TAMESIDE trades by he sed seen of o and sections of the local labomr morement to prevent any discussion on Ireland Irelane disallitat This | On e Irades council de ine conterence. A WEEK the trades council was reported to the Communist members and again threafened with Tameside is fighring the witchhunr. Statements o SAVOUR COUNCIS Kings Rd, Ashton-Under-Lyne, Greater Manchester.
OVER 1,500 people marched in Ca Saturday agaiast the siting of Craise I almost as many joined a demonstration Be objective. chees corale the Cold War , Wedor • 15 air Upper Heyford demonstration is planned to be Party Heyford on 17 May.
Oxfordshire Missiles Woodstock Rd, Oxford. Tel 0865 54701.
Socialist Challenge, • Oxten were the start of a held at linges Details from: Dick Wiles, Campaign Against The (Campaign ATOM), 20 March 1980 Paral
sack.
THE over-production of steel in the West, where nearly all the industrialised countries are cutting steel output, dramatically reveals the depths of the international capitalist crisis.
The shrinking markets increased competition from the new steel producers in the 'third world' have resulted in a sharpening imperialist competition and a drift towards 'protectionism'.
Steel consumption States is expected to drop from 99m to 90m tonnes this year. The US government has been forced to intervene to . protect home producers against the 'dumping' of subsidised foreign steel.
This move towards protectionism has its parallel in West Europe with the Market's Davignon The EEC now expects production to be below 140m tonnes, compared with a previous planning prediction of 228m tonnes for 1980.
In Britain, the plan is for an annual production of 15m tonnes (over 10m 1970-71 despite massive, and completed, programme of modernisation which originally had a production target of 30m tonnes a year.
These figures have implications far beyond the steel industry. As a primary industry, the production of steel is one of the main barometers for measuring industrial performance.
Any starting point for a workers' plan for steel has to be context of deepening world recession and anarchic market forces. However, the policy for steel promoted by Bill Sirs and the rest of the ISTC union leadership has as its starting point the ability of the Steel Corporation compete 'on equal terms' with its main competitors in the world market.
This approach has more in common capitaliss SOTE STACES.
cialist Challenge 20 March 1980 Page 8 and Is ecual to export arive on lne part of inter- management.
Even Il 1t in the. United framework necessity of subsidy.
management plan. annual steel will breed inefficiency workforce, of a workers' large- scale production. figure!) nearly Waste put in the been used.
incompetent and the Tory 'cash limits', business 1.40111k It is a totally inadequate response to argue — as Bill Sirs did in an article in the Guardian on 14 January entitled A salesman's key to production' - that the productivity of British steelworkers As oblem is the lack of an aggressive and that the main of BSC's were true it would nos solve the problem of declining markets This approach is entirely within the of ISTC policy, which focuses on two main issues: the need to eliminate bad management, increased that bureaucratic is bad management. In both the public and private sectors it — only workers' control of production by an informed and within the framework plan for the whole industry, can eliminate inefficiency in The waste involved in the £250m Anchor plant in Scunthorpe, which is capable of producing the lowest cost steel in the UK at the rate of 108,000 tonnes a week - now cut to 45.000 is just one example of the mihons spent on plant and buildings which are under-used or have never But this is not merely the result of mismanagement. The collosal waste of resources arises from a wrong planning prediction due to the chaos of the capitalist market.
In relation to government subsidy , the union leadership reasons that BSC is unfairly treate in companson to its overseas 'Will the up for steel and allow us (sic) lo and reduced living standards.
unions long-term capitalist market. compete "Tory slackers not helping BSC' While we can say that the demand for the abolition of cash limits is in the short-term interest of defending jobs -and has to be fully supported — it is not a substitute for a socialist strategy for steel, as the ISTC seems to think.
With the catastrophe of mass unemployment facing the working class in some regions, the question alternative workers' solution has become urgent.
Here DAVE HUDSON takes a critical look at the steel policy, and strategy for steel has to break with the anarchy of the the offers no long-term of economic collapse a of an argues that a socialist context . of intense competition for a declining demand, it solution. Worse still, it does not tackle the problem of a spiralling trade war, and the possibility Within the capitalist franework of Bill Sirs, the next most logical step is the Labour left's policy of import controls. To date the ISTC appears t ambivalent attitude to this p Import controls are entire to the interests of the workin is illustrated by the present s The international solidarity and their all block the export of steel nationalist response would undermined by The struggle for jobs i tional. Protectionism not ol workers' solidarity, other reformist policies it is of maintaining the productiv of British industry.
The much vaunted coll between unions and manage BSC's modernisation ard t tion plans in the 1970s was a l this approach of accepting th the market and of profit.
It has resulted in the loss i jobs since the partial nationa the industry in 1967. economic conditions of the 1! be disastrous.
growth of mass unemployment' affecting industries and regions require different policies to those pre the ISTC leadership provided a focus for a s defence of jobs, and the lau an alternative workers' industry. In this strike the policies of the Sirs' leader been brought into sharp relie Despite this the steel s shaken the Thatcher the beginning the dis been a confrontation with go policy. Challenge Sections of the workfor nised this at the start of the st understood that the most effe to win was to extend the actio workers in order to challenge 1 nead on A clear focus is needed t the growing anti-Tory around which genera movement could develop The defence of jobs facing all sections movement local • can act i focus. It immediately interests of miners, dockers, rest of the working class with the steelworkers.
The failure of the ISTC lea to take a clear stand on jobs wa the elements in the setback rep ballot on all-out strike action. Ine deteat of the Defending jobs requ centring on: no abolition of the T limits; defence of the guarante
te an unter without productivity strings rike. latter would be other Snouts in the steel industry; and the national witheme toss no pay and fee no pay, attached. The first step implementing a full sliding scale of COLIN HERD is the Iron and BSC Photo: GM COOKSON (Socialist Chanenge,
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Photo: LARRY HERMAN drastic surgery in pursuit of profitability.
THE British Steel Corporation has embarked on a policy of 'We are bust,' says BSC chief Sir Charles Villiers, as he falls into line with Keith Joseph's philosophy of laissez-faire economics, and threatens 52,000 steelworkers with the The Tories' plan is that the Steel Corporation's £300m losses must be born by the workers through redundancies