STOP THE PIT CLOSURES! BL: does Fraser face the axe?

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Cunningham (Dinnington NUM)

If the NCB has its way, be little more than a pre ROY Fraser must not be allowed to go the way of Derek Robinson!

Fraser, AUEW convenor at the BL Cowley Body Plant, has been called up before management on Wednesday June 30 for disciplinary action because he called a stewards' meeting in work time.

Throughout BL the trade union organisation under attack, not least in The technique of BL management is familiar: do deals through the trade union leadership and then attack the shop stewards movement. .. The company has just at associated with examination boards should argue the facts of this dispute and seek an alternative source for their data processing.

EDP also acts as a distributor for medium sized business computers. Mentor and Exclusive are two of their sales names, and all readers should make efforts to prevent their companies from purchasing computers with these names.

ASTMS are continuing with strike pay and a meeting is planned shortly with management. However, this is likely to be no more than a restatement of both sides' positions until greater pressure can be brought on the management to accept people's rights to belong to a trade union and to oppose victimisations.

All messages of support please to EDP Strike Committee, c/o 61 Wostenhome Road, Sheffield, S7 1LE.

Bill Sirs by John IN his book about the Kent miners, called The World on Our Backs, Malcolm Pitt, a miner. himself, opens chapter one with the following words:

«There are now only three pits in Kent, Bettes- three pits in Kent, Bettesforced through a new procedure document, with the aid of the trade union bureaucracy. The document takes away the powers of the shop stewards. The Company is also trying to make the shop stewards movement inoperable at plant level.

In the Cowley Assembly Plant shop stewards are tied to their jobs and cannot operate properly. The company refuses permission for stewards meetings, except on rare occasions they want something. Stewards now have to meet off plant in their own time.

In Cowley Body Plant the right wing TGWU leaderhanger, Snowdown and Tilmanstoe. There were four, but the demolished ruins of Chislet Colliery are a landmark to the vandalism of the Robens era and the period of closures."

If the Richardson ship hardly ever call stewards meetings anyway. But the AUEW Convenor Roy Fraser recently asked for permission to have a meeting about the company's moves to end demarcation on a number of jobs.

Refused

The company refused permission so the stewards went off the plant for a meeting. From this meeting the stewards called a mass meeting.

Now Fraser is being called up° for discipline. Considering he has already had a warning, for publicisSnow-wa Colliery will follow the path of Chislet. The Board's recent announcements about running down the manning levels of Snowdown from 850 to 200 men appear to be littie more than a preing irregularities in relation to contractors, this is obviously a very serious situation.

The company is on the offensive throughout Leyland. Using their 'plant audits' they are cutting jobs by the thousand and maintaining production through speed-ups.

In Cowley Body Plant, as in other plants, workers are showing their willingness to resist and are slowing up the company's plans.

This high degree of militancy of Leyland workers provides the possibility to defend Fraser as long as leadership is given. liminary to its closure.

The NCB say that Snowdown is uneconomic, due to the physical conditions of the existing workings, but even they admit that below these workings is a seam which, if exploited, would yield good results.

A sum of £3.2 million is being coughed up by the before putting the lid on.

Snowdown was also on the 1981 hit list of 23 pits.

On June 24 the National Executive Committee of the National Union of Mineworkers met the NCB and its new chairman Norman Siddall. As most people know that meeting lasted only 3½ minutes - the NEC walking out when the Board failed to give any assurance or information over closures.

3½ minutes! That was Arthur Scargill's first negotiating session as NUM President! And he came out pledging to end secret negotiations with the NCB. First step on this road was cancellation of the NCB traditional dinner at NUM conference. Miners should ensure Scargill keeps up this pace!

The NCB are still denying that there is a new hit list of 30 pits.

It IS now up to the annual conference of the NUM, meeting shortly, to decide what action to take.

Without a doubt the conference will give full support to the Kent miners and I will oppose closures (except on grounds of seam exhaustion) with industrial action.

The Yorkshire and South Wales areas already have firm policy on this issue, decided by ballot last year and the to one CBs bra hit list shows the depth of feeling. This feeling has not receded. If anything, it has increased. As Arthur Scargill said recently at the Yorkshire Miners' Gala, "Miners must recognise that the defence of Snowdown represents the defence of all pits and the union must stand firm and united to keep it open. The butchery of the sixties cannot and will not be tolerated in the eighties. And miners should be prepared for strike action to defend their industry, individuai pits and jobs."

JOE Gormley is already learning how to live like a lord. He has just been appointed a Governor of the BBC. Although this adds a mere £2,000 a year or so to his income it should help ensure that Gormley's face is kept before the public as an elder statesman for some years to come. ing on Thursday 24th voted to reject slightly changed proposals from management and to carry on with normal finishing times. • There is no doubt that British Shipbuilders are attacking the brew and finishing times as part of a general attack on working conditions in Lairds and possibly throughout British Shipbuilders. Lairds is earmarked for redundancies and closure, and management are using Michael Edwardes tactics against the workers.