Ihrow out SNC's shipyard sellout bid

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•Pfighting in the Labour movement for lesbian ON WEDNESDAY, November 2, two members of the Shipbuilding Negotiating Committee met with British Shipbuilders management in an attempt to avert any action being taken by Shipyard workers in support of their pay claim and against enforced redundancy.

The meeting was held at Benton House, BS's headquarters in Newcastle, and was lobbied by over 2,000 shipyard workers from the Tyne, Scotland, and Birkenhead.

The message from those demonstrating was as loud and clear as it had been outside the lay delegates conference on October 28.

Placards proclaimed No Job Losses', 'No" Back-downs', 'Save Our Shipyards'. Those lobbying called for Jim Murray, Chair of the SNC, to come out and listen to what they had to say, but he refused, as did Alex Ferry, Secretary of the SNC.

Inside Benton House, despite having about 29 members of the SNC present, including lay delegates from the yards, Jim Murray and Alex Ferry went into the negotiations with British Shipwhat is going on, and that the SNC is out of touch with the feelings in the yards.

There will be stewards who will try to sell the deal to their members, the loudest amongst them being on the Clyde. Some of those stewards think they are being clever by taking the money with any strings attached, and saying they will ignore the agreements in the end. How many times have we heard this in British Shipbuilders, yet 30,000 jobs have gone since nationalisation, and our standards of living have dropped lower and lower.

For those clever stewards the strings will soon become a noose. There is only one way to answer British Shipbuilders and that is by sticking out for abasic rate increase across the board and resisting the threat of redundancies, and closures, by united action, in striking and occupying all the yards as agreed by mass meetings earlier this year.

If the SNC can't lead us in the fight for better wages and against the destruction of our jobs, then we need to elect representatives from each of the yards who will, and kick out Murray, Ferry and friends.

35 hours The wage claim, lodged on January I1 1983, for the year suns out how we can resist job cuts by demanding a 35 hour week without loss of pay and longer holidays.

Reduction of the working week, and sharing out the work available in the yards without loss of jobs or pay are essential demands in the fight against redundancy. In some yards some people work nearly double their normal working week in overtime in an attempt to take home a fairly decent pay packet. That is a pointer to the type of wage rise that is necessary.

There are 9,000 jobs at risk, and the SNC has decided to sit back and wait for them to go.

We can not atford to do that. Shipyard workes have got to demand a recall of the lay delegates conference and send delegates to that conference to represent the feelings in the yards and not the boot-licking attitudes of theSNC.

We have the strength in the yards to fight back and win, provided we cut off the attempts by the SNC to split us. If British Shipbuilders and their friends in the SNC get their way this year, you can bet that the 9,000 redundancies due before March 1984 will be nothing compared with what is to follow.

Offensive

Bs will go on the offensive against the unions, wages, conditions and working practices. They will push ahead with their plans to privatize the profitable sections.

The time for bluff has come to an end. The workers in British Shipbuilders did not create the crisis and they should not be the ones who pay for it.

Graham Day, British Shipbuilders recently appointed Chairman, on £80,000 a year, plus a performance bonus, is very pleased witht he SNC's response to his offer, and so he should be.

If this deal is accepted he will have a free hand to do a Michael Edwardes on British Shipbuilders workers. special issue of Gay Socialist. (Civil Commissioner of the Falklands) and the Department of the Environment is causing a row amongst Falklands labour leaders. No local labour is to be used in the construction of the $215 million airport near Port Stanley because of fears that wages on the construction site might lure islanders away from traditiona. jobs. Some 1,400 UK workers are being recruited at the moment.

NUPE won a victory in the High ourt [Tuesday November 1] on behalf of 4,800 kitchen staff employed by Hertfordshire County Council, who had imposed "unlawfully", wage reductions last March, unilaterally amending employment contracts.

This means that in some cases as much as 20% cuts in wages will have to be paid back by the council.

Two next steps that the Tories are looking at to follow their current anti-union bill are limiting the right to strike in "essential services" and Americanstyle laws to make agreements between unions and employers legally binding.

Refuting the Tories' rigged statistics and lying proejctions, a forecast made by the deputy president of the CBI: suggests that unemployment in manufacturing industries would rise throughout next year by around 13,000 a month.

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