CAV sit-in fight at critical stage OCCUPIED WORKERS Y

CAV, Fazakerley, is at After 14 weeks of sit-in strikers are in urgent need from the wider trade union The future of the sit-in is balanced razor edge. Key questions are raised for Merseyside trade unionist.

Since week three of the sit-in, factory open and preserve all 1,000 jobs. In their discussions with management, however, the officials began edging towards the formula that alternative work should be found in the Lucas At the same time the officials ignored calls-even when made jointly by the CAV and LIE stewards—to arrange a meeting with the shop-floor leaderships at Ford, Standard Triumph and Lucas aerospace.

Franny Martin, T&GWU convenor, explains the importance of the officials' role here:

'In the case of Ford's we have definite information that work we normally do is being pipelined in on their direct rail link from Dagenham. Instead of going through Birmingham and up by lorry, it's marshalled at East Thurrock, and then it's into Dagenham and straight into Halewood.

'Given the opportunity I'm sure we could have got this stopped ages ago. It's absolutely vital now.' The officials' deliberate refusal to help make the black effective strengthened the hand of those, for instance, on Merseyside docks shop stewards' committee, who preferred sceptical comment about the possible outcome of the sit-in to action in its support.

So far the docks' stewards have countered calls to black all Lucas products by demanding a pledge that car and engineering workers will back them if they run into trouble with the Industrial Relations Act.

No accident Whether they will agree to a new proposal that they black just products normally made at Fazakerley remains to be seen.

What has so far been missed by the foot-draggers and sceptics, however, is that the sit-in remains strong, effective and capable of posing serious problems for Lucas if the combine proceeds with its closure plans.

It cannot be an accident that the growth of pressure on the occupation committee to relax its control of the site coincided with severe difficulties for the combine management.

Because the occupation took place in October, rather than at the threatened date of closure this April, the combine is left with considerable amounts of diesel pump stock which it cannot complete without components normally produced at Fazakerley.

Pledges have been received from CAV factories in the southeast that these components will not be supplied from there. And because of a laboratory workers' dispute at CAV, Acton, in London, last year, Lucas is badly behind schedule with anew pump designed to replace the Fazakerley product.

It was when this situation became acute and Lucas faced the loss of both money and markets that the combine management threatened to close LIE in two weeks unless the occupation committee loosened its grip.

Reaction

The reaction of the majority of LIE stewards, with union officials in the background, was to call for all measures 'within the labour movement' to get their factory open.

Some stewards began touring branches to whip up support for this policy. They now want the district committee to contact the engineers' union executive to ask that financial aid to the sit-in strikers should be withJohn Howe, deputy convenor Just over a week ago the company made its move. Seventeen clerical workers who had been taking part in the were offered full pay, their redundancy money and promise of jobs at other factories in the Lucas combine including LIE.

On Tuesday of last week the occupation committee met to consider the new situation. By 15 votes to eight they decided to allow the reopening of LIE under the conditions which had existed during the first three weeks of the sit-in.

Through the officials came word that this was acceptable to the management. But at a mass meeting on Thursday someone remembered that these conditions included the operation of a pass system by the occupation committee and insisted this be spelt out.

By Friday morning the management had informed Gerry Russell, AUEW divisional organizer, that it would not accept this. Its proposal was the opening of an old gate well away from LIE and the separation the two factories to allow of transport.

At a stormy meeting of the LIE stewards on Friday morning, one steward who supported the sit-in throughout was told that he was trom stewards, excluded from future meetings for allegedly working against the policy of the stewards' committee.

This was done despite the fact that the committee has no standing orders and that it is questionable if such a move will be upheld by either the district committee or the steward's own section.

Some CAV stewards are also reflecting, similar pressure and talking about a 'rethink' of the whole policy on which the occupation has been conducted.

But what stands out is that the sit-in is now at a point where it can be won.

The reason for the heat in both factories is that Lucas is on the spot. The combine management wants to clear CAV Fazakerley off the agenda before major struggles break out in the car and car components industry. It knows that such struggles are inevitable.

Basic rights

Workers in the Lucas combine are in the cockpit of the struggle for the defence of basic democratic rights. • Defence of basic Engineers in the combine have recently staged countrywide strikes against the £61,000 fines imposed on their union by the National Industrial Relations Court. This followed the prosecutions launched on the union by CAY worker at Sudbury, Suffolk, Mr James Goad. • Defence of the right to work.

The sit-in strike at Fazakerley, which began almost 15 weeks agor shots here erosires and massive redundancies. The pattern of close downs by the big employers will be stepped up now that the Tories have joined the capitalist conspiracy in the As CAV and other firms remove their capital to countries like Spain, the fight for the right to work will be a key rallying point against the Tory govern• Defence of of living.

Heath's new state pay laws are designed to completely undermine the relatively high earnings in industry. Engineering Workers the car and car comnonents who previously relied on the In the struggle for these twin policies-forcing • the Tories out and the preparation of a socialist programme — the right-wing traitors in the Labour Party and the TUC must be roundly exposed before the masses. The returned Labour government must be forced to implement socialist policies.

This struggle against the Tories and the right wing is inseparable from the urgent task of transforming the Socialist Labour League into a revolutionary party.

Workers being thrust into the struggle, some for the first time, must immediately • join the SLL or the All Trades Unions Alliance and help this historic campaign.