Steel closure north-east jobs

AS INFORMAL talks took place on the BRS drivers' dispute in the Midlands yesterday, strikes in Coventry and Birmingham brought the total number of carworkers laid off in the area to well over 14,000.

The strikes were at the Standard-Triumph assembly plant in Coventry and at the steeringgear manufacturers Burman and Sons, Birmingham. With, the BRS dispute, they stopped all Triumph production. The company sent 2,000 men home.

At Triumph, 250 trim-shop workers were nghting the three-day suspension of a man for alleged bad timekeeping, while at Burman's, 35 toolroom workers say their wages have fallen f8 below those in other factories because the company is refusing to implement a national agreement relating their pay to that of skilled pieceworkers.

Meanwhile at BRS depots throughout the Midlands region, heavygoods vehicles which transport vital supplies to the car factories, were still lying idle. They cannot be moved because the company refuses to pay a £2.50 bonus which already standard at private hauliers.

The drivers have handed their new leavy-good ehicle (HGV) licence which become comoursory TransUnion, so they cannot be sent out on the road with vehicle over three tons unladen weight.

But the 1,000 men involved are reporting for work inside the depots each day, and since there is nothing in their contracts of employment about holding an BOS is having to pay teece.

BRS is having to pav them. Report Shop stewards went to T&GWU headquarters in Birmingham yesterday afternoon to hear a report from Alan Law, the union's commercial trade group secretary in the Midlands, on the outcome of informal talks with the company.

BRS is believed still to be insisting that the £2.50 the Tories. Paid because of cannot be state pay law.

But a comment from Dave Dingwall, a driver at Birmingham's Cheapside BRIEFLY • BRIEFLY BUILDING employers should equip themselves with a much bigger skilled force to prevent shoddy standards. National Federation of Building Trades Employers' president John Westacott told the Federation's southern region AGM: 'We all knocket for build years stop so that Doneer helped our recruitment and training programmes.' He called on every type and size of firm to join the drive for new standards.

RAILWAY worker (59), of Jap Road, was killed yesterda while working on Waterloo station. Jack Flynn Wimbledon, by a train le track at depot, is typical of men's confidence that they can win:

'We've been asked how long we're prepared to keep this up; he told answer is: as long as BRS and the government likes.

Certainly until the end of any freeze you care to mention.' I don't know much about politics,' said Albert Harry Shorter.

Caldicott, shop steward at Birmingham's Bromsgrove Lane BRS depot, 'But I do know that the Tory government has done us no good at all. They don't give you a chance to breathe even.' He said the drivers were determined to continue their action until BRS pays Harry Shorter, THE CONFEDERATION of British Industry is concerned about inflated values in many company accounts. The leaders of big business feel that annual reports are not giving a true picture of company finances. This is particularly true of property assets.

For book purposes property portfolios are being revalued at a staggering rate, thus indicating the 'sound trading position' of the firm.

In a recent case, one group increased the value of its land holdings by £100m—'at a stroke'! Sir David Barran, former head Shell, has just completed • a STRIAL British Road Services drivers in the Midlands are going Into their depots each day and are being paid by the company. But they are having to stand around because BRS refuses to pay a bonus already paid to other drivers In the area. The men have handed their heavy goods vehicle licences to union officials. They 'can't work without them. Below: Dave Dingwall says 'We'll keep this up CBI warns about asset-rigging of the T&GWU's 5/38 drivers' branch, explained the background to the present dispute:

"This claim went in long before the freeze was even thought of, he said.

'Our rates in BRS are £4.60 below those in the private firms, who are members of the Road Haulage Association.

'But at the moment we're not even asking our employer to close that gap. All we want is this £2.50 which is being paid by 171 private firms to men with HGV licences, for exactly the same work.

•What we are saying is this: "it doesn't matter what the emblem is on the side of the cab, we want the rate for the job and we're going to get it, and until the end of the freeze.' at a stroke report CBI rigging.

The CBI threw its influential weight behind Thursday's suggestion from the Institute Chartered Accountants in England and Wales that companies should give supplementary tables their annual accounts showing the real value of their profits or losses after inflation.

Sir David said tables reflecting the real purchasing power of the So in an area from Rosson-Wye to Wellington, Shropshire, and from Tamworth to Swindon, none of the purpose-built BRS vehicles which serve the motor industry is moving.

