BSC SHUTDOWNS: TESTING POINT AT NEWPORT TUBES

July 7 will be a decisive day for the 700 men still employed by the British Steel Corporation at the Newport Tube Works, South Wales. It will also be a day which will make or break the anti-redundancy policies of the 13 steel unions and the unofficial national delegate committee.

Both are pledged to rally the strongest possible support to men at any location threatened with closure. 'If we don't get backing one way or the other that will be the end of our fight,' action committee secretary Mr Joe Parry told me. 'About 700 men will just walk out of the gate for good' If it doesn't sound much like fighting talk, it is because the men at Newport Tubes are battle-weary. Since they were first told of the plant's closure on Friday, January 7, 1972, at 10.30 a.m., about half the 1,200-strong workforce have been sacked.

Most of these were the younger men. Some were found work at other BSC plants like Llanwern, Some found jobs out of the industry. Others went into the army or navy. About 300 are still on the dole.

And during the same period, action committee members saw every conceivably relevant MP and trade union leader to lobby for the retention of the works. They also organized one of the biggest protest marches Newport has ever seen.

The channels of protest are familiar; so are the depressing results. Today there is less than a week's work at the plant and from now on the mainly ageing workforce will watch helplessly as the plant is remorselessly run down. For almost all of them closure will mean long months and even years on the dole. Some may never work again KEPT SECRET During their long campaign, the Newport men found that even protest was a right which had to be fought for. At first they claim the BSC refused to give them the detailed grounds on which the plant was being closed. After the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation (exBISAKTA) intervened, there was a six-months reprieve for social reasons.

Next, on July 18, 1972, the men's representatives put their case against closure to a select committee of the House of Commons. The Committee sympathized, but said it was not empowered to make recommendations - merely to examine the facts.

Broadly, the facts were that BSC said the demand for the type of tubes made at Newport was shrinking and that as a result production would be concentrated at Cambuslang, near Glasgow.

The works' action committee denied all of this and added that the plant had a 29-year record of profitability and that there had been no serious strike for half a century. All the time the action committee leaders were lobbying indiviRescue team during operations lo free seven miners who died In the disaster at Lofthouse colliery. duals as well from ISIC general secretary Sir David Davies to Labour leader Harold Wilson.

Right from the start they ruled out direct action, such as strikes, as being harmful to their case. Instead they committed their entire effort to producing facts and graphs to refute BSC's reasons for closing Newport. Their one aim was to have both cases submitted to an independent assessor whom they were confident would be forced-from the facts-to come out on their side.

They have not been given an independent inquiry and the chances are they never will. And they have learned the hard way that Labour leaders out of power have nothing to dispense but sympathy.

Most of all they have learned leaves the crust. There are reserves of coal at Gomersal but these are going to be left.' Another Gomersal miner, Italian Mr Spolverato Bruno, has worked in pits in this country for 22 years. He told us:

'My father was persecuted by the fascists and I have been a socialist all my life.

'We must keep that hole in the ground open. There must be no more closures.' The Gomersal men have suggested that they all be put on the same shift-probably that with all their facts and figures and talk of an oil bonanza off the Welsh coast to push up the demand for tubes, a single works committee is powerless to influence the government-backed master plan for steel.

Now the action committee leaders themselves admit that after 12 months of reformist protest, even if they called for militant action at the works they almost certainly wouldn't get it.

INVESTIGATION But a ray of hope appeared at the end of their particular tunnel two weeks ago when ISTC agreed to investigate all closures in depth. Where closures are found to be justified, the union pledged its full support in pressing for alternative jobs be made available.

Furthermore, when the national action committees met at Shotton last month, they pledged to rally to the aid of any location threatened with shut-down. It means a strike,' Joe Parry explained. 'If there's no strike over Newport Tubes, they won't get it for Cardiff, Ebbw Vale or anywhere else. They'll all be finished.

Some of the men are still hoping for a reprieve so that a Welsh oil boom can have a chance of proving the works viable after all. Others are hoping only that someone, somewhere can be persuaded or forced through a national strike to provide alternative work in steel and in the locality.

WORKERS' CONTROL The sorest point of all among the Newport men is the fact that, whatever their tate, it is being determined by a nationalized industry.

'It's disgusting,' said militant young action committee member Mike Anderson. 'I thought the whole idea of nationalized industries was to absorb unemployment. They belong to the people.

'We've got a right to work and these industries should absorb us. I don't think nationalization or the idea of workerdirectors has worked properly.

'The nationalized industries should be put under proper workers' control. They should be run by shop stewards' committees.

'Policy is being decided at the grass roots at the moment. People say return a Labour government, but you've got to ask what kind of Labour government.

Nationalization under workers' control will be an essential part of their manifesto?

Meanwhile the 700 men wait helplessly to see which of the titans of the trade union movement—official or unofficial— will call the only action capable of saving their jobs. As Joe Parry said: 'If there's no strike, that will be the end of Newport Tubes.'