[offered a copy of the document to Duncan…]

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offered a copy of the document to Duncan McNeil, but the offer was turned down. McNeil preferred to sit around and wait for something to happen rather than make something happen. He has been running and hiding from the fight ever since.

So the rank and file workers must take over now. We must throw out the management, we must elect occupation committees and run the yards ourselves. And one of the first things to be done is to tear down the obscene sign saying Scott Lithgow and erect one saying Lower Clyde Shipbuilders and Oilrig Builders.

Then we must broaden out the fight. We must get the railway workers, the steel workers, the miners, hospital and transport workers, dockers - in fact, all workers must stand together and rid this country once and for all of Thatcher.

Thatcher is doing to jobs what Hitler dia to the Jews. And now the time has come for her to pay for her crimes.

Organiser

badges 25p ten. LAST Wednesday, 8 February, the 103 workers at Philips Rubber in Manchester were officially sacked. Management are refusing to talk. They are hoping that as time goes by hardship and fear of losing their jobs will force the strikers back to work.

The reply must be to step up the action and mobilise the local labour movement in support of the struggle.

Mass pickets need to become a regular feature of the dispute. Such mass action will put greater pressure on the management and prevent the isolation and consequent demoralisation of the strikers.

Inside the factory management have been trying to get the small number of engineers to do the strikers jobs. Those who have refused have been threatened with the sack.

The strike needs to be extended and the engineers called out in support of the TGWU strikers. Some strikers have expressed fears that if they return to work defeated they could lose more than their pay claim.

Management could well use the opportunity to get rid of the union and victimise active militants.

The strike, for an increase on the £48 basic wage needs more support. After six weeks, the strikers, who are on £12 a week strike pay, need financial support. Management have settled for a waiting game. Financial and active support for the struggle must be built. was to disrupt the meeting ant who would oppose whatever wa proposed from the platform.

Then he pledged occupation i a takeover deal was done with out the union's approval. Bu how can such a pledge be taker seriously? McNeil used to vor opposition to privatisation. Bu now that privatisation is on thi cards, he only quibbles _abou the terms of privatisation.

But the meeting did agree to : ban on overtime. That overtimi was still being worked at thi stage in the dispute is itself ar indictment of McNeil's record a: convenor. McNeil attempted tr prevent the meeting discussing the resolution calling for ar overtime ban. It was not rele vant to the purpose of the meet ing, he said!

The purpose of the meeting for McNeil and his backers or the shop stewards committet was two-fold: demand the right to be consulted on the takeover talks, and declare acceptance ol the so-called "survival plan"

McNeil won on both points.

By accepting British Ship. builders' survival plan, McNeil succeeded only in isolating the yard's workforce from workers elsewhere prepared to put up a fight against the survival plan.

The best chance of saving the yards now is that the terms of the privatisation will turn out to be so unacceptable that it becomes impossible to reopen the questions of the survival plan and privatisation and ditch them along with McNeil and the other shop stewards who travel the same path as him.

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Tories' friend •Scott Lithg Free ha for the