'Pressure' won't defend steel jobs defenc

NEITHER the British Steel tion nor the Tory governı fear the decisions taken at works action committees in Quay at the weekend.

The 85 delegates set up a national committee to fight the Tory plan to axe 50,000 jobs by 1980 and they called a one-day strike on May Day in protest against redundancy.

May I, said Shotton action committee joint secretary John Atkinson would be 'the day the BSC ten-year disaster plan is finally and completely shattered'. In point of fact on May 2 BSC chairman Lord Melchett will go to work as usual. Only a national campaign aimed at creating the conditions in which the Tories can be made to resign can halt the closures.

But conference discussion, dominated by right-wing Labourites and Stalinists was barred from even touching on this perspective by a deep-rooted and utterly misplaced belief that the British economy is about to boom. Indeed, speaking to the policy proposals drawn • up by Shotton action committee, Mr Atkinson said: 'All the signs are that we are entering a boom phase which may last two years or per. haps longer.' Delegates were told a world shortage of steel was developing and that steel demand from other Common Market countries was on the upturn. To ensure that British steel was in the best position to cash in they were urged to press for a ban on steel imports and on all exports of cheap home produced scrap.

Although the BSC has persistently and in great detail scotched the belief that raised output could mean a reprieve for Italy tense after grenade killing TWO YOUTHS, both members of the fascist fascist movement Avanguardia Nazionale (National Vanguard), b have arrested in Milan nection with the policeman on day.

Th policeman All Trades Unions Alliance meetings EAST LONDON: Monday April 16, 8 p.m. Bromley Public Hall, Bow Road, E.3. 'Fight rising rents and prices. Build Councils of Action' TOTTENHAM: Tuesday April 17, 8 p.m. 'Bricklayers Arms', High Road, near White Hart Lane. 'Make Scanlon retract'.

CRAWLEY: Tuesday April 17, 8 p.m. AEU Hall,_Robinson Road. 'Make Scanlon Retract.

ACTON: Tuesday April 17, 8 p.m. 'Six Bells', High Street, W.3. 'Make Scanlon retract. or P.m. Prince of Wales', corner PADDINGTON: Tuesday April 17, Harrow Road and Western Road. Make Scanlon withdraw his proposals. with the Tories: No collaboration With the oriac.

WOOLWICH: Wednesday April 18, 8 p.m. 'Castle', Powis Street, E.18. 'No collaboration with the Pay Board'.

WALTHAMSTOW: Wednesday April 18, 8 p.m. 'The Bell', Hoe Street. 'TUC must call a General Strike' FULHAM: Thursday April 19, 8 p.m. 'The Swan', Fulham Broadway, S.W.6. 'No collaboration with the Pay Board'.

LEEDS: Thursday, April 19, 8 p.m. Cobourg Taverne, Woodhouse Lane. Speakers from hospital workers and clothing industry. Corporanent will the firstof steelConnah's open-hearth steelworks it was principally on this that the delegates pinned their hopes for the future. Union leaders are to be prodded to pressurize the Tories to jack up production at least to 43m tons a year 'in line with the TUC's recommendation for 6 per cent annual growth'.

The concept of pressure politics dominating the conference was summed up by Shotton steelman Del Hopkins who said: 'We need to unite to save what is left of the steel industry. We need to unite to pressurize the government.' In effect the national rank-and-file committee (its members still to be elected) is to stand behind official union leaders in their discussions with the BSC to make sure none of those suspected of wanting to do so actually take a step backwards in the fight for jobs.

Stalinist speakers consciously deepened the reformism of the right-wing social democrats by collaborating openly in the illusion that boom is on the way and that responsible action can safeguard the steelmen's share in it. The only challenge to this poisonous claptrap came from supporters of Sean Matgamna's "Workers' Steelworks RIGHT - SAVE SHOTTON DEESIDE STELWORKS: SHOTTO. ELESTEELWORKS Steelworks SAVE TO WORA MOTION Sclworks BACK TO STEEL! THE RIGHT SHOTION THE ANO STEEL ·930.s TALI IKS TO WORK SIEELWURKS STEELWOR NO MEAL SPENCER up by a hand-grenade thrown from a crowd of fascists who were defying a ban on demonstrations and attempting to stage a rally in the centre of Milan.

Avanguardia Nazionale is one of the most extreme fascist organizations, closely linked to the Italian Social Movement, the parent fascist body which • has 56 MPs. Members of Avanguardia Nazionale have been trained in WANDSWORTH: Monday April 16, 8 p.m. 'King's Arms', High Street, S.W.18. 'Build Councils of Action'.

TOOTING, Tuesday April_17, 8 p.m. Tooting Baths, Tooting Broadway, S.W.17. 'The crisis of capitalism'.

MIDDLETON, Thursday April 19, 8 p.m. 'Assheton Arms' near Middleton Gardens.

FELTHAM: Thursday April 19, 8 p.m. 'Three Horse Shoes', High Street. 'TUC múst call a General Strike to make the Tories resign'. SLOUGH: Wednesday April 25, 8 p.m. Community Cèntre, Farnham Road. 'TUC must call a General Strike to make the Tories resign' CROYDON: Thursday April 26, 8 p.m. Marxism Ruskin House, Coombe Road. and the trade unions'.

WILLESDEN: Thursday April 26, 8 p.m. Brent Labour and Trades Hall, Willesden High Road, N.W.10. 'Build Councils of Action'.

