Officials watch in Timex go

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to find us Next Socialist Organiser delegate meeting: Saturday March 5, 1lam to 5.30pm, Co-op rooms, 57 Micklegate, York. (Phone 0904 425739 for accommodation or creche).

Please make plans to choose and mandate your group's If you agree with what we have to say, you can help. Become a supporter of the Socialist Organiser Alliance -groups are established in most large for more information, write at once Timex, steel, water - Stan on three fronts Scotland IT'S been a busy week for Scotland's top union bureaucrats. Not only did they have to stop the water workers' strike spreading north of the border, they also had to get out of mounting any rea fight back against job losses in the Scottish steel industry and at Timex in Dundee.

On January 25, NUPE water workers' shop stewards voted to join the strike from midnight the following day. Their own fuli-timers backed this decision. But not so the full-timers of the GMBU and IGWU, who org* anise the bulk of Scotland's 2,200 water workers.

GMBU full-timer Bob Sharp described the NUPE vote to strike as an attempt to 'bulldoze' his union, as an "irresponsible act' • and cheap recruiting gimmick. He openly called on his members to scab: 'We will be telling our members to carry on working... If that means walking through picket lines, so be it' The following day, Sharp and TGWU full-timer Hugh Wyper issued a joint statement appealing to Scottish water workers not to strike, on the grounds that 'we have got what we want' . This was a reference to the promise by Scottish employers to give water workers the same increase as south of the Border - provided that no strike action is taken.

Even if the employers keep to their promise, it will not do anything about THERE ARE Socialist Org aniser groups in most major towns and cities. See below for details of your area -and if you want more details, or if there is no group listed for your area, fill in and return the 'Get Organised' form.

• SCOTLAND Glasgow. For details of meetings contact paper sellers or Stan Crooke, 114 Dixon Avenue, Glasgow G42. SO is sold at Maryhill dole (Tuesday mornings)

and Rutherglen shopping arcade (Friday lunchtime).

orga Socialist Organiser is not just a We fight to organise workers struggle for a new leadership labour movement.

towns.

To 'Get Organised' in the fight, us at 28 Middle Lane, London N8. Name . the fact that Scottish water workers pick up £20 a week less than water workers south of the Border, and are demanding parity with them.

Sharp and Wyper even claimed that NUPE would be striking 'on an issue ather than the pay claim'.

Thus isolated, a series of mass meetings of NUPE water workers voted down the proposed strike action. Then Sharp and another GMBU full-timer, Morrel, changed their tune and stated that by Februar! • they might call their n onbers out on strike!

Meanwhile 2,000 more jobs are to go at Ravenscraig and Gartcosh steelworks, and another 427 at Craigneuk. When the whole of Ravenscraig was under threat, the unions campaigned - not by working-class mobilisation but by 'allparty' pleas to the Tories. Now they are proposing the same bankrupt approach As ISTC full-timer Clive Lewis put it: 'It's galling to have to crank our campaign back into action... but the losses will not happen if we and the allies of all parties [i.e. including the Tories] who support our case get their act together again' The same collaborationist approach has taken its toll at the Timex factory in Dundee, where 1900 jobs are to go. Launched on a wave of Scottish nationalism, the campaign has already run Edinburgh. For details of meetings ring Dave, 229 4591. SO is sold at Muirhouse (Saturday 10.30-12) and the First of May bookshop, Candlemaker Row.

• NORTH-WEST Wallasey. Contact Colin Johnstone, 1 Wellington Road, Wallasey.

Liverpool. Contact 733 6663. SO is sold at Progressive Books, Berry St, and at News from Nowhere, Whitechapel.

Manchester. Meets every Sunday evening, 7.30pm, paper. in the in the down.

Every household in Dundee was leafleted, but campaigning among the union membership for strike action and for opening the books was never even attempted. Workers for whom management said there was no work were left to sit around the factory playing cards.

Links with the workers at GEC return AT A mass meeting on Monday January 31, the 550 striking staff at GEC Openshaw voted by 3 to 1 to return to work.

The strike began after the suspension of 14 production control workers. They were suspended because of management's refusal to negotiate new working agreements after the introduction of a new on-line computer system.

On Monday, union negotiators reported that management had not shifted their earlier intransigent position. However, instead of recommending indefinite strike action, the negotiators called for a return to work.

Speaking to us after the meeting, one militant suspected that the negotiators were under pressure from the local officials of the unions involved (ASTMS, AUEWTASS, MATSA and APEX): The national officials had certainly made no attempt to mobilise support throughout GEC. delegates now.

Lass O'Gowrie, Charles St. SO is sold at Grassroots Books, Newton St, Piccadilly.

Stockport. Contact c/o 38 Broadhurst St. / Meetings every Sunday, 7.30pm: phone 429 6359 for details. SO is sold at Stockport market every Saturday, 11 to 12.30. the French factory in Besancon were not built upon. Instead, the union leadership wallowed in anti-French chauvinism, condemning as unfair the grants given by the French government to Besancon.

So over 1000 workers, including 20 of the 120 shop stewards, have gone for voluntary redundancy.

defiance AS WE GO to press, TGWU stewards at BL's Cowley Body Plant have voted at a meeting on Tuesday Ist to call a plant mass meeting if management tries to implement manning cuts in any section.

The cuts were originally planned for Tuesday 25th, but sectional stoppages forced management to postpone them to this Wednesday 2nd.

At stake are about 200 jobs which will be cut to redistribute workers to the new LMIO, instead of employing new workers from the dole.

The workforce remains strong. The problem is that the right wing plant leadership might do a deal.

Meanwhile the skilled men in the plant are resisting moves to put some of them on to production work.

Rochdale. Contact 353 Rochdale Old Rd, Bury. Next meeting Monday February 14, 8pm Castle Inn:

SO is sold at Metro Books, Bury.

Hyndburn. Contact Accrington 39573. Meetings weekly - see SO sellers for day, time and venue. SO is sold at Broadway, Accrington, every Saturday from 11.30 to 1pm.

Stoke. Contact Arthur Bough, 23 Russell Road, Sandyford (84170). • YORKSHIRE AND NORTH-EAST Durham. Meets every Tuesday, 6.30pm, Students Union bar, Durham university. SO is sold at the Community Coop, New Elvet.

York: Contact: 425739. SO is sold at Coney St on Satur: day mornings, at the Community Bookshop, outside the dole öffice most mornings, and at the University on Friday mornings. Day school: "The politics of Socialist Organiser' ', Saturday February 5, 10 to 5 at the Co-op rooms, Millgate, York.

Leeds. Contact Garth Frankland, 623322. SO is sold at Books and Corner Books, Woodhouse Lane.

Bradford. Contact Barry Turner, 636994. SO is sold at the Starry Plough bookshop.

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Crooke reports on setbacks