Plansee, Laurence Scott.. AUEW leaders knife fight for iobs

Scan page 14

Duffy and Boyd sell out - and CPer Caborn

IN the week that George Caborn, AUEW District Secretary and Communist Party member retired, the only fight

defeat.

The loss of these 120 jobs didn't happen because Caborn was no longer there to lead the fight but as lan Paisley, AUEW convenor at Plansee's, told SO:

"All along he has just wanted to get us off his back. It wasn't till we had been on strike for 11 weeks that he stopped being a hindrance."

George Caborn joined the Communist Party in 1941 just as the CP made one of its infamous turns -this time to total support for the British war effort (and thus against strikes) because Germany had just attacked the Soviet Union and the Nazi-Soviet Pact had gone out of the window.

Caborn learnt well trom this experience of collaboration. As the former Chairman of Brown Bayley steel said to the Sheffield Star in a full page tribute on Caborn's retirement:

"In serious industrial negotiations I would as

soon see George Caborn on the other side of the table as anyone. When we did have problems and we asked him to come in, he was one trade union official who

could be relied upon. If George came down to the works, I knew we would get some sense into the situation."

But it wasn't just one man. The AUEW in Sheffield has no campaign against redundancies and doesn't react positively to initiatives from elsewhere.

Blacking

From the Plansee's workers came calls for blacking. a demonstration, lobbies. Eventually they were supported, but meanwhile the strikers were constantly pressured to talk about redundancy money with the EEF.

Finally a delegation from the strikers went to see members of the AUEW executive in Scotland where John Boyd told them that he had heard that the factory

was not going io reopen and there seemed no point in carrying on. Why don't they talk about • redundancy money?

Back in Sheffield the

delegation was told that the District Committee would back whatever decision the strikers took

over a new redundancy

La ne from the

Strike pay

But it was that strike

official bac going to be w any case by executive.

edundancy EEF.

understood

pay and

king was ithdrawn in the AUEW

Not surprisingly the workers voted to end the strike after 2I weeks, bitter and disappointed, and took the money.

"We had hoped to stem the tide of sackings and redundancies by

winning at Plansees, says lan Paisley. 'With support from the start we would have done that. We went to Laurence Scotts during our dispute to see how we could help each other. They seem to be getting more help from their District Committee, which is just what we needed. It's up to them to win now "

----- pull-quotes -----

for jobs in the Sheffield area, the Plansee's dis- pute, finally collapsed in