HOLLOWAY: Thursday April 26, 8 p.m. Co-op Hall, Seven Sisters Road. 'The economic crisis and the rising cost of living' Greece and at special paramilitary camps in the Italian alps.

The murder has created situation of extreme tension in Italy, with clashes in parliament and warnings from veteran re: formists about the imminence of civil war.

The funeral of the fascists' victim was attended by some 100,000 people, with the Stalinists prominent among them. The CP deputies denounced the fascists in parliament as assassins and there were fist fights between the two sides of the chamber.

Pietro Nenni, the Socialist surge leader, warned of a resurgence squadrismo, the organized bands of thugs which brought Mussolini to power in the years after World War One.

'Enough of conventional lies,' said this man who has told far more than his share in the past, 'the power vacuum we talk about so often is not a menacing risk any more but a reality which has us in its grip.' There is every sign that the Andretti government will fall very shortly. It narrowly survived a confidence vote last week but was outvoted on aspects of policy for the Ilth time.

There is talk of a new attempt to form a centre-left coalition of the type which preceded the present government, but it is already clear that no amount of reshuffling of the parliamentary cards can guarantee any degree of stability.

The fascists- as the Milan grenade murder shows—are ruthlessly determined to establish their dictatorship in Italy. They can be defeated only by the united force of the working class.

The biggest obstacle to the mobilization of the masses against the fascists is Stalinism, the doctrine of the Italian CP. These men are talking in terms of defending democracy when everyone can see that the Italian parliamentary system is a hollow sham. Fight. group, who succeeded in posing no fight at all by restricting their contributions to angry, demands for 'action' without ever qualiying wat tney meant.

The idea that boom is on the way and that if they behave themselves, while responsibly opposing any rundown, the steelmen may yet get to share in it, effectively barred delegates from taking. any real action. Michael Anderson from the doomed Newport tube works in Monmouthshire told conference they had already lost a third of their men and had only three more months 'to live'. But the delegates refrained from committing themselves to even token action in their defence. And spokesmen from East Moors works, Cardiff, insisted on putting a resolution separate from the main one stressing that they accepted closure provided seven years' notice was given and a new Im ton works was phased in.

Many delegates spoke in this way of the individual problems and prospects for their plants. Thus pressure politics became linked to the concept of every works for itself—up to the point where the jobs axe looked set to fall. Then steelmen are SHOTTON SAVE TEELWON SHOTTON FEEL WORKS CHOI ION SHOTTON - DEATH TO BS-C PLAN ;

NEGOTIATIONS on a return to work have opened at the Peugeot factory in Lyon, where company strong-arm men last week tried to smash a sit-in strike for higher wages.

Two 'commandos'-each of 40 men in khaki and blue uniforms with helmets, and carrying iron bars and wooden clubs - were used to clear the strikers from the factory.

They consisted of Peugeot employees from other parts of France, brought together for the sole purpose of breaking strikes and intimidating militant workers.

They smashed through the picket line at three in the morning on April 12 and drove the workers out of the factory buildings. The company admitted that they were 'guards belonging to the Peugeot firm'.

This is only the latest and most blatant use of strong-arm men at the Peugeot factory, where THE NATIONAL congress of West Germany's ruling Social Democratic Party ended on Saturday with a pledge from Chancellor Willy Brandt to continue his right-wing policies.

Brandt, who was returned as party chairman by a very large majority of the 435 congress delegates, declared his party would stick to the 1959 programme which threw out all mention of socialism.

Brandt said the SPD would remain a party of the middle.

In fact, it draws its support overwhelmingly from the ranks Pay talks in the shadow Brandt defies 'left' to be asked to 'rally' to the support of the threatened 'location'.

High hopes are pinned on the first conference since the war of the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation (formerly BISAKTA) in London on Wednesday. But union leaders will not respond to this sort of pressure. The most they will do is to pay lip service to the steelmen's demands.

The policy of defending one works at a time can only fragment the struggle and lead to disaster. The illusion that more output can reprieve the doomed works is dangerous rubbish. An output of even 43m tons could be achieved simply by adding to the number of converters at Scunthorpe or Port Talbot with very little extra labour.

The Tories and the BSC are determined to end old fashioned, labour intensive, low productivity open-hearth steelmaking in favour of the more profitable basic oxygen process at five heritage sites. Only a national campaign to force leaders of the steel unions to adopt policies aimed at forcing the Tories to resign so that a Labour government pedged to socialist policies can be returned will stop them.

of the club CC there is a long histo y of anti-trade unionism and where the fascist-backed yellow union, the CFT, is active.

Later when the company wanted to extricate its thugs from the plant, however, they taced serious difficulties. A big force of police was required to prevent workers lynching the commandos.

The use of thugs at Peugeot came directly after the strikers at the Renault plant in Paris, out for three weeks demanding wholesale revision of wage scales, were forced to end their strike.

The factory leadership, dominated by the Communist Party, reached a compromise with the state-owned firm which gave the workers small wage rises while burying their basic demand.

At the weekend there were more strikes in the Paris factory against the lay-off payments negotiated by the unions and considered by the workers to be completely insufficient. of the organized workers' movement despite attempts to 'broaden the base'.

Brandt treated with contempt the 'left' noises made against him by leaders of the Jusos, tha 'youth' organization comprising all party members up to age 36. The Jusos chairman, Wolfgang Roth, described the chancellor's speech declaring he would continue the SPD's right-wing orientation as "impressive'.

The much-vaunted opposition turned out to be mainly talk.

Monday