THE PO OF NO RETURN

I've been unemployed three months and I've been up a number of times for a job, but there's always 30 or 40 blokes at the exchange and they say "Nothing for you". What are you expected to do?' Twenty-two-year-old Garry Jenner thought of something. He decided to Join the S Wales Young. Socialists On their 200mile Right-to-Work march to London and he is now of the regional Right-to-Work committee.

He told me at cafe near Swansea station: 'At first thought three weeks' march to London would be great, but when I heard the lads talking I looked upon it as something worth fighting for. "The people in the YS in Swansea are true blokes and I think people will rally round, especiwhen they see the march.

La lot of people say they don't like us because we're Trotskyist movement. but they agree with our policies. There is no other party in Britain today that's putting our policies to the working class. 'We've got about 30 going on the march at the moment and t's growing all the time. And eopl are getting more politically aware as they work with us. 'It's a point of no return as far as I'm concerned. We've either got to get the Tories out or they'll hammer us.

Garry looked over toward the docks: 'There's not much chance saidettinent bon Sprince of went to the Prince Wales dry dock for a job and there were 25 other men in the office for it.

Only five years ago-and lessSwansea and neighbouring Port Talbot were widely regarded as boom areas, part of the Utopian Severnside development which was to rise, phoenix like, along the banks of the Severn out of the ashes of the dying coalfield valleys.

As the pits have closed, slashing the labour force from over 100,000 to 38,000, with more than 121 mines axed since the war, the valleys have diedbut Severnside remains a hopeless dream.

Above Swansea the Avon valley has been emptied of the mines which threw up the mountainside villages and only one two small factories replaced them.

The valleys of Neath and Swansea became an industrial graveyard of abandoned works. Meanwhile at Port Talbot the giant steelworks expanded on the complacency of generation. chemical works and Ford's ams Baglan Bay spawned BP's huge other component moved into Swansea. Down at Milford Haven the oil companies set up their tank farms.

The recession has taken its toll. Severnside has not materialized. The tank farms are forest of pipes and drums, but few men.

No more factories went to Swansea where yesterday's hopes straggle pathetically at the beginning of a motorway built on expectations. And at Port Talbot new machines and rationalization have formed a grim pattern repeated throughout the area. Unemployment in W Wales, where oil and plastics were to form a science-age base for new growth industries, has leapt to 6 per cent. In Swansea Wales' second city-it is 5.8 per cent and in Port Talbot 5.3 per cent. Only one month ago comparable figures were 5.2 per cent per cent respectively.

getting a job *There's not much chance id me. Thousands are unemployed and they say by April another 1,200 will be sacked from Smith's Industries, Alcoa, Neath Brewers and British Aluminium.

I've been to a . government training centre,' said Garry, 'but I'm a general labourer really. I've been a fitter's mate, welder's mate and labourer. Anything I can lay my hands on, anything the dole dishes out to me.' The highest number of Welsh unemployed are in construction —8.5 per cent followed by 3.6 er cent of general labourers an .4 per cent of those in distribu and up, said ever do. just money-grabbers. class, long as they if they don't be outside the in per cent in engineering. For all these thousands of there are 'Even working I'd it, but not 24. With for new factories sharply and others closing told "The capitalist any more.

again.

away the kid's milk a go strike. should imagine time they'll be taking well.' said: to oppres protect the Tories wi if they. to-Work march unite carry out socialist policies and if oft. youth in the Tory that youth are Just the I think the march will have a great effect. There are millions on the dole today and the march vill show peope who are on the dole and what they are prepare to do about it.' Garry has lost both parents and is living with his uncle on the £4.80 he gets from the dole.

He said: 'I pay £1.50 rent and living on £3 is just pathetic. I've just got enough for grub. The was born and will die with cost of living 15 really terrible. The change of currency was just a farce to put up prices. I can't save or get a car. I can't Tories have taken all this away enjoy mysef. overall, but over 10 per cent from the working man.

If We can build a good leadership in the working class we can run this country. We don't need those people on £20,000 a year-they don't do the work in the country anyway, it's us, the working class. All they , is give productivity deals. we'll never fight. Now is the time to make a stand. It's a known Avant Wilson, Heath or else: want to get anywhere you've got anyone Rally the miners' strike 'You've got to have a Labour dominat es her thinking. "The are not fighting for money re. They're fighting to get out. When their leaders awling and start fighting, iers will be a lot better Be got 1926 here again and the only way to change it is to get Heath out.

That's why I'm going on the HEATH'S Young Socialists' Right-to-Work DESTROYING march. Heath's destroying the class and someone's got WORKING to stop him. If we don't get him out we'r re finished.

