Railway workshops, Plessey and PSF slash

UNIONS

ALLIANCE MEETINGS CAMBRIDGE: Thursday August 31, 8 p.m. Red Cow (behind the Guild Hall). 'Lessons of the dockers and builders' strikes.' HOLLOWAY: Thursday August 31, 8 p.m. Co-op Hall, Seven Sisters Road, Finsbury_ Park. 'Victory to the builders. For united action and no separate site deals.' LUTON: Thursday August 31, 8 p.m. St John Ambulance Hall, Lea Road.

SE LONDON: Thursday August 31, 8 p.m. Deptford Engineers' Club, New Cross Station. 'LesSWANSEA: Thursday August 31, 7.30 p.m. Oxford Street School, Oxford Street. 'Crisis of leadership in the unions.' sons of the dock strike.' LIVERPOOL: Friday September 1, 7.30 p.m. Common Hall, Hackins Hey. 'Lessons of the docks and building strikes.' Speakers: Larry Cavanagh (dockers' steward), Mike Farley (building worker). Both in a personal capacity. CROYDON: Monday September 4, 8 p.m. Ruskin House, Coombe Road. 'Lessons of the dock strike' • un DAGENHAM: Tuesday SeptemShaw, venue. Barking Lesshawe Avenue, Barking.

sons of docks strike, UCS jobs fight.' HULL: Tuesday September 5, 7.30 p.m. White Hart Hotel, near Drypool Bridge. "Victory to the building workers.' SLOUGH: Tuesday September 5, 7.30 p.m. Slough Community Centre, Farnham Rd. 'Force the Tories out! Expose the traitors in the labour and trade union movement!' Speakers: Frank Tomany and Brian Bailey, both in a personal capacity.

WOOLWICH: Tuesday Septembe 5, 8 p.m. Queen's Arms, Bur rage Road, SE 18. 'Lessons o the dock strike.' RHYMNEY: Thursday Septembe 7, 7.30 p.m. Rhymney Working men's Club, Rhymney, Soutl Wales. 'Crisis of leadership il the trade unions.' SOUTHALL: Thursday Septembe 8 p.m. Community Centre Bridge Road. 'Lessons of thi dock strike.' EAST LONDON: Thursday September 7, 8 p.m.

Festival In n, Market Square, Chrisp Street, Market, E14. 'What is Stalinism?

HULL: Monday September 11, 7.30 p.m. Church Hall, Wawne Road, Bransholme (opp 'The Swallow'). 'Fighting the Tories Rent Act.' Scottish east coast dockers want portsregistered SCOTLAND'S east coast ports were strike-bound yesterday as dockers continued their blacking action against 'scab' ships which used unregistered • ports to dodge the recent national strike.

Trouble on the east coast blew up at Leith and Dundee when dockers refused to handle two ships, the Fastnet' and 'Paris' because they used the unregistered port of Invergordon when the national dispute was on. Black me Me bans Employers struck back by reback ships unless the bans were lifted. This caused a walkout at the two ports which spread to Aberdeen, . Methil, Kirkcaldy and Burntisland on Monday.

The Road Hauliers' Association has also taken a tough line. During the national dispute they agreed not to use the nonscheme ports, but they have made no such recommendation this time.

dockers' DAVID MAUDE FIVE HUNDRED and fifty Swindon rail shopmen are to lose their jobs by Christmas as a direct result of Tory government policies. The cut-back, which results from the plan to close the town's locomotive works, forms part of a plan approved by the Ministry of Transport to axe 20,000 railwaymen's jobs over the a-half years.

Since nationalization employment in the industry has been cut by 66 per cent without a fight by the union leaders.

Ten years ago there were 126,000 shopmen at 28 works. Now there are 50,000 at 14. By 1976 the British Railways Board wants to rid itself of at least 5,500 of these ... and so the shadow of the dole has fallen across Swindon.

The railway workshops have always lynchpin of employment in the town.

At their peak in 1950 they employed 10,000 workers. The introduction of diesels slashed the workforce by more than two-thirds, but this latest planned attack is even more fundamental.

It would reduce the workshops to a centre for servicing diesel locos. These are rapidly being replaced by electrical units. The only other activity will be patching up battered, obsolete wagons soon to be withdrawn completely.

There is no reason for believing this would be more than a very temporary arrangement before the final death-blow. Even the first stage of ending loco operations would push the already rısıng unemployment level in the town past the intolerable 3.9 per cent national average. Complete closure of the workshops would be a disaster.

Yet disaster is the prospect facing Swindon's workers-and not only in the rail workshops.

The Plessey, company, whose employment of a large number of women workers has enabled many working-class families at least to survive the roketing cost living, has embarked on a major rationalization and 200 jobs will disappear by next March.

