N. Ireland faces deep depression Rank and file

SEVENTY DELEGATES from 32 lodges of the National Union of Mineworkers in South Wales attended a three-hour conference last Saturday to discuss pit closures in the area.

The conference, which included representatives of some of the biggest South Wales coalmines, had been called by the Cambrian colliery-due for closure on September 24. It was held at the Llwynypia (Rhondda) miners' club.

Meetings of lodges will be held - this week to discuss action in support of the Cambrian men.

On September 15, an 'official' coalfield conference is to discuss the closures. The area executive of the NUM refused to bring forward the date of the conference.

Pious declaration Mr. George Thomas, MP, Minister of State for Wales, has had meetings with Cambrian lodge officials and with the union's area officials.

Although statements issued after these meetings have been very non-committal, Mr. Thomas is believed to have merely repeated the government's pious declarations of directing industry to South Wales.

He has not explained how new industries are to be set up when a tight credit squeeze is operating including big cuts in public spending. Nor has he explained the closures and sackings already hitting workers in light industries in the valleys.

Few taken on A few weeks ago, Sewing Industries Ltd., in the Rhondda, closed, making 300 redundant. At hat time it was said a large proportion would be taken on at Apollo Leather Products, another Rhonda factory. According to workers at Apollo only five of the 300 have been given work.

So much for direction of industry. This can only be carried out under a thorough-going programme of nationalization under vorkers' control. (Mr. Thomas went on record long ago as believing nationalization to be "a dead letter'.)

CORRECTION ROOTES PRESS INGS, Night shift ends From THE MANAGEMENT of Rootes Pressings, Linwe Scotland, has announced that the night shift for all production workers is to cease and that 550 men will sacked at the beginning of October.

Shop stewards walked out of a meeting to which they were called by te readames to 'discuss before the meeting was officially opened.

They allege that as informal discussion was going on notices were already being posted in the factory announcing the sackings and a statement had been handed to the press.

The management decided to go ahead with the cuts and the shop stewards feel they were treated with contempt.

Difficulties

At this factory the Emerson Consultants Ltd. produced a scheme for the management to boost production and to draw the shop stewards into production committees.

Now: the Chrysler-backed Rootes combine is in difficulties and the Emerson plan is turned into a scheme to rout workers • Nationalize on Thursday.

They thought they may get immediate support of the 850 Coedely colliery miners. This could spread through the valleys.

Miners and their tamilies were travelling to picket the conference in Porthcawl.

-INWOOD to be laid off Lsd, :ar be out of the factory instead cars.

The 550 men to be sacked will be selected on a three-point plan which assesses them for:

ability and performance, timekeeping and attendance, job skill.

All will be selected from the car production sections of the factory.

Rootes Pressings is the third company in Scotland backed by US finance to announce redundancies since the wage-freeze and restrictions on credit.

The sackings and unemployment cannot be fought by appeals to the government to direct more industry and work to Scotland, or by attracting new industries to replace the old.

Commenting on the sackings now taking place in Scotland, the 'Glasgow Herald' gloomily forecasts that Wilson's figure of half a million unemployed will be rapidly left behind.

In a year's time, they say, the figure may well be two million.

To the employers and bankers this means a squeeze on profits. But to all workers it means real hardship.

A fight against the sackings now means mobilising all workers such as those at Rootes Pressings in a campaign to fight against the Wilson government.

Car workers should join forces with the Young Socialists in the Glasgow and Paisley area and fight for a massive lobby of the Labour Party conference on October 2. Corporation condemn BIRMINGHAM CORPORATION school cleaners and. caretakers have condemned their 'union's backing of the wage freeze. The standstill has deprived them of a wage rise-negotiated by the National Union of General and Municipal Workers in July before Wilson's clamp-down. It was due this week.

Protests have already been made by the National Union of Public Employees-most of BirmBUSMEN at the South Croydon, Surrey, garage are boycotting an automatic food machine, which now provides meals in their canteen. They are considering strike action if the canteen not opened for both early and late shifts.

The men say the meals are inferior to those cooked by canteen staff. London Transport With the stark alternative for workers of the ever-lengthening dole queues or jobs at Shorts' Sydenham plant, the new employers will almost certainly offer jobs at lower wages; these will probably go to the 'young marrieds' and members of the Masonic Order.

The apparent difficulties of Imperial Chemical Industries-laying off 1,000 workers, reduced profits and their attempt to float a new loan-must be causing disquiet amongst those employed at ICI's Kilroot plant, and also those working • for Courtaulds and British Enkalon.

These Northern Ireland plants are only subsidiaries. They can be afforded in a period of expansion, but are usually first to be closed when these combines feel the need to economise.

Already the Selective Employment Tax has caused unemployment in the Belfast Ropeworks, and the Anglo-Irish trade pact (between Britain and the Irish Republic), which has only just begun to operate, has hit Northern Ireland industry connected with agriculture.

So far, 1,000 meat workers have been threatened with redundancy—many work in areas where there is no possible alternative employment and the jobless figure already stands at 10 per cent.

This is caused by the high subsidies paid in the Republic of Ireland to farmers which means they can easily undercut the prices if the Northern farmers and their distributors.

But workers are beginning to react with increasing militancy to the prices and incomes policy.

Everton Engineering and McNaughton building supply workers have been on strike, the latter nearly crippling the building industry.

Slow reaction Trade union officials, on the other hand, have reacted slowly— only two days before the Trades Union Congress conference did they call a protest meeting in Belfast.

Not only did they refuse speakers from the floor, but they also made no call for official support for demonstrations at either the TUC or Labour Party conferences.

While they attacked the prices and incomes policy, some speakers claimed that some sort of policy was necessary.

Northern Ireland is feeling the full brunt of the dealings of international capital. The only answer is to smash capital through the organisation of the working class behind a revolutionary Marxist leadership and party.

workers union ingham's 15,000 Corporation manual workers are in NUPE. Many live in council houses and flats, the rents of which have been raised by the lory-controlled council in defiance of the freeze.

Shopworkers and hairdressers are facing the sack and cutbacks due to the payroll tax. Their Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers is keeping 'a very careful eye' on developments.

food machine says the staff could not be retained-the men say higher rates should be paid. Their T&GWU branch secretary says the management is paying f20 to a man just to watch the machine.

He maintains that well-cooked meals are essential to busmen, many of whom suffer from stomach disorders owing to irregular shift work.