Tories have done nothing for us. Last year's budget only benefiter d the rich. There was no Porth is in the Rhondda benefit for the poor at all.

did nothing for us either. nk the march will have some ef fect. It will show Heath the wo irking class are doing ng. If the Tories could Highest in the coalfield valleys have a war they would. It's the : way to get rid of a million.' n left her last job because it was non-union and the pay nditions were bad. She gold. pointed to an ash tray: If you Seventeen-year-old Sharon make as sh trays for a week, what ıke in a day pays your work practically since she left wages. Who gets the rest? It's me we had a share in it.' n's 19-year-old sister I'd make a better Prime Sandra will be marching with London. a said: I believe what ment that will fight for us. We we are doing is right. It's about time we had a working-class government instead of the Tories. They're a middle-class government just looking after the rich. I've been unemployed for eight months. I was having great money in the last job I had (£11) and don't see why anyone should work for less. 'If you don't want to work for what they pay you, they say get out there's plenty of others around. If the working class were all together, I think we could get the Tories out.' WE SHOULD GET A PARTY THAT WILL FIGHT FOR US At 20, Alan Saint has heavy responsibilities. He is married with a child and he's been unemployed for a year. 'We should a get party that will fight for us ', he told me at his home town of Porth. 'There are no jobs around here at all and if we don't get the Tories out, they'll knock us back to 1926.

I'm going on the Right-toWork march, but I don't know if it will have any effect. I read the newspapers now, but I didn't use to. I want to see about the miners and I want to see about politics. 'Heath has refused to do anything about unemployment. He says it's not an emergency, but it is. It should be a General Strike all over the country. "If the Tories stay in, it's going to be very rough on the workers. When they came into office, they said they were going to do this and that, but they've done nothing. 'Everything has gone up twice as much as what it was; rent has gone up, food has gone up and they've joined the Common Market when they never should have gone in. Everything's got to go up. 'AÎl we can do is chuck them out and fight for someone who will give us what we want. 'The Tories are not interested in unemployment, yet Heath can go out in his yacht and he's got a few thousand in the bank. 'And I don't think the Queen deserves all that money one bit. Any person could live on £6,000 or so a year, but she's got millions. 'If the miners don't go back I think the Tories will stick troops in. Pickets and troops will clash and there will be another Ireland. 'They've put troops in before and I think they'll do it again, but the miners are strong. They'll fight them, and they'll get more support from the working class than they did in 1926.

I think the troops should get out of N Ireland and leave them alone? IS NC A PRI ITS A DEMA 1 wa about 19-yea 'But Young what t employ realize cripple I th religior it's pol powers troops Terr school he's be than a He sai choosy If 1 someo chance about ash ca about month: and th MARCH OTEST IND IS prepared to hang on the dole for ever, ir-old Terry Wilden Swansea told me. since I met the lads in the Socialists I've realized he situation is. With unment and Ireland, that the Tories are out to the working class. us battle. but now I knor ought Ireland was they could bring against the miners. y left secondary modern only four years ago, yet een out of work for more quarter that period. d: There are just no iobs I and employers can be • about who they take. you've got long hair and ne comes behind you with hair you don't stand a Thev're even chooss who they have on the arts. dree assent me 104 I've been unemploye e chances of getting wor are very grim indeed.

I've got two 'O' levels and I was doing shop work before. Labouring is no good to me because I'm not built for it. 'I left my last job because at 18 I was getting £8 a week and that was no good.' Terry went to a government training centre on a storekeepers' course, but he still couldn't get a job.

said: "They're trying to use the people they take in the training centres to use against the tradesmen so they can pay less.

I get £5.50 on the dole and I give £3 to my mother then I've got £2.50 to live on. After Sunday I've just got to scrounge what I can. 'Being on the dole is just impossible. You can't buy anything. I'd like to have a motor bike, but as it is now on £2.50 I'd be saving up for years. If I want clothes I've got to save for months to get anything.

"The Right-to-Work march is a big step. It's not a protest it's a demand. We're demanding the right to work, which is one of the basic rights the lories are trying to take away from us.

I realize we've got to do something. It's no use sitting back. I'm not worried about walking to London. If it's worthwhile and it's going to change things I'd walk to China.

"The working class will bear about this march and they'll think the youth are doing something. They'll think "Let's not leave it to them. Let's get out and help them get rid of this Tory government.' 'If we don't get the Tories out low, in about a year or so we'r‹ oing to have nothins Socialists habi said is truth. ung fact. Everything they've said they will do they will do, but they an't do it on their own. They've have the working class behind them THE SITUATION IN THIS COUNTRY IS ALL WRONG Tories dont step on us, (18) told me. 'A Right-toWork march like this is very urgent. Unemployment gets higher and higher every day.

Thing for the right of every youth to a future.

It's lift driver until the firm I worked for put 25 off. •The exchange offered me job as a roadsweeper and as ›olt moulder, but they were so ar away that most of my wages vould have gone on fares. 'There's no prospect at all now think Right-to-Work narch will rally people. It's the routh of this country you've got o look to for the future. 'My father thinks what I'm doing for the YS is a waste of ime and shoe leather and he jays I'm not getting paid for it. 'But the march is for a good demanding the right to It'll show rest of working class we're prepared to fight. my parents as thinking the aust before tiest schoin but and I was wouldn't now. I don't believe in After so many years in the army, when wouldn't get a job anyway. "The situation in this country all wrong. Look at the capitalist system today. They want unemployment as a threat. They want us to work harder so its the et meres who run this can get more money. country anyway. They give money to businesses. so why can't we ment? a working-class. govern'All the youth around should ten Right-to- Work mach even women because it's not just for the what the Tories are drag with everybody.

Friday