families on the dole.
THE JOINT Shop Stewards CommiWEEKLY THAT'S OUR BOY!
Brian Walden, Labour MP and bookies" runner, receives £5,000 a year to promote betting and gaming interests in Parliament. Recently he suggested that parts of British Leyland were like 'industrial Butlins. His solution to British Leyland's problems is to close the factories at Cowley and Bathgate and throw 20,000 CAR TRACK INTO A RACE TRACK car for last November. warid car sales larly carworkers. process.
HORE WHEN Some 170,000 workers are now the victims of short-time working in British industry, double the figure Much of this thinly disguised unemployment is concentrated in the crisis tom motor and car components industry. With production back to 1962 levels and new registrations falling 25 per cent last year, short-time working is sweeping through the car industry. As the car giants catch cold many of the smaller component firms are going bankrupt while the three-day week is now rolling back into the steel-rolling mills. tion of the car industry by the Labour Chryslers UK now have 18,000 production workers on 1 two or three day week, and on 14 February a 10 per cent staff cut, involving 700 workers, will be implemented. While Fonds have axed over a 1,000 staff workers, the biggest employer in the car industry, British Leyland, had disposed of 10,000 workers through 'natural wastage' ATTACK Behind the vicious attack launched on car workers by the right-wing Labour hack Brian Walden, MP, is the realisation that only a much smaller, efficient and competitive car industry can suvive as a cupitalis! industry within the present slump in Hurold Wilson has also changed his tune. The social contrick has failed to get the rank-and-tile of the trade union movement to take a cut in living standards So instead of getting the trade union bureaucracy to "police" wage claims in return for a few minor concessions on pensions and family allowances. Wilsor and Chancellor Healey are now waving the threal oi mass redundancies over the heads of the working class- particuBut the car bosses know that any attempt to solve their problems through mass sackings would be met by a wave of factory occupations Short-time working and natural wastage is just port of their softening-up The response of the trade union leadership in the plants has been totally indequate-even at the level oi simple trade ucionism. At one ande the same mass meeting the militant Vauxhall plant at Ellesmere Port voted against u single redundancy and for short-lime working as an alterna tive' to sackings! Many carworkers are protected against drastic loss of earnings by lay-off pay. But the failure lo combat short-time workingthe thin end of the wedge for future sackings is due to the fact that the present leadership in the plants doesn't know how to go about it.
Plant sewards should be fighting for available work to be shared between all the workforce with no IN Goverument's overall policy by the horns and smash Wilson's 'social contract with the bosses TUC The leadership of the TUC, howe ver, has accepted Wilson's argument and called for defence of jobs as the first priority, counterposing this to defence of living standards.
Last week a national meeting of 400 British Leyland stewards voted for nacionalisation and then went on to discuss claborate plans for worker parlicipation. But, far from gearing the workforce up for the fight, the stewards lave not yet reported back the policy they have worked out at national levet to plant level mass meetings, times leaving the shopfloor disarmed in the face of Wilson and Walden's attack It is the Communist Party that bears the main responsibili ty for this, thus allowing the right wing of the Labour Government la set the terms of the debate.
We are in favour of the nationalist Government, which was clected by the votes of the working class and claims to represent its interests. They should use state caah to organise the industry in the interests of the wotking class. The trade anions must monitor such nationalisation plans at every stage and level to garantee that no johs will be chopped, and no deterioration in working conditions will take place, Any scheme that will lead the workforce into taking responsibility for the running of the car industry as a viable capitalist concern must be rejected. The plans being dreamt up by Bean and the TEC are the first steps on the slip pery slope to workers in The cuT industry co-operating with manage ment in imposing cutbacks agamet their own interests. What carworkers by which they can veto any plane that run counter to their interests.
RYDER
This is why the trade unions should not co-operate with the Ryder Commission, whose final proposals will inevitably involve Jarge scale redundancies and speed up being imposed on the British Leyland workforce. Far from calling for its extension into Chrysler, the stewards should be launching their own inquiry into the car industry.
For this purpose a national conforence of all conveners and stewards in the car industry should be held to work out a national policy agatost short-time working and a trade union plan for the nationalisation of the car industry under workers control. Harry Urwin, of the Transport and General Workers Union, who sits on the Ryder Com mission, should publish all the proocedings of this body and make them available for such an onquiry and to mass meetings in the plants WORKERS PLAN Carworkers are well aware that it is the slump in the world car man ket that is at the root of their present problems. That is why an overali pire drawn up by a national stewards meeting is needed to moet the crisis in the capiralist car industry. There is absolutely no reason wily the skills of carworkers and the machinery in the plants cannot be used for socially useful ends: producing for a nationalised transport system and buildine cars and rebicies that do not spew out pollution. Is is the capitalist deive for production for profit that stands in the way The imposition of a workers soin tion to the crisis in the cur industry would not only defend the jobs and living standards of carworkers, bur unite the rest of the labour move-
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GENERALS! + MORE WOMEN workers
TOK POL