Pressed-Steel Fisher has for some time been a popular source of employment, but its owner, British-Leyland, faces shrinking markets at home and overseas and is in deep financial trouble.

Over 24,000 Leyland workers struck on Monday against the threat to close the Thornycroft factory at Basingstoke. Whether Leyland-and the jobs at PSF— will survive entry into the Common Market is questionable.

The big question facing Swindon workers and their families is how they are going to defend their jobs. lies the fear that unregistered ports outside the National Dock Labour Scheme can employ men for inferior wages and conditions and will eventually destroy job opportunities for registered men.

It is also a clear expression of dissatisfaction with the JonesAldington proposals, which made no pledges on the non-scheme ports but merely promised an investigation.

In a statement to Workers Press, Aberdeen docker Ernie Davidson, delegate to the unofficial East of Scotland • strike committee, warned that a new outbreak national action could occur if Jones-Aldington did not bring all the unregistered ports within the scheme.

He told us about the formation of the strike committee and the feeling of the east coast men:

THE present action is a result of the policy agreed by the East of Scotland committee during the strike that any attempt to work ships that used non-scheme ports during the four-andPart of the railworks being demolished How to fight the jobs crisis in Swindon Not one job or job-opportunity can be allowed to go. That is a matter of principle. With over 2,000 unemployed in the town, 1o trade umonist, can become involved in productivity deals, short-time voluntary, at reduced earnings, volntary severance or 'natural' wastage. These cynical horse-trading devices have been used for years by employers to get big redundancies in the factories.

Secondly, there can be no lasting solution to the scourge of unemployment while the Tory job-assassins stay in power.

Only the resignation of the Tories and the election of Labour government pledged to the nationalization • of industry without compensation and under workers' control can provide the conditions for halting the march to the dole forever.

No railway shopman can accept either management redunCORRESPONDENT strike would immediately be met by joint action from all the east coast ports. There are 24 to 26 ships on the blacklist.

The employers are trying it on with the 'Fastnet' and the 'Paris' in Dundee and Leith. They seem determined to make a stand. Our position was that we. would work normally until the committee on the non-registered ports reports on October 31, but we won't touch the blacked boats.

The unofficial East of Scotland committee has been a great gain from the strike. It can unify the east coast ports and mean a lot for the dockers. If nothing is done about these non-scheme ports-especially Montrose-then we'll start picketing again whether we're at work or not.

I'm only a docker who wants io work, but I feel very strongly about this committee. It really could benefit all the dockers.

The main problem we face is isolation. We need national action on this question.

We gained nothing from IND NUR's Sid Weighell dancy notices or union-backed severance schemes designed to reduce manning levels.

All redundancy notices must rejected. Railway • shopmen strike. The temporary unattached register (TUR) and containerization aren't at issue here. The non-scheme ports are the question and we are waiting to see what the committee comes up with on October 3l.

Montrose must be brought within the scheme and worked by registered dockers. We'll supply the labour. We can't accept anything less.

I don't think Jones-Aldington produced much for anyone. Increased severance pay was Certainly a step forward, but Jones will have to come up with far more. He'll have to prove the TUR has been abolished, and the non-scheme ports. must go.

I think most of the men here have always respected Jones, and I didn't agree with the way he was treated in London. But he'll have to come up with something now.

He says the TUR is to go and all dockers will have an employer, but the employers want fewer and fewer dockers so it must insist that every worker is retained at full pay or, if individuals want to take serverance replaced with no loss of earnings to the incoming worker.

These conditions must be insisted upon until the rest of the transport industry can be nationalized and the entire system of rail, road, air and port transport placed under workers' The present union leaders are a million miles from this perspective.

When the plan to cut back 20,000 rail jobs was announced a year ago, Sid Weighell, assistant secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen, declared at the TUC that it was time to call a halt to sackings in the industry. Industrial action would be used he hinted.

The Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineerin 3 Unions, doesn't make sense. The day after the strike another employer down south announced he was closing down.

So far as we're concerned, October 31 is the deadline. If the non-scheme ports aren't abolished, then there could well be national action again. We may decide on some form of action before then to show the executive how strongly we feel.

It would have been best to continue the strike when it was solid and settle this question once and for all, but the leadership was lacking. The decision to go back in Hull and London was a great shock to us. I don't understand it. The shop stewards' committee seemed to wield so much power.

There's no question that the only answer is nationalization of the docks and transport industries. That's the way to unite the transport workers. But you won't get it out of the Tories.

I didn't realize that the port shop stewards' committee had dropped that from their demands some time back. I can't understand that at all.

workforce Thursday August 31, 1972