MARATHON CRUNCH TODAY

COMMUNIST PARTY leaders at the Clydebank Shipyard, Glasgow, face a stark choice today — prostrate themselves before the Marathon Manufacturing Company or lead a real fight for the right to work

on the upper Clyde.

When he meets shop stewards and union leaders at the Imperial Hotel Blackpool this afternoon, Marathon president Wayne Harbin will repeat his cooperate-or-pull-out' warning.

Stalinist Clydebank convenor James Reid has already come under pressure from boilermakers' leader Danny McGarvey to call off any new 'work-in' at the yard.

And at his London hotel on Tuesday Harbin went out of his way to make it plain that there was no basis for a new work in by assuring workers that anyone made redundant would be rehired as quickly as possible.

But Reid will have a job persuading Clydebank's 2,000 Housewives angry at rent rise WANDSWORTH Labour council in south London have put notices up around housing estate rent offices saying how sorry they were to have to implement the 'fair rents' Act.

The fact remains, however, that the borough's thousands of council tenants have had their rents raised 75p. And no amount ot apologies trom councillors who refused to fight on the issue will make any difference on that score.

In the Battersea district, on the huge Winstanley Estate, the tenants' association call to withhold the increases has met with a good response. Charlotte Despard Avenue tenants are reported to be 80 per cent behind the call.

At the rents office yesterday and around the adjacent shops, housewives were extremely bitter about the increases and most of them had refused to pay up.

Mrs Edith Aylott said: 'I think it's a bit much because the extra 75p would have to come out of my housekeeping' out of my housekeeping.

'My rent is already £9.30 a fortnight, including El a week for heating-for which we have to pay throughout the year.' Her husband, who is a driver, had told her not to pay the increase. "The rents went up in April, they're going up now and it will be the same next April,' said Mrs Aylott.

'He got a rise in April and gave me £1 out of it. But now with all the prices going there's nothing left of it.

'Although I'm not paying putting the money by. The only workers to throw Harbin's mercy.

As the American arrives in Blackpool today the last ship to be built at Clydebank will glide down the slipway to be towed upriver for completion.

Up to 800 men will be employed jointly by the UCS liquidator and sub-contractors finishing this ship and three others due to sail not later than February.

So far Marathon has hired only 450 men whom they have employed on demolition work in. preparation for converting the yard from shipbuilding to oil-rig production.

This leaves about 800 men unaccounted for and it is these workers Reid and Harbin will primarily have to reassure as a result of today's meeting, although the 800 others will be wondering what is going to happen to them come February. trouble is that some are paying. But I don't think this government is always going to get the better of us.

'Scandalous' was how Mrs Peggy Smith described the 75p imposed on her £5.92 a week rent. 'And the point is it will be going up again and again,' she told me outside the local Co-or where she had just spent some of the last of the week's house'Look, my husband's wages don't go up after this. Heath is saying we have no rights at all. If we end up paying the increase it would mean giving up the car.

I know that might sound like giving up a luxury, but my husband works in Croydon and needs it to get to work. In fact it's cheaper than the trains.

'Now I only wish we could get this government out, said Peggy.

In the nearby Battersea Park Estate, a rent strike is also gathering pace. One of those not paying the increase is Pat Lebby. Her rent is already £6.61 a week.

"To pay the extra rent means I have to cut down on everything.

*Everyone thinks the same about this government. But although there's been a lot of resistance to the Tories it doesn't seem to have made much difference. Yet if every tenant refused to pay they couldn't evict all of us.' Trade unionists at Hebburn, County Durham, have set up an action committee to co-ordinate industrial action in support of any tenant evicted for not paying the rent increases.

Reid claims Marathon agreed to employ 1,000 men immediately, but Harbin said in London that they would only work up to that number by the end of the year.

Harbin argues that his company's programme to develop the yard was set back at least two months by the Tory government's failure to pass the Industry Bill by June 30 as promised.

The legislation which allowed a fóm loan to be paid to Marathon was not finally passed until August 8.

Harbin said at his London hotel: 'This has set us behind in our programme, but if people will be patient we will go ahead and develop this yard and it could be one of the finest in Europe?

He added: 'You cannot just provide employment for 2,000 people overnight. We pledged that in a months op two ears That in would build up to number.

We told the unions from the beginning that they had prepared to accept redundancies and the agreement was signed in the full knowledge of this.

'If we cannot get peace in the yards with the labour force and the unions then we must withdraw from the vards and if we have to we will. It is not toc late. It is never too late.

'The idea of going the so-called work-in is verv disruptive and under the agreement they promised not to do this to Harbin said he had now paid cash for Clydebank bringing his total investment in the yard to around $5m (£2m).

He was deeply worried that continued labour unrest at the yard was preventing Marathon from clinching even a single order.

Two drilling platforms which could have been made at Clydebank had already been transferred to Singapore and Brownsville, south Texas, because customers refused to risk delays and losses because of disputes at Glasgow.

Harbin claimed $100m (£40m) worth of orders hung on today's decision.

"There is a world of business', he said. 'But we are not going to

Clydebank was about, stressing that 'stirring the pot' was 'disruptive' and creating 'serious difficulties' for Marathon.

He said: 'I think there is an agitational element there which it is difficult to understand. It is not as if the men temporarily redundant won't have a job ever. When we start production they will come right back in and they have redundancy pay to tide them

over that period.

Earlier when he arrived at London's Heathrow airport from America, Harbin made a scathing attack on Clydebank shop stewards, alleging the new work in was a communist inspired plot.

Later he went out of his way to be conciliatory to Reid:

'I don't think it was right to say the agitation was communistinspired. I think James Reid might have been right to take exception to that. I think I said there was an agitational element there with communist overtones. I don't think I said that James Reid was inspired by communists.' Reid is a member of the National Executive of the Communist Party.

Harbin still made it clear that Marathon was a commercial company whose first responsibility was to its stockholders:

'For some reason James Reid feels he has a responsibility to the workers in the yards. We certainly don't feel we have an obligation to provide employment for people who have never been on our payroll.' Harbin's remarks throw into high relief the tenuousness of the agreement the Stalinist-led coWay forwa for all SUNDAY OCTOBER

ordinating committee signed with Marathon.

Harbin is a shrewd businessman with an eye for a deal, but

delays delays any adisruption cosmost

disruption almost certainly indicates the slender margins within • which his company operates.

FROM BLACKPOOL: Clydebank stewards at Blackpool yesterday refused to say whether the 'workin' would be called off.

McGarvey said they were meeting Harbin today 'to get his full plans in relation to the overall picture.

He added: 'The men want to do everything possible to make this yard a success.' He said current problems could be solved if a spirit of co-operation prevailed.

Shop stewards are due to meet at 3 p.m. before they see Harbin and one idea which McGarvey Will put to them is to accept redundancies on a 'cyclical' basis. ..He said yesterday men could be employed by civil contractors demolishing the yard so protecting them from long-term redundancy.

Bob Dickie, convenor at Clydebank said yesterday that 300 men will get their notice from the liquidator next Friday, but these will be employed completing the vessels already taken upstream.

He said a further 400 men faced redundancies within the next few weeks and the figure is expected to rise to 900-1,000 by Christmas.

ATUA CONFERENCE unionists 10-30 am