Workers Sit

Scan page 13

by Kestrel Marine remains a ing support for the sit-in is possibility but not a very a meeting being held. in By the time this issue of Socialist Organiser appears, the sit-in by workers at the Robb Caledon shipyard in Dundee will be entering its third week. Although the workers have already won widespread support for their fight for jobs, there is nothing to suggest that they will win a speedy victory.

The shop stewards' conyenor_ at the yard, Bob Barty; told Socialist Organiser of the extent of the support:

"We've had letters and telephone calls from all over the country, Only the other day we had a letter from Duncan 1 MeNiel, conventor in Scott Litkgow, pledging the support of all shipyard workers on the Lower Clyde.

Letters have come from Cammel Laird in Birkenhead, from Govan, Yarrow and elsewhere and we even had a phone call from Grigg Marine down in Lowestoft.

Members of the local trades council have been down to express their support and so too has the Lord ProvoSt, the leader of the Labour administration in Dundee, various other local councillors, and both the local MPs, Ernie Ross and Gordon Wilson.

Wilson said he would try to arrange for a delegation from the yard to meet Francis Pym and the Prime Minister as well."

The Confederation of Engineering and Shipbuilding Unions (Confed) has organised a national ban on overtime and weekly one day strikes in all yards which started on Monday 28 September.

According to the Confed the one-day strikes will continue until an agreement satisfactory to the workers has been reached.

Measures

Bob Barty reckoned that these measures, for the time being at least, were adequate:

"We congratulate the Confed for the overtime ban and the one-day strikes. The last time we had a fight with British Shipbuilders, over redundancies, the Confed imposed an overtime ban and after only a week the redundancies were withwawn. So by calling one-day strikes this time the Confed has stepped up its action.

There are 70,000 in the industry so the overtime ban and one-day strikes should be really effective. The Confed isn't organising a levy of its members to help us, but we haven't asked them to. Workers will be sacrificing money by not doing overtime and by striking each week and that's enough to ask of them."

Previous disputes, particularly the engineering dispute in 1979, have shown that the tactic of one-day strikes • does as much to confuse and demoralise workers as it has impact on the bosses.

The Confed's plan of calling workers out on strike one day and sending them back to work the next, is more likely to defuse militancy than it is to develop it.

And in shipyards which are low on work, one-day strikes could even help management, by going onto a four-day week without having to pay out for shorttime working.

On 28 September, when the first of the one-day strikes are due to take place, none of the shipyard workers in Glasgow can go on strike anyway as it is a public holiday.

AS PEN COMIN SOMMITTEE The takeover of the yard ukely one. 1i-nler aar Neither British Shipbuilders not workers in the sit-in have had any discussion with Kestrel Marine although national union officials have.

Robb Caledon workers are not keen to see Kestrel Marine take over the yard anyway since they would prefer to remain part of British Shipbuilders.

The offer by British Shipbuilders to the workers of jobs in Leith, near Edinburgh, is even less acceptable to them, since it would mean that they would have to move home. union principles pushed The next stage of buildDundee to give up to date information to people, particularly those not directly involved. Local MPs, union officials and shop stewards have all been invited to attend.

Unfortunately there are no plans to use the meeting to launch a broad support campaign in support of the sit-in: "We are not planning anything like that at the moment," said BOb, "although someone may suggest that at the meeting.

Donations should be sent to the Finance Committee, c/o Bobby Jones, Robb Caledon Shipyard, Dundee.

"Now awful lot resources there is still a possibility of a breakthrough in the AUEW.

•The Manchester North stewards' quarterly voted unanimously to call on the executive to make the dispute official once again. The Final Appeal Court is meeting on October 12th. "Even the right wing in our union has always had a bit of respect of the rule book, and if you look at it then it's absolutely clear that the executive had no authority to disown us.

''Once the dispute is official again, then I reckon that we'll have sufficient support to picket Mining Supplies at Doncaster [the parent conpany] again".

Control

But isn't this putting the fate of the strike in the hands of a union body over which the strikers have no control? What if the appeal court finds against the strikers or fudges the issues?

Isn't time precious? Why isn't an effort being made to picket Doncaster right away?

"I think we need 250 people to go across there and stay for a week at a time"' , says Dennis.

Rota

that takes of money We are dor other pickets, workers who have had no strike pay for six weeks, we think about Arthur Snipe spending 102,000 guineas on a yearling at the St Leger Sales and the similar obscenity of Terry Duffy addressing the Labour Party unemployment demonstration in Birmingham, mouthing cliches about the evils of the dole queue.

Blacking

However, they'd better watch out. As one of the lads says, "I'm quite willing to bring in the New Year standing outside Laurence Scotts if that's how long it takes to beat Duffy and Snipe"

It need not take that long if the labour movement rallies around - particularly in Manchester _ to provide enough cash and bodies to picket Mining Supplies. It just requires a little solidarity and commitment.

All workers should move resolutions in their unions calling for the blacking of all Mining Supplies and LSE products, and for a labour movement inquiry into Laurence Scotts and associated companies.

Meanwhile, keep donations rolling in to: George Fryer, 20 Round Croft, Romilly, Cheshire.

Copies of the new Laur. ence Scotts strike bulletin can also be obtained from that address.

Scan page 14

Socialist Organiser Thursday 1 October 1981 Page 14 THE current developments surrounding the Vauxhall pay review highlight some weaknesses in the trade union organisation and bargaining structure.

As at BL, the national negotiating body, the Joint Negotiating Committee (JNC) is an unrepresentative, bureaucratic body dominated by officials and fulltime convenors from the three plants Ellesmere Port, Luton and Dunstable.

It would seem reasonable to consider, therefore, raising the demand lor a national conference of Vauxhall shop stewards to determine claims democratically and to vote on all offers before the final vote unuer conditions where the company has been pleading poverty for years, many workers actually believe that there is no hope of obtaining an offer big enough to compensate for lost earnings. After all, how can the company pay up during a recession? Won't this simply drive the firm out of business?

Books ment; for the nationalisation of firms unable to survive in the capitalist market along with other firms in the industry; ultimately to the complete socialisation of the economy.

Whilst the demand for a reduction in the working week to 39 hours, and the call for an increase in days with full layoff pay from 5 to 20 a quarter are obviously necessary, it is even more important to also Cavalier engines are shipped from the Continent for assembly at Luton. It was so successful that national official Grenville Hawley sent strict instructions for the immediate removal of the picket! At the same time, squads of thugs from the Essex "Force Support Group" laid into the pickets, hospitalising two stewards.

The picket was evenlabour movement might have paid off in repulsing the police. There was no evidence of this being carried out.

Hawley should have been confronted at Transport House and an occupation of the building mounted to publicise the sellout, until blacking of the Company was carried out, a regional levy was sanctioned, and forces were mobilised in support of the picket. Instead Hawley was allowed to get away with it scot-free.

Action on this year's review must come up against these and similar problems. The unions must not make these disastrous errors again. dn- punos

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

NO REDUCTIONE SHIPBUILDING

CAL SHIP