AMONG THE WORST perpetrators of economic sabotage in Portugal today are the big multi-national companies, many of which are household names to British workers as well: ITT, Plessey, Timex.
These companies came to Portagal for only one thing -cheap labour. Now that they have difficulty getting it, they are determined to break the potver of the Portuguese working class, even if it means wrecking the entire economy.
Last week two delegates from the Portuguese workers' council of the telecommunications multi-national Piescy vinited Britain to confer with their comrides on the Plessey Sites Cootdinating Committee in is country. Afterwards, al a is conference in London organised by the Portuguese Workers Coordinng Committee, the two delegates, Deniz Correia and Fernanda Fortunaa sketched a bied history of Mricy's activities in Portugal and discussed the current strugeles in which they are involved.
Plesscy arrived in Portugal after the cod of the war, but only set up in production operations (telephone esembly) in a scrious way in the mid "50s Ten years later they tran aferred their 'matrix" (miniature computer-components) assembly work from Brilain to Portugal, PARADISE As Deniz Correia pointed out, Portugal under fascism was a paradae for the multi-nationals. By paying just a little higher than local industry, Plessey was able to get all the labour it needed and still at a rock bottom price.
In the matrix department wages were a tiny bit higher -but working conditions atrocious. The work was so delicate that it had to be carried out under a microscope (Deniz Coreeia described it as crocheting under a microscope J, and the women doing this job, unprotected by any form of safety laws, were ruthlessly exploited by the company. Forced to work long hours without a break under intense supervision, they had to meet a high production norm which was enforced by the simple device of sacking those who didn't fulfill it.
After 25 April things changed dramatically, The Plessey workers were now able to organise themselves throughout the country, ond created the worker council to represent all Plesscy workers, with delegates elected from cach department, inte spective of craft or union divisions.
At the same time a huge wave minimum wage of CE3 a week. But even this miserable sum represented an incrcase of more than 50% for Messey so they immediately begun to plead poverty, and started talking agout having to shut down op crations and lay off workers.
First on their list was the matrix department which, they said, was producing an obselete product and was under fire from the international cconomic crisis. (The Plessey workers in Portugal have recently heard from their British comrades that the first part of this claim is untrue; in any event, neither problem has prevented P'lesey shifting matrix orders from Portugal to Malta.)
Plessey management "generously' offered to pay the matrix workers 10% above the legally required redundancy pay if they would go quietly. Some 60 workers accepted, and another 70 were redeployed elsewhere in the company but 400 were still left. Their case was promptly taken up by the workers council, who took the position that the problems of any group of Porkers were a concern of the entire example, in Portugal, Plessey manafactures entire telephones -except for two key components (the ear and mouthpicces), which are imp orted from Plessey factories elsewhere in Europe. Such a set-up makes it difficult for the workers or the state to control the multinationals, since operabions in one country are dependent on those in another. Not surprisingly, the Plessey management have steadfastly refused to allow the manufacture of complete iclephones in their PortugSo far no progress has boen made, although the unity of the workforce has prevented the sacking of a single matrix worker, even though only 100 actually have work to do at the moment. This Friday a mass meeting of Plessey workers is planned to dis cuss the way forward. Among the moves under discussion are a reimposition of the ban on management, the occupation of selected parts of the company, and the possibility of TIGER Whatever course the P'lessey workers embark on, they will need international support in onder to tama this multi-nationa] tiger. Already the management have been up to their usual tricks: they have binted to their British employees that support for the Portuguese workers would prevent the shitting of work from Porlugal to Britain and result in rodundancies here However the links being built between the Porhiguese and Brilish workers can now block such divisive manoeuvres, and lay the basis for a coordinated international strategy that can defend the interests of bork workforces. If that is done the day of judgement for Plessey's will be drawing closer —in Portugal 2 MARCH, 1919: With the stort of the First World War in 1914, The Sec ord international, formed in 1983, effactively collapsed. Its main parties, in Britain, France and Germany, betour internationafist principles by supe porting their own' ruling-classee in the inter imparialist mass daughter which followed. Those sail soctions of the worner movemen mic opposcd the war, Including the Bolsheviks in Russ la, recognised the need to arablish a new international Alter the Russian Fevalution in 1917, and as a result of the influence and prestige this gave she Russian communists. Lenin and the Flussian party worked hard to establish a Third (Communist) International, by breaking off genuinely revolution ery suctions of the workers move ment from those thoroughly imound with national chauvinism. On 2 March 1919, the first congress of the Thind Internatical met It is significant that Lenin sur it as necessary to establish the Intarget Sonal even at a time when many of it sections were wok so a to teen to centralise the revolutionary experience of the world workers movement, and colloctively elaborate its line from the very beginning.
The Comintern remained the foes and centralised leadership of world revolutionary strugules for five yaors until Stalin's bureaucratic apperatis cook over in the Soviet Union and began to use the International as thi regulator of Soviet forsign policy, rather than as a tool to further rewclutions dischero The documents of the first tive congreems contain prob ably the most sustained and consist ent application of revolutionary marx ism this century.
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of worker strugeles forced the Government to implement a paltry