rank and file steelworkers' leader from South JUST day after the steel strike settlement was announced 20,000 Yorkshire workers spontaneously out.
At the Shepcote Lane plant in Sheffield, they didn't want to go back until management agreed to boycott every single firm which had crossed the picket line during the strike. And there were over two hundred firms on the list!
These walk-outs throughout the country ShOw IWO things. morale is high, and so you can't talk about a defeat. Secondly, if proper leadership had been given 1n area, then the walk-outs would have been as good as, if not better than, the ones in Yorkshire.
At the Yorkshire district level we were prepared for a sell-out. At the meeting to discuss the settlement we put across bie view bilal although vul leadership sold us out there was lots to do within our own factories; could above and national leadership.
We told the meeting how we were kept nip. a welcomed the day then and how this needed to be kept up. steelworkers would be on the picket lines of other workers.
A loint committee is beginning to organise now, to get steelworkers on other picket lines;. to steelwalked each the strike.
political strike.
that where the only enemy was beyond the Blair support demonstrations such as that against the Special Patrol Group on 27 April. We want to maintain the militancy and organisation which existed during From the second week our strike was seen by the mass of workers as a every We had to be careful about how we posed the strike. In the sixth week we decided we didn't want a situation Thatcher, because there are also the BSC bosses. links Now at were raceraclor the bosses is there and we have to relate to other questions outside the done.
Wt will be pulling people out on 14 May, and other actions like the Peach demonstration. Steelworkers will want to join in the local pickets of the police station that the organising committee has called for It will be difficult. We have to work for a stronger organisation at the rank and file level, but we mustn't be afraid of it.
Following the strike we have set up a joint shop stewards committee in plant Yorkshire, except in Rotherham.
Every action we take, publicise to the ranks. Every time we are asked to speak, or if we set up other Europe, as we are doing with West German workers, then we will explain in our weekly bulleln wildl we have In that way we will be accountable for our actions.
We want a mass shop stewards meeting every three months. This will elect officials for the joint stewards committee. We have already agreed on different unions.
A 200-strong mass shop stewards meeting will be the controlling body and the joint shop stewards will meet each week. Each decide what it wants to put in the newsheet.
We have to consider a national Corallice. and links. the-sky, OUIL German, French and Basque links. At stage need Brussels, So international bulletin.
This union is going to change. The first step has to be a campaign to get Bill Sirs to rescind the cancellation of this year's ISTC conference. We have already started passing resolutions to Lo encel At this time especially we need a conference to take stock of the sellout. assess where the union is at. anc prepare plans for the next battles.
In the meantime we are organising a conference in South Yorkshire to draw the lessons of the strike. We are we will. expecting the key militants to attend.
The settlement includes a 4½ per cent clause. This won't affect anyone at a local level. 60,000 jobs; not 12,500. No one will negotiate for that.
What the settlement has done is to decreast locally, because savings for BSC are involved in productivity deals, and this reduces our autonomy at a local shop level. It gives a limit to what can be the representation for there today, department will the weak This might seem to be pie-in Jobs LaKE we have ideas for an threatened with cent.
increase. agreements.
manning.
jobs.
officials. There relying on Bill rank-and-file machinery.
15,000 jobs.
They BSC is really after help, There and Meconate morale booster. negotiated locally.
In 1975 there was a work measure incentive scheme on the books. It is and nothing has been concluded. Some departments at our works have negotiated on this and are getting money. Other places haven't It is that chaotic. There isn't any machinery to jointly negotiate this, so branches and the weak workers get hammered That's the way it is with the 4½ per cent They start negotiating with 4½2 per cent at a time when they are mass redundancies and they are under enormous pressure to negotiate loss of jobs with 4½ per That is why we wanted a straight have lots of slim-line • There are lots of names but they all involve deNone of them has been adhered to locally. We put all these national deals in a drawer when we work on local agreements South Wales will be hit hardest on The steelworkers there have to take the initiative, and not rely on the is no way that Sirs and the union with a few lobbies of Parliament — they will keep 10,000 to need to approach us for and it will be there. It would be good if fifty of the steelworkers came up to Yorkshire for a few days and had the chance to talk to steelworkers live with them: talk to workers at the gates; hold meetings; and even put a tew pickets on to test the feeling here. This would be a good Socialist Challenge: 24 April 1980 Page 5
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Yorkshire, and a member of the national negotiating committee