place:
No clisures - no redundancies in slee Occupy the plant as a focus for org working order.
Lanvern to black all production switched from Ebaw Vale.
amount needed and its use to be determined by a workers Inquiry.
investment programme.
immediately to carry out this job.
fought for with no loss of earnings to workers in any steel plant.
redundancies have just been announced.
The production workers claim that the works are cconomically sable and it is only mismanagement by the BSC that has put the works in the "red." They say BSC should develop a fully integrated steel works, using the highly skilled workforce at Ebbw Vile. The production workers are not just against closures but also demand the expansion of steel making.
CRAFTSMEN The craftsmen point out that even an automated plant would only need 500 workers to run it and this would still mean redundancies of With British capitalism slithering further and further into chronic debt and private enterprise banging at the door of No. 10 Downing Street for bigger and bigger handouts to stave off bankruptcy, Ebbw Vale is going to be low down on capitalism's hist of pronties.
The C12.6 million pumped into Ebbw Vale by the Government is clained to have found 1,350 new jobs. But anotber 1,000 have been BISAKTA has been consistently on the right in the trade union spectrum and its leadership has never been subjected to a serious challenge from the rank-and-file militants. The conservatism of the union means that the problems of today are often misinterpreted in the terms of the past.
The sixties are rife with examples of how the fight against techuological change and redundancies was turned into a fight against the nonBISAKTA workers in the plant. This played right into the hands of the manapement and the more reactionary people in BISAKTA's leadersbip who love to create the impression that the problems of the membership are due to the Amaigamated Union of Engineering Workers, etc. This means BISAKTA gets off the hook and does not have to fight management and the management enjoy the fruits of the inter-union squabble.
The domination of the right wing the Spectre The International Marxist Group pub forward the following demands around which it considers the struggle against the Ebow Vale redandancies must take Wing the struggle. Keep the plant in The Labour Government to make available the funds for a major re-investment programme to be carried out at the lavy end of the Fbow Vale Steel Works. The All work to be shared with no lois of pay to any worker during the perlod of the The main furnaces to be re-lined the Governent to make 1600,000 aailable The Works Council to call an acrosssteel Conference in South Wales The Confe tence to discuss solidarity action and adopt the demand that work-sharing be Contact be made with Ravenseraigh in Scotland, another steel plant where made redundant and there are 3,000 more to follow. The C70 million being invested by BSC al the finishIng end of the works might create a maximum of 400 new jobs in 1979.
Capitalism is only interested in producing steel in the cheapest and most efficient way possible. It bas no interest in preserving johs and its policy of closures is dictated by its need to survive. Any plans for making Ebbw Vale viable in capitalist terms means redundancies and ruthless speed-up.