GRANGEMOUTH ISCHS 5G5 (U 10) LN CUMBERNAULD Surroughs SET COET CALDERCRUIX Batent fraig CLYDEBANK Singer ALEXANDRIA Plessey GLASGOW AREA LUCS The Paper Industry K. I. Porter Clyde Paper Dary Asbmare Mavor & Coole 1. 1. Boyd Marinite Lid L. Sterne Barclay Curle TESS TaTE The Baking Industry Sir Win, Irrel PAISLEY & DIST.
ree 30110n L. F. Studdart India Tyre IKVING Ayrshire Metal PRESTWICK Scottish Aviation KILMARNOCK Glacier Metal Massey Ferguson Glenfield Eng Southhook Coll UDDINGSTON HAMILTON Arch. Stevenson Manta The Red Mole 29th Novemher 1971 Paoe 10 This map shows some of the main redundancies in the past fifteen months.
NEWHOUSE BLACKBURN loneywel John Collier Lee Cooper Cameron Iron ABERDEEN PETERHEAD Crosse and Blackwell DUNDEE AREA Joseph Nodin Lawside Foundry NCR Jute Industries Ltd.
Vender-Root.
Tay Textiles Keiller Foods Low and bonne Swel Foods Cairo Dundeel Lid W. G. Grant ARBROATH Giddings-Lewis Fraser CARNOUSTIE Lockwood Foods TILLICOULTRY Samuel Jones GLENROTHES GEC Cessna Marconi-Eliot Emihus Micro LINLITOW Avon Paper EDINBURGH James White MUSSELBURGH Inveresk Paper DALKEITH Microware Systems LEITH W. Crawford GALASHIELS B EP I (Electronics)
BROXBURN Golden Wonder LIVINGSTON BATHGATE British Leyland Day of Action?
Unemployment in Scotland has now risen to some 140,000. It promises to reach 200,000 in the not-so-distant future. These figures alone should be enough to demonstrate the need for continued militant, united action against unemployment. Further, any slackening of the pace, or downturn of the level of struggle in Scotland, must lead to a reckoning by the Tories and the employers that the time has come to put the boot in on UCS, redundancies - and, of course, the Industrial Relations Act.
The UCS struggle, even though confined within certain limits which this paper has analysed before, has awakened within the working class in Scotland an extremely high degree of political awareness on the need to fight redundancies. They have shown by their support for the work-in and for the demonstrations of a few months ago that they are prepared to back up any lead in the direction of militant action.
It is within the framework of this current situation in Scotland, that we think it necessary to write about the miserable record of the Glasgow -TU bureaucracy over the "national day of action' called for the 24th November. At the time of writing, the only demonstration organised has been that called by the Claimants' Unions of Cumbernauld, Parkhead and Clydebank. At the last meeting of the Clyde district Committee of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and En. gineering Unions, the question of action on the 24th was raised: proposals from the Boilermakers and the AUEW(T & SS) for a ½ day stoppage were deferred to the executive committee. Representatives of the AEF, arguing for a 1-hour stoppage, stated flatly that any longer stoppage would prevent workers contributing to the UCS fighting fund! Finally, the Executive Committee itself called for - a one-hour stoppage. The final decision is a ludicrous token - a drop in the ocean compared with the actions of a few months ago. Nor can the proposed Mass Lobby of Parliament' be expected to add much to class solidarity in the fight against redundancies. If the representatives of the working class refuse even to draw on the power of that class, let alone direct it against the right targets, then the representatives of the ruling class are not likely to give them more than a polite listening ora repetition of the advice of Tory Chief Whip, Sir Francis Pym: "The only genuine prospect of more jobs is offered by steadier prices, moderate wage settlements and higher production." The problem facing even the left' Trade Union bureaucrats is that, whilst they need the power of the workers to bargain with employers and pressurise the government, in no way are they prepared or willing to see that class involved in a movement which goes outside the bounds of purely formal protest. For they know that such a movement involves a conflict on a scale which places it outside the control of the union apparatus - and themselves. The wave of working class militancy sparked off by the UCS action is receiving no clear leadership from the Trade Union leaderships, the "left" bureaucrats or from the Communist Party. On a day of national action against unemployment, the working class in Scotland has been confused and demobilised = and no action is being taken. It remains to be seen whether the angry protests which are already being registered by shop stewards com mittees and the councils of more militant un unions can be translated into concrete action a later date.
----- pull-quotes -----
BLACK SPOTS OF LOST JOBS