[Islington Labour councillor and ton Labour councillor and…]

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Islington Labour councillor and ton Labour councillor and Scholls shop AFTER their success in privatising BSC River Don by merging it with Firth Browns to produce Sheffield Forgemasters (the Phoenix 3 plan), the profiteers have decided to revive and extend the talks on worker and craftsmen, that is the craftsmen doing production work and production workers doing tasks associated with crafts. this can only result in further job losses.

steward John Worker reports From their office in Memphis, Tennessee, the giant Schering Plough Company had a review of worldwide production facilities in 1982 and decided to sack 225 north London workers in two Scholl (UK) sandal-/ making plants at Stamford Hill and St. John's Street, Islington. At the stroke of a pen, sandal production is to be movedto Austria.

The first we heard of it was on Friday 14 January when, after reading statement to union officials and then shop stewards, the local management called the workers together to announce the redundancies and hold a short question and answer session. Not many questions and even less answers! I think the officials were as shellshocked as the rest of us..

Hard

But I wasn't that surprised. 225 jobs lost is only the tip of the iceberg for this firm as far as I'm concerned. Two associate factories in Northampton were closed last year, losing 300-350 jobs, Plough of Old Kent Road lost 50 jobs recently andthere may well be more.

Redundancies at the Scholl factory in Islington will hit hard. The firm has been there 50 years and a lot of family groups work there, many of the workers have been there over 20 years and are probably too old: to ever find work The effect on women's unemployment in the area will be colossal. because 65% of the firm's employees are women - of the 225 jobs lost probably 150 will be women.

The effect on opportunities for minority groups will be bad too. In my own department, which is to be shut, there are seven Africans, five West Indians, five Asians and 12 Irish. I particularly mention the Irish because most of them on my floor are young girls who have come over here for jobs and are stuck in digs and have no family here - so it will hit them even harder.

The company isn't losing money on an out of blow. Wages for most labouring and semi-skilled jobs there are around £85 gross and most people rely on overtime a great deal.

Sandals

Production has steadily increased over the last two years from 12,000 sandals a week to over 18,000 and over the same period the company has put in £111,000 worth of new machinery in my department. very active and trying tr move things. But the mair concern is the ordinar shop floor workers, that': what it will all boil down tr in the end.

At the moment, a weel after getting the closur notice, they are still con fused and shell-shocked They are shocked at i company many of ther have given loyal service tr for thirty years or more Scholls has been seen as : 'family firm' , my own sor works for them and there are many examples o fathers, mothers, sons anc daughters all working for the same company.

They are also shocker at the union who they con sidered their guardians but who clearly weren' aware of the situation. They feel very much alone.

But anger is beginning te emerge. Islington Council's leaders have agreed to give the workers their suppor as have the Islingtor Labour Parties. Together with the rest of the Londor labour movement we can and should, form a unitec front to stop this closure.

COUNCILLOR JOHN WORKER FOUR hundred workers left the production line at Jaguar's Browns Lane Plant in Coventry on Thursday January 20 in protest at the planned visit of Employment Secretary Norman Tebbit.

Anger from both the rank and file and the union led practically every section of the 3,000 strong workforce to vote to take action if Tebbit toured the shop floor. Management tried to persuade the union to stop any protest, but hatred of Tebbit and the government was too strong to allow that.

Coventry, - the boom town of the 50s and the 60s, has suffered more than most cities from capitalism's crisis and the Tories' anti-union offensive. In the event, the workers' protest prompted the plant manager to announce to the workers outside

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though to justir, plant date or expensive plant

Strike greets Tebbit