Miners: MacGregor plays it rough Shell pickets defy Tory injunctions

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Support The strikers!

Assemble Budhill Park (Gartother Road David Marshall (MP for Shettoeston)

Jane McKay ( Sec., Glasgow Trades aboa FIGURES recently published in the Economist illustrate the continuing shift of the UK engineering industry to overseas operations.

In 1982, none of Britain's nine biggest engineering companies did less than 42% of their business abroad. Every single one shows an increasing overseas proportion since 1973.

Overseas production tween 30% and 60% turnover.

THE TREND is levelling off now, but in 1981 and 1982 the US was a substantial net importer of capital.

Since World War 2 the US has been by far the world's leading power in direct foreign investment. Over 40% of the world stock of direct foreign investment is US-owned.

But in the 1980s there has been a big 'reverse' flow of West European and (less so) Japanese and OPEC direct investment into the US. The UK and the Netherlands are the biggest investors.

Foreign direct investment in the US is now about one-fifth of the world total stock. Of all takeovers in the US in 1981, 25% by value were by foreign firms.

What price Tony Benn's ideas of Britain as a 'US colony' now?

ANOTHER side to the world debt crisis: since the second half of 1981 the flow of funds from OPEC countries has dried up.

In 1980 the OPE€ countries had a huge combined current account surplus of $110 billion, and poured some $35 billion into the western banks - which, in their turn, sent out a similar amount in loans to non-OPEC Third World countries.

But since then OPEC's posi. tion has markedly weakened.

Oil consumption has dropped - in the US, for example, from 19 m.b/d in 1979 to about 15 m.b/d today - and OPEC now accounts for only 40% or so of capitalist world oil production, as against 60% in 1979.

OPEC had a combined current account deficit of $4 billion last year, and are estimated to be beading for a $29 billion deficit this year.

OPEC countries have been pulling their funds out of wester benks - to the tune of $16 billion in the first half of 1983ad that is matched by a decline a mere 52 billion in net bank Eng to the non-OPEC Third Todd.

Sacroe: Economist).

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t0p per copy for 5 or more, zad 30p per cop:

for 20 or more, from Exployment Unit, sostrat CVS, 135 Rye Lase. London SE 15. Creques payabl • Sorthwart CVS.

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AS Treasury minister John Moore raised the prospect of government action to privatise the National Coal Board, Thatcher's axeman at the head of the NCB was already in full cry against the NUM's overtime ban.

Plan MacGregor has lost no time in establishing an Edwardesstyle regime, in which the slightest sign of independence Or HUNDREDS of printworkers and trade union members showed their support for a fight against the Tebbit laws as a second newspaper owner launched an all-out attack on the union.

About 800 people attended a public meeting in Manchester called by the NGA, the NUJ and SOGAT over the Stockport Messenger dispute.

Owner Eddie Shah has set up an anti-union printshop, broken an agreement with the NGA, and thrown injunctions under Employment Act like confetti at the unions. This has not stopped the unions calling out their members and picketing the plant.

Meanwhile, in the leafy suburb of Richmond, broadcaster David Dimbleby has been threatening writs of his own.

He sacked his NGA members and transferred the printing of the Dimbleby newspapers group to the notorious anti-union firm of T.Bailey Foreman in Nottingham. NUJ members on his staff have struck in protest against this liaison with the firm that prints the Nottingham Evening Post which sacked its entire NUJ membership for taking part in the 1978 national pay strike.

Dim bleby, personally virulently anti-union, has a second paper, separately owned, at Wandsworth, where almost all the staff are members of a little heard-of scab outfit, the Printers' Trades Association.

Journalists and printers at Richmond are now picketing and need support.

Dimbleby has threatened NUJ general secretary Ken Ashton with a writ under the Employment Act, and has also threatened his striking journalists that he will name some of them personally when he seeks an injunction.

It is extremely unlikely that the NUJ would bow to this threat, as he has taken his printing to the most hated anti-union employer in the whole of the newspaper industry.

50p out by Satvinder Singh and Tony Purtill opposition by the ruthlessly attacked.

So even while the NCB officially declares that the overtime ban is having only negligible impact on production, MacGregor has gone out campaigning heavily against it.

Among the areas he has targeted as a 'soft spot' is South Wales - where militant strike action against pit closures was left isolated and eventually betrayed by other NUM areas earlier this year.

MacGregor's aggressive stance has been made easier by the weakness of the overtime ban as a tactic to fight for a decent pay settlement.

With massive coal stocks, it is widely recognised as an inadequate means of hitting the employer: but it is also profoundly divisive, since it relies for its SHELL UK faces the threat of escalated industrial action by many of its 4,300 craft and manual workers in its oil refineries over its 4.5% "final" pay offer, as strikers defy Tory anti-union laws.

