A BLOW AGAINST TRADE UNIONISM ON THE CLYDE YORKSHIRE REGION

In it the unions have capitulated before a naked threat of mass unemployment and traded their trade union birthright for a handful of jobs.

This shameful end to the long and bitter struggle of the shipyard workers came on Monday night when boilermakers' leader Dan McGarvey surrendered and gave Marathon the go-ahead on their terms.

A defeated McGarvey was admit:

'There is no going back. We have taken this agreement to pieces-and they are signing it. The boilermakers have done something here that they would do for no other employer.

'Everyone knows what this means, and we will stand by this agreement until termination of the four years. There will be no strikes during the term of agreement. We have agreed on this.' So at last the truth is exposed about the struggle on the Clyde and all the warnings of the Workers Press vindicated.

The Stalinist-led shop stewards and the unions have accepted massive redundancies. They have given up the right to strike and they have signed away a worker's right to fight independently to improve his wages.

This is not a victory for the right to work, but a victory for the Tory government. Every deadly clause in the Marathon deal proves this.

Clydebank will • Workers cannot go on strike. They vill be subject to a system of procedure ending in a binding arbitration of disputes.

• If they dare to break out from this strait-jacket and withdraw their labour, Marathon can threaten to confiscate their entire six months' bonus.

• Pay differentials have been abolished. This is not just a question of one group of workers being more greedy than another. Everyone knows that the boilermakers force the pace in the shipyards. Their militancy keeps wages high. And their struggles are the green light for other workers.

Under Marathon this important has been destroyed.

At Clydebank an extremely serious precedent has been established and it will affect the whole trade union movement.

What, for example will McGarvey's position be at other shipyards when the employers begin their inevitable clamour for similar contracts? The Marathon deal opens a gaping breach in the flank of his union and every one of his members is now in grave danger of attack.

concessions in the early days of the workin. In September 1971 we said:

•If a plan like this is agreed then any employer in the country can come along and say that unless he has agreement to shed his workforce by several thousand under conditions where the remainder work harder, then he will have to go out of business.' This process has now started at Clydebank. There were 3,200 workers in this yard in June last year. There are now 2,000 and next month there are likely to be only 500. This rump will work under the most vicious contract yet agreed in the shipbuilding industry.

At Govan Shipbuilders similar 'nostrike' pledges have been given on vessels, and there too the boilermakers have abandoned their independent bargaining position.

This is the 'victory" proclaimed by leading Stalinist James Reid and trumpeted throughout the land by the Communist What victory? Is there a worker will deny that Tory strategy is to drive down working conditions, push ,NO SELL OUT Willett MILE END productivity, destroy basic rights all with the threat of mass redundancies?

And is there anyone to deny that this is exactly what has happened at UCSwith the one difference that 2,000 men have already left the yards!

It is instructive to recall the words of James Reid rejecting the original plan for buying the Govan-Linthouse yards in September:

I would rather be on the dole than among the 2,500 left to grovel and snivel and accept wage reductions and all sorts of things.' Ten months later, what has Reid to say about a deal that means a four-year, no-strike pledge that means immediate employment for 150 men and promises for the rest:

The deal is in the finest traditions of the trade union and labour movement.' Ironically it was the Stalinist Reid pressing McGarvey the union bureaucrat to accept this slaves' charter.

Reid again on October 16 before a mass meeting:

There can be discussion but there will be no agreement for one, two or three yards in the absence of guarantees •tor all four yards and every worker in UCs.' What a chilling ring these promises must hold for the thousand Clydebank men who are likely to lose their jobs in September and the 500 who will work on robbed of trade union rights.

The whole UCS saga Stalinism, its corruption and dishonesty.

Marathon is the crowning betrayal, not just to the UCS workers but all those who backed them.

It was a UCS steward, Gerry Ross, who made this point back in October 1971 when he said:

It's the four yards or nothing. Under no circumstances would the UCS workers accept a split up of their unity. Therefore to accept three-quarters of a victory would be selling out the working class in the whole of the country who have supported us on the basis of no redundancies.' But the sell-out has come to pass.

The most important lesson from UCS is that the fight against unemployment cannot be waged without a struggle to force the Tory Government to resign.

It was this perspective that the Workers Press and the Socialist Labour League campaigned for persistently.

For this we drew the hatred of the Stalinists. They deliberately avoided this fight and fell in with Tory plans. Now the Clydeside workers have paid the price. They have suffered massive redundancies and lost their trade union rights.

CONTAINERS: The first of our new tenpart series on this most vital subject to all dock and transport workers starts today.

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