Court case puts minister in the dock The horror story of

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"Norman Tebbit is the boss... He should be getting factory inspectors to CLASS FICETER Tory axes sharpened 10p cole 1 to cat school lasers he this wants nicaser peopk at home OUT NOW = Class Fighter no.13. Articles on FE students, Brixton Sounds, gagging of Youth CND. Also featuring Saul's Moles.

Last week Class Fighter steering committee asked Socialist Organiser, which we sponsor, to give us a regular space. CF can't produce a weekly, but the pace of youth politics demands more than 8 work - especially at the moment, with YTS getting under way and YCND being carved up.

From Monday school-leavers will be signing on. Dole queues are likely to be very long, with the rush to get at some cash. UBOs and DHSS offices should be good places to give out YS leaflets and The same goes for registration queues at tech/FE colleges, starting in a couple of weeks (see local press for details). Courses will be filling up, as LEAs are expecting a record number of appliDerek Cain killed by accident at small Sheffield truck because he has passed his driving test for a forklift.

He hardly went near the forklift; they put him on that machine.

According to somebody who worked there not that long before Derek's accident, the MSC went down to that company to tell them what they wanted those lads to do.

But as soon as the MSC went, they just put them on anything they wanted.

The most important job at that company was operating the machine. The company turnover was. £500,000 last year. They A REALISTIC RATE FOR THE JOB only employ 14 workers at both their factories. Yet a trainee is getting £25 a week, £1,250 a year, and is working the number one job! Each worker is contributing something like £29,000.

Was Derek being supervised when he had the accident?

The manager was outside -doing Derek's job of driving the forklift.

Now you are taking Norman Tebbit to court, wouldn't you be better taking the company to I'll give you a good answer to BEWARE Tory see are azan it's the south who By Satvinder Singh Young sharpened away from home living Thather and dier cronies three-quariets their rent allowances in a young NO was around in Victorian Jatest projin'd cuts drosey dores beland the Stand that workers Jre afir They allon airs add in the Preak up of der Janut threads thes hot. !.. so faied Mp INSIDE LIFE 'so› YTS Kent's +oRut • Franas Boge that. The company were a company of very ignorant people of very low educational level. To put it bluntly, they were a bit thick.

The people with brains are the MSC. It wasn't just the fault of the firm, it was the fault of the MSC, not checking that firm out.

Norman Tebbit is the boss of the factory inspectors and the MSC. He should be getting factory inspectors to check firms out. They don't do that anywhere in the country - and they certainly don't do it in this city from what the factory inspectors have told me.

So the real problem is that they have the brains, manpower and money. Ihis irm got awa with murder because it wasn't registered.

It won't do me or anyone else any good to take that company to court. All it does is put one firm out of business regards taking on young people; but what about all the other businesses?

firms like this one are dotted all over; if Tebbit is made to pull his socks up he'll have to ensure that all the places are safer than that firm was, which is my main concern.

There has to be a start some, where.

The MSC sent a link officer to Plumb's, the firm where Derek worked; he did his checking from the doorway, he didn't go in to the factory!

This fact was brought. out at the inquesi and the coroner criticised them for this saying that the link officer hadn't done his job.

The factory inspector told me that in her opinion that firm wasn't safe to work in because there wasn't enough work for a young person to do without eventually ending up on that machine.

The machine took up three-fifths of the area in the factory. check firms out...

How is the campaign around the court case going?

It's been very good. I've had support from trade unions, and Youth Aid in London; all Sheffield's five Labour MPs, particularly Martin Flannery and Joan Maynard; and two or three MPs down in London who want me to go and see them.

Various MPs are bringing up questions weekly in the House of Commons over these abuses. The local TUC safety council and something like five different safety papers have covered the case.

As well as that I have done four different TV programmes Nationwide, Ear to the Ground (on Channel 4), TV Eye and Calendar, the Yorkshire TV I did a radio programme for World at One on Radio 4 in January, a few pieces on Radio Hallam, two for Radio Sheffield, one of which was live and very good.

I mentioned on that programme that parents should take no notice of what they are told their son's or daughter's job will be because when they are at the job, the employers will do as they like.

Rolling mill I broadcast that live, and three weeks later, a Mrs Lewis from Wales rang • me; her son had been flattened in a rolling machine which was made to flatten insulation material.

She told me when her son got the job she had told him she didn't want him working on the shop floor.

Her son had replied that he was only working in the office and the Lab. So she rang the firm's manager and was told that her son wouldn't go anywhere near the shop floor.

Three weeks after this they put him on the shop floor -fifteen minutes before the end of the shift.

You can imagine how much supervision he had with a quarter of an hour left.

He was picking up hundredweight bags of insulation material, putting them on the conveyor belt on which they went up to two giant rollers which flattened them to four JOHN HARRIS inches thick.

As he put one on the belt the conveyor belt caught him on a spike where it was joined.

The spike dug into his boller suit, taking him up the belt and flattening him, fracturing his skull and taking him through the machine.

The button to stop the machine was fourteen feet away on the wall; there were no cut out switches on the machine.

This instance shows tht the companies put young people wherever they want.

What difference will the new Youth Training Scheme make to all this? Will it be an improvement?

I don't think it will be an improvement on YOPs at all because there are different pieces in the press which say that most of the checking will be done by phone.

They have pulled the wool over people's eyes. People think that the system will be changed but they'll never change it until they increase staff. It is so big for them to handle that they are having to hire outside bodies, called Managing Agents, to help them.

For each place the managing agent finds, they'll be paid £100: it they tind 250 places the managing agents will get £25,000, paid three months in advance.

If the MSC had things under control they wouldn't need to get outside help. They are doing this because they have too much load and if they are overloaded it is obvious that some will not be checked.

Were many YOPs schemes unchecked?

There was a backlog of 36,000 - they had to scrap the checks because it was too much work for them.

Won't the trade unions be able to monitor these schemes? I have heard they have to be approved by the trade unions.

They are trying to bring that in. It's supposed to be going through in Sheffield because the Trades Council voted unanimously to make sure that the young people are only placed in unionised firms so there is some sort of establishment where they