Ironically, it was the rory government's own ubdivision of BRS into regions last November which handed the drivers the power to cripple the carmakers' heartland.

BRS Midlands region brings drivers from all over the area under the same management umbrella, and they have now flexed their muscles for the first time.

Effect

The effect has been devastating.

Austin-Morris have stopped making cars at and and bride laid omi neary Carve Here V Jaguar, with 1,200 workers idle in Coventry, are not producing any X] saloons. MG sports car output has ceased at Abingdon, Berks, and some car production is affected at Austin-Morris, Cowley.

Thousands more workers are laid off at car body plants in Birmingham, Swindon and Oxford. Yesterday's Triumph shutdown at Coventry could affect production at Liverpool.

axed.

The shutdown is part of the government's plan to concentrate steelmaking on Teesside at a giant new basic oxygen (BOS) plant at Lackenby.

Other works in the district, such as Cargo Fleet, Skinningrove and the open. hearth shops at Redcar and Lackenby have already disappeared as a result" of the rationalization.

Although Lord Melchett said the plate mill would continue, he added ominously that it might have to close toward the end of the decade if the BSC decided to include a new large plate mill in its Lackenby complex.

This is nearly certain. The whole basis of the Tory government's plan for steel is large-scale steel-making to begin with and, as the new BOS plants come into full operation, large-scale rolling and finishing in giant mechanized and semiautomated mills.

By the end of the at the latest, none existing integrated may be left.

IN SCOTLAND, where 7,000 steel jobs are to go, a meeting of more than 70 shop stewards with the Warrington fi WARRINGTON Labour council has decided to defy the Tory 'fair rents' Act by deferring a rents assesment for the town's 10,000 council houses.

Failure to publish the assessment by next Friday, February 9, is almost certain to lead to the Department of the Environment serving a default order on the Lancashire council.

Alderman Geor pound might in many cases reveal less bright financial picture.

And this indication of the real position could mean that unions would not make excessive claims. Comment or ate auction o e would als make on question of too much taxation of profits.

The committee felt it important that inflation accounting should be done on an international scale so that British companies were not put in an unfair position in relation to competitors overseas.

Sir David accepted that it might be difficult to sell the idea to some British companies! THE BRITISH Steel Corporation has said that its obsolete Hartlepool open-hearth steelworks in the north-east is to close.

The plate mill at the works is to continue after the closure in 1975, but at least 2,850 jobs will be decade plants Unions seeking new terms for CAV occupiers UNION OFFICIALS in Liverpool have opened talks with the Lucas combine about the possibility of alternative work and improved redundancy terms for the sit-in strikers at CAV Fazakerley.

And, on the recommendation of leading shop stewards, the strikers have agreed to allow Lucas management onto the Fazakerley site without passes issued by the occupation committee.

This will probably mean that full production • can be restarted at the Lucas Industrial Equipment factory, which shares the Fazakerley site with CAV. LIE workers have been 'working in' since Monday after a 13-week lay-off.

A mass meeting also agreed to hand control of canteen the LIE workers.

Early next week, the union officials are expected to report back to a further mass meeting on the combine's reply.

The executive of the Liverpool Trades Council has agreed to call a conference of shop stewards on Tuesday, February 13, to discuss the 16-weck fight against closure at CAV, the threat to jobs at Shotton steelworks and the fight against unemployment generally

BSC chairman

Lord Melchett STUC decided not to act until the government's White Paper on the industry's future was published.

And the meeting noted that the only real hope of averting the redundancies lay in the return of the next Labour government. THERE was more bad news for the northb east yesterday with the announcement National Coal Board that its Solway pit at Workington is to close.

The pit, which employs 530 men, will shut on Saturday, May 26. The NCB says the mine's resources are exhausted and losses last year totalled £738,000.

ezes rent rise Cooper, Labour leader of the council, says the decision has been taken in the light of the Tory government's state pay laws.

CIr Bill Avery, housing committee chairman, adds that the Tories cannot ask people to resist inflation while pushing up their rent.

Every council tenant in the town faces a 50p-aweek rent increase October.

at CAV has over Lucas's facilities for

DRAFT RESOLUTION: Fabruary DCIALIST LABU THE 30