GRIM FUTURE FOR TEXTILE WORKERS

The TUC believes that the chaos and crisis in the British and European man-made fibres industry will be resolved inside the Common Market.

This is the message of a TUC survey into the industry. It notes the discussion now taking place between the UK manufacturers and the Continental giants and concludes:

'The Commission [of the EEC] will be in a position to regulate and control, and issue directives should changes in methods of regulation be required if left to private enterprise, there is a great danger that regulation will take the form of cartelization with price-fixing and market-sharing arrangements..:

The TUC's hope for smooth transformation from the chaos and crisis that now characterizes the industry to growth is entirely fatuous—as any brief examination of the industry will show.

The cancer of man-made fibres has always been the violent investment cycle-itself a product of the capitalist mode of enterprise. But this has been overlaid recently by fierce foreign competition, represented by the flood of cheap yarn and clothing from Japan and the Far East.

The prospect facing the British and European monopolies is how to fight off this competition and rationalize their own operations in Europe. This can only mean more massive redundancies on top of the wave of sackings that have already occurred over the last three years.

The. industry has always been plagued by instability and periodic overcapacity. In 1966 the world production of all textile fibres-natural and man-made-was 39,000m Ibs. Of this 13,000m Ibs were man-made.

At first production was confined to the British and American pioneers like Courtaulds, ICI, Monsanto and, in Germany, Hoechst.

Later Japan and the Far East came roaring into the market.

As the TUC report notes, each additional manufacturer must have a minimum output of 100m Ibs for most types of yarn if the fibre is to be competitive.

Hence, to preserve their markets, producers are forced internally into massive capital expenditure-the result is vast overcapacity. This outcome is not, of course, due to some inhe ent feature of fibre-production, but simply the direct result of production for profit —a point the TUC pamphlet does not make. 1933-1934 1934-1935 1935-1936 1937-1938 1938-1939 1939-1940 These extremely vital writings by Leon Trotsky between the years 1929 and 1940—his third and final exile from the Soviet Union-are now available in Britain from the Paperbacks Centre detracted from the advantages of three-shift working and a massive output.

Courtaulds, for example, estimate that output per employee increased 200 per cent between 1948 and 1965, compared with the textile industry average of 60 per cent profits rose correspondingly from f17.7m in 1962' to £45m in 1972.

The ultra-conservative bureaucrats who ran the textile unions did little or nothing to safeguard their members' jobs on the traditional textile mills, or to get some of the rewards for the vast profit bonanza in the new sectors-another fact that 1S curiously absent from the TUC's investigation!

But for the UK and European producers the golden era when the yarns with a chemical base meant millions seems to be over.

The first tremors shook the industry in 1969 when the manufacturers caught the hangover from the investment binge of the early 1960s.

The redundancies began. The big Dutch chemicals and pharmaceuticals combine has announced a plan to slash its European labour force of 47,000 by 5,700. Courtaulds have already kicked 4,000 onto the dole, ICI wants to get rid of 1,450 from its fibres division (its head Sir Jack Callard says he's 'doing a Weinstock') and Hoechst pulled out of nylon production in 1971.

But the troubles in Europe have only just begun. One virtue of the TUC investigation is that it does gather together figures which highlight the massive challenge from the East.

These started when Nixon upturned the entire world economy by pulling gold backing from the dollar. One of his major worries was the massive and continuing deficit on the US balance of payments and particularly its trading Writings of Leon Trotsky .43 .43 .25 .25 .25 .05 28 Charlotte St debts to Japan and other Far Eastern producers.

Eventually the US and the Far East came to some sort of a deal. But a main factor was a promise by the cheap man-made fibre and clothing producers to curb their imports to America. As a result the flood of cheap imports changed course and began to swamp Europe and Britain.

Polyester fibres provide a startling example of the effects of this invasion. Low-priced polyester filament yarns have been diverted to Europe causing a collapse of prices.

The TUC cite one example.

The most popular 150 denier polyester yarns fell by 40 per cent between September 1971 (a month after the fateful Nixon decision) and April 1972. Imports noW account for 45 per cent of the polyester market in Britain— two years ago they took 16 per cent of the market.

The penetration of Far tast talks, therefore, is how investment plans can be integrated and how markets can be shared.

There is a degree of antagonism. Britain is looked upon as a Trojan horse-since her imports from abroad are way above imports to the Common Market countries (due to their tariff policy). The Six do not want them smuggled into Europe.

But Britain, too, is threatened. Her remaining cotton industry faces collapse. For the present quotas still protect British cotton. But the EEC allows cotton yarns in freely after paying the 7 per cent common tariff.

Whatever the outcome of the talks, the future for textile workers in the man-made and 'natural' sectors looks grim.

Lancashire's cotton workers seem to face massive redundancies and perhaps the virtual