No way to defend jobs -Harry Sloan argues against import controls

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OVER 100 members of civil OVER 100 members of civil pO ing. our problems of finance, 1 believe that the decision to grant more staff will be taken at Cabinet level.

I feel therefore that this calls for national action as it clearly is a problem of all DHSS offices throughout the UK.

Donations to: M. Robertson, 24, Beechcroft Rd., Oxford.

MANY BL workers will have read that the national delethe company's decide on UnC colnoanly s pay offer recorded a 10-1 majority of workers for rejection.

But reading about it is likely to be the extent of most shop floor workers' involvement: so far, since right wing convenors - such as the leadership of the Cowley Body Plant - have failed to implement the decision to put the issue to mass meetings.

Since the initial rejection however, things have moved fast. Yesterday's meeting of the Joint Negotiating Committee nealu that the company had changed the offer - adding 50p extra on the rate, withdrawing their industry needs an RESPONDING to a rare display of firm leadership from their trade unions, Vauxhall workers voted last week for action which they believed would protect their jobs. And they coupled this with rejection of the company's 7.5% pay offer.

13,000 AUEW and IGWU members at Luton, Dunstable and Ellesmere Port voted almost unanimously to strike if necessary to prevent Vauxhall's parent company, General Motors, importing. the new Corsa model from Spain for sale or the British market.

It is the first time that the demand for import. controls, tirelessly peddled • by the Communist Party and by the Labour advocates of the so-called "Alternative Economic Strategy" , has secured a commitment to active support from the shop floor.

Indeed it is probably the first time that the demand has been vigorously pressed by union leaders independently - and in this case in conflict with - the employer in the industry concerned.

Previous calls for import controls in textiles, furniture and other industries have been conspicuously supported by at least sections of employers, who have bussed down contingents of workers or provided paid time off work to facilitate demonstrations or lobbies of Parliament.

In such instances it has been easy to see the way in which the call for import controls lines up trade union and Labour leaders alongside the very employers who are forcing down living standards or forcing through closures, in a bid to save "our" industry.

But in the case of Vauxhalls, the demand is for strike action against. the employer, to force GM to change its plans, and to invest in 'plant which will guarantee jobs for British workers. What could be wrong with that?

The first point is that just like any other call for import controls, the Vauxhall strike threat aims at saving 'British' jobs at the expense of tobis overseas instance in GM plants in Spain.

The logic is no better than the Ellesmere Port workers striking to prevent jobs being done in Dunstable. Wher it comes to the crunch, the only answer to such managemenț 'divide and rule' tactics is working class unity - forging links international strategy between workers in Britain and those in Europe.

The transfer of production from one plant tó another can only be prevented if action in the threatened plant is linked with persuading workers in the recipient plant to boycott it, and rousing the labour movement as a whole in a campaign to cut off supplies and outlets.

To build such links with car unions in Europe requires not chauvinistic campaigns against "foreign" competition and attempts to force workers abroad to shoulder the burden of redundancies and rationatisation, but a serious struggle for international solidarity and a common fight against General Motors as the multinational enemy.

The fact is that GM's operation in Britain is such a tiny component of its world business that management in Detroit could shut it down without enormous loss: against such danger Vauxhall workers must be able to call upon the solidarity and support of other GM workers. internationally.

The legitimate concern and militancy over jobs in Vauxhall must be understood as part of the fight of car workers in every country to defend . their jobs and living standards.

If every threatened section of workers took strike action. demanding protectionist import controls then we would be faced with the fragmentation of the international working class into warring national sections of the major industries in which solidarity becomes impossible.

Evans: militant on imports, but not on jobs!

Instead a radically different line of march is needed. The contracting market, the rationalisation of production and internationalisation of models such as the Astra, Cavalier and Corsa demand of trade unions a common policy for defence of jobs.

Collectively they must organise functioning combine stewards committees on an international level. Collectively they must wage the fight for the opening of company books and plans to elected trade union committees, and organise the pooling of all information available. And collectively they must take up the fight to ensure the defence of jobs through the sharing of available work, through the corporation internationally, without loss of pay:

Such action across national "frontiers is the big fear of the Tories and the multinationals: it is made specifically unlawful in the Tebbit Bill. That is becåuse only such international action can actually defend jobs against the threats of the 1980s.

For Vauxhall workers, however, the proposal to take action against imports carries other dangers. On the one hand, it does not relate to any actual loss of jobs now - it is vaguely linked to calls for investment by GM in the future.

And it comes from union leaders who have stood back and watched tens of thousands of jobs axed in every padustry, and helped impose mass redundancies in BL.

Such factors should cause workers to question whether the demand is serious or simply raised as a diversion from the issue of wages.

It might appear that if this were the tactic of the union leaders, their plan has misfired. Their strangely militant rhetoric, coupled with increased self-confidence among Vauxhall workers in view of the success of the company's improved sales, produced a massive vote for rejection of the pay offer.

But eyes should be kept firmly on the pay negotiations. Instead of the nationalistic demand for an end to imports, workers should demand that the pay settlement include a written guarantee of security of employment on full pay -and begin to . prepare the international links that will be necessary in the event of any struggle in Britain against • redundancies or closures.

The repeated attacks on car workers in-Britain and elsewhere confirm beyond doubt that the anarchy of the present market and international monopolies can only be contained by policies of nationalisation without compensation and the integration of the motor industry, under workers' management, into a planned. socialist economy.

The establishment of international coordination and workers' control would be a giant step towards preparing for this development: the imposition narrow, nationalistic policies is a dangerous diversion that must be fought by socialists.

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