CAV

HOW THE OCCUPATION WAS BROKEN The sit-in strike at CAV Fazakerley, Liverpool, is over. It was betrayed. After four months fighting against closure the sit-in strikers have left the factory.

To many of them, it seems that all that has been gained from their struggle is a marginal improvement in the redundancy terms they rejected last October. Men and women who formed the backbone of the strike now sit at home with only Il weeks' pay and a few pounds from the government between them and the dole. They are angry and bitter, as the interviews below The Liverpool diesel-pump factory they occupied has been empty for a week, awaiting moves by owners, the Joseph Lucas combine, to shift its machines and materials elseMeanwhile those chiefly responsible for betraying the occupation, the trade union leaders, remain in their comfortable centrally-heated offices. And their paid officials and centrist hangers-on on Merseyside remain silent about the lessons of the betrayal.

On Tuesday of this week, shop stewards from all over the Merseyside area should have gathered at a hall in central Liverpool to discuss the fight against unemployment.

The date had been fixed by leaders of the Liverpool Trades Council. Main topics for discussion were to be the threatened closure of Shotton steelWorks . and the struggle at works But circulars for CAV: the meeting never went out and it did not take place.

There are good reasons why the Trades Council leaders do not want to discuss CAV. No other event has so sharply exposed the fake 'left' policies of the council, which onle minute is calling for a General Strike, but the next is proving itself incapable of defending a single job.

If anything is to be gained from the occupation, its lessons must be discussed. There can be no serious fight against unemployment the aren unless they are not only discussed, but learned.

Occupation of CAV Fazakerley began on the day the 'work-in' at Upper Clyde Shipbuilders ended. But there was little comparison between the two events.

The CAV occupation was neither a work-in, nor a search for a new employer.

It was a head-on struggle against unemployment, clashing with the entire Common Market strategy of the Tory government and one of the top 40 companies in the country. From the outset, therefore, big political issues were at stake.

As Paddy Mullane, a CAV shop steward who was to play a leading role in the occupation, said just before the workers sat in:

'We should leave no stone unturned to keep the site open, but the big question is a political one. If we succeed and stop the closure here, it has to be part of the fight for the right to work which can only be carried through by bringing the Tories down and getting a Labour government pledged to socialist policies.' This was a quite different perspective from that of the save jobs at campaign to The Communist Party leaders of the UCS work-in placed the shipyard men in a posture of pleading with the Tories, let 2,000 of them go down the road and ended up selling vital trade union principles for pitiful amounts of cash.

Conducted with fulsome verbal backing from the TUC and Labour Party chiefs. this Stalinist-led campaign fraud on the working class.

Paddy Mullane's statement, on the other hand, was entirely genuine. But this kind of thing was not at all popular with the union and Labour leaders.

The CAV occupation began just two weeks after the announcement of Heath's Phase One pay-control plan the £2 ceiling on wage increases-and at a time when the TUC leaders were desperate to avoid challenging the Tories.

And six days before, Harold Wilson had addressed the Labour Party conference without once mentioning the unemployed.

The arch-reformist, Wilson, no doubt watching the official unemployment trends as given out by the Department of Employment.

When joblessness had topped the 1.5 million mark at the height of the miners' strike in February 1972, he had verbally lashed the Tory job-assassins. But after their hammering at the miners' hands, the Tories had changed tack and the reformists had eagerly fallen into their trap.

The Tories' temporary reflation, of course, was quite the opposite of a concession to the working class.

So when the unemployment figures began to fall (see graph), it was really a preparation for war on working-class living standards, organization and declared when Above : October 1972. CAV worke Heath put his £2 ceiling to the TUC leaders.

But the reformists preferred illusion to reality. So, like Pavlov's dogs, they went on nuzzling up to the Tories long after the hand that had thrown them a few crumbs became a bunched fist.

Unlike the dying UCS workin, therefore, the CAV occupation was distinctly unpopular with the bureaucracy.

First of all it was a strike. The workers sat in, threw the HIS Fat the main management out and took control. They declared: we're not budging until Lucas decides to stay open or find us 1,200 alternative jobs.

Secondly Lucas's attitude was much too much like the real face of the Tories for comfort.

In the face of all the arguments a succession of MPs, union officials and senior stewards could muster, the combine remained adamant for closure. The final ultimatum, factory now stands empty, awaitin which amounted to a threat to get out of the factory in 30 hours, was typical of its attitude throughout.

So while giving official backing and words of support, the union leaders marked time in the crucial first weeks.

They maintained just a semblance of activity, arranging meetings with Lucas chief Kenneth Corley and the Tories' Minister for Industrial Development, Christopher Chataway, but took no effective action. lers, is i stril quic plar encr for reas plac at C WOU

"NO SURRENDER"

J.LUCAS - CA.V.

SHE TORY IS NOW RYLIARLAN MENS Above: October 1972. CAV workers at the main gate during the att-in. The factory now stands empty, awalting moves by the owners, the Joseph Lucas combine

in the ment pump behind schedule its developin the year.

the sit-in.

Although opposition to closures and redundancies, and nationalization under workers control, official policy of the engineering unions, a motion calling for nationalization of Lucas was defeated TAKERS AND SZMIES SOR LIGHT AY CAVOUR TODAY MAYBE YOUR TOMORROW.

Friday February 16, 1973 IGHT LUCAS CLOSURES