STEEL
WORKERS POWER ON & SIRL TRADES CONFER OFFICIAL STRIKE
Socialist Challenge PAY THE STE STOP TH SAVE C
ELWORKERS ECLOSURES OBS - SHARE THE WORK CK OUT THE TORIES
THE DECADE has opened with two kinds of metal competing for the escalating price of gold registers the panić of the wealthy in response to the deepening crisis in the West. The plans to cutback steel production in virtually all the advanced capitalist countries indicate the depth of that crisis.
The means alone in seeking to shrink its losses by shutting plants and although, goverriment, it is ahead of most other Western countries in the pace at which it aims to slash its steel-making capacity.
With the bulk of steel production required for the construction, industries, demand is closely tied to the ups and downs of capitalism's economic cycles. graphs for each of these industries presently resemble a ski slope. Post-war boom In the early '70s, when the governments in the West crossed their fingers and hoped they were still riding on whatever the temporary setbacks, BSC set itself a production target of 30m tonnes a year Production in 1970-1 was at a peak of 26m tonnes, and the new target required a massive programme of modernisation, part of which headlines. The British Steel Corporation is by no down under the Tory car, and machine The the post-war boom, the long run,' the Financial Times producers.' Shrinking countries, faced compention between to their crisis taken from the the ensuing depression.
government is known as Protectionism which specifies produced steel production throughout 'threatening results for capitalists in this part of In the past year Brazil has increased its stee output by 14 per cent, India by 10 per cent, and South Korea and Taiwan have both registered rises of nearly 70 per cent. 'Little can be done in • noter l months ago, 'to preserve the world markets of Europe, the US and Japan against the new The response from the advanced capitalist shrinking the industries, and imports from the Third World, has been protectionism — yet another solution portfolio of remedies which led up to the crash of '26 and The method employed by the United States the trigger price mechanism, which blocks steel imports if their price is calculated to be below production costs.
and restraints on compet ition are part of the EEC's Davignon plan, prices for steel within West Europe, as well as for imports. The other part of the Davignon plan are the mass redundancies and closures, to cut the