A "new approach", altering the traditional pay negotiating stance with employers, was made by trade union leaders of 900,000 local authority manual workers in talks over their annual wage claim at Portsmouth last month.

During the talks the Conservative-controlled employers side refrained from their usual reference to tight financial circumstances, at least partly because on councils, and because they were impressed with the "fer singshe to make room oner for a bigger increase.

Hard line This increases the likelihood of an offer in December in line with the 3% public sector pay target instead of the originally more hard-line Conservative idea of as low as 1%.

Four new approaches to the claim were proposed by the *Staging increases to achieve their pay target.

*Restructuring wages and job definitions to help councils overcome "labour inflexibility"

*Reexamining the value of the bonus system.

*A move towards payment by cash.

impact on being implemented by the highest-paid miners - often in right wing-led areas - while those not working overtime lose nothing.

Coming at a time when the tenacious strikes against closure at Monktonhall and Cronton collieries are being left isolated by the NUM nationally, the divisions and frustration create fertile conditions for right wing saboteurs like Trevor Bell to argue for ballots.

Meanwhile, an overtime ban denies miners the leverage to invoke solidarity "blacking"

action by rail and transport unions, which alone could paralyse the NCB's use of coal stocks.

The fight must be stepped up for an all-out strike to unite the union and whole sections of the working class against the Tories.

At Shell's biggest UK refinery Stanlow (Cheshire), the dispute began with an overtime ban and work-to-rule by the 903 AUEW craft workers on Monday 10 October, being joined by the 1460 TGWU process workers there on Tuesday October 18, on all-out strike.

These points were received favourably by the employers; they represent savings for them because implicit in the proposals (particularly the last two) is that the numbers of council white collar workers needed to process and deal with wages and bonuses can be greatly reduced, while the proposals on job flexibility offer the prospect of more speed-up and less jobs.

Sectional Thus this so-called "new approach" is in effect leaders of manual trade unions pushing for the sectional interests of some of their members at the expense of fellow workers in town hall clerical unions; no wonder the Tories are sitting up and taking notice!

We apologise to readers for the careless howler that crept into last week's front page article.

Of course the island of Dominica - which was amongst the stooge Caribbean regimes persuaded to "invite" the US invasion of Grenada is different from the Dominican Republic -which was itself invaded by US marines under President Johnson in 1965.

Since then, from Monday 24 October, flying pickets have been attempting to stop petrol deliveries from Shell's major distribution terminal at Haydock near St. Helens (Merseyside).

This has brought an injunetion from the company taken out against two Stanlow refinery shop stewards involved in the secondary picketing, granted on Wednesday October 26, under the 1980 Employment Act.

However, this picketing continues despite the High Court decision, and the 70 TGWU tanker drivers at Haydock who have refused to cross the picket lines since Thursday have now been taken off pay by management.

This latest action by Shell is seen as a deliberate escalation to bring the tanker drivers into the dispute, who are themselves the first in line in this year's round of tanker-driver pay negotiations. (A first meeting took place on Monday October 31 between management and TGWU representatives over the drivers' "gubstantial" claim).

Unions now fear that independent contractors may be brought in to act as scabs to deliver supplies from Haydock, and they plan to maintain round theclock picketing when the depot reopens this week.

The 4.5% offer has been made in separate talks at Shell's DUDE DEMONSTRATION Speakers include: u know sometimes I feel really bad having to stitch these bastards up!! five sites — Stanlow, Shellhaven (Essex), Teesport (Cleveland), Ardrossan (Scotland), and the Carrington chemical complex (Manchester).

An overtime ban has begun at all of these sites, with the 500 TGWU members at Shellhaven, Shell's second largest refinery, voting to join the Stanlow workers on all-out indefinite strike from Wednesday 2 November.

However a one-day strike for Tuesday, 1 November has received a patchy response, with AUEW craft workers at the Carrington plant supporting the action, and the TGWU members there voting not to join the stoppage, along with a similar response by workers at the Teesport refinery.

Union claims vary from 12% at Shellhaven to 15% at Teesport and "substantial increses" at Stanlow. The Shell dispute is an important test, early in the pay round, of the employers' response to the Confederation of British Industry's call for lower pay deals. Last year's settlement was 7%. *As we go to press the dispute shows signs of spreading to the Teesport plant in Cleveland, where TGWU stewards are to recommend strike action on Friday, and to the tanker drivers, whose stewards are expected to ballot members calling for rejection of the company's 4.5% offer. off Shettoeston Road) March to Tollcroff Park Council)

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Sociatist Ofganiser no: 153 November 3 1983 Page 15 Industrial

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Diary of a People's

Marcher of the People's March"

the unions openly acknowledged the "acute" financial pressures

the Glasaon Saturday November 5, 12 noon