deal of sympathy from the people of Wales:
The initial focus of the struggie for jobs started with the dockers' action blacking coking coal imported from Baltimore.: AS the Corporation buys more subsidised America and countries to try to reach the breakeven targets demanded by the Tory government, more and more miners' has been told by the Tory Trades Union , Congress jobsare put on the line. The BSC says it plans to import a million tonnes of cheap coal, mainly from the USA.
BSC any extra the steelworkers' and miners' jobs, even though it is Common Market policy to subsidise the production of coal. The miners, dockers, railwayworkers and steelworkers in South Wales are adamant about defending their living standards. They want to confront the non-interventionist • Tories by demanding a £33 million • subsidySteel The Welsh labour movement has a tradition of resistance.
EEC it forced government to back down in its attempts to sack 40,000 workers at Port Talbot, Velindre and Trostre PAUL HIGHFIELD COULTAS were in South Wales last week.
mills. response, miners, defend jobs. money to save the Welsh necessary policies industry.
short-sighted.
Only four the to the changes wide. DON HAYWOOD, Administration Officer, South Wales NUM:
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Subsidies The Tories are refusing to give
South Wales is likely to become industrial cemetery if the steel cuts go through - many ancillary industries will be affected This is why the trade unions in Wales, and particularly the powerful National Union: of Mineworkers, have taken the extraordinary step of calling for a general strike in Wales on 21 January. This call is backed by the Welsh