The U.C.S. yards are occupied. The shop stewards, elected workers' representatives, have extended their control in the yards from the day-to-day struggles with management over wages and conditions. Now they have laid claim to the yards and one of them is quoted as saying that production When Bro. Reid and his fellow stewards were in London for the Government announcement of closures, they also said that what they were to do was not an occupation but a "work in". What is the difference between a strike and an occupation, between an occupation and a "work in"?
Britain is a society based on private profit. It is not just that the industrialists are interested in an industry only if it makes a profit, but over time, the state and the law have developed to protect and to support the system.
Workers, from whose labour all the profts come, have to engage in a constant struggle with the bosses over the price for their labour, and the conditions under which they sell it. This is the day-to-day struggle for some degree of control, from which the workers' organisations and the shop stewards movement have grown. The struggle is constant, for nothing gained is ever secure in a society organised not for people, but for profits. Attacks may come on a national level, through inflation, or "incomes policies". They may be more local, through productivity deals or the sacking of stewards. Or, as in this case, a "non-profitable" industry is just closed down, and thousands of men and women thrown on to the dole. But whatever gains are made over time by workers, in a capitalist society, they are never secure.
THE LAWS OF PRIVATE PROPERTY Workers have two main ways of trying to get out of this constant fight. The first is to try to "opt out" by organising a firm run by workers, a little island in a sea of private property. The second is to change to a socialist society-one in which production is organised around people's needs and The first way would be of no help to U.C.S. There are a few tiny firms run by workers-for instance, Rowen Engineering on the south side of Glasgow, with 15 or 20 workers. But they exist only as long as the big private firms allow them. The banks won't give them big credits in order to expand, because a firm run by workers isn't very trustworthy to a private banker. The bigger the firm, the more impossible it becomes, because it is a competitive threat to the other big private firms, and they will gang up against it. The only thing that these little experimental companies do show is that workers can manage their own factories efficiently. Even the Tory government admits that it was bad management that was responsible for the closure at U.C.S. There's no doubt that the workers would never be secure as long as the rest of business was organised against it. SOCIALISM-WHAT IT MEANS The second way is socialism. By a socialist society, we in the International Marxist Group (I.M.G.) mean a society run by the working people in the interests of the working people, not one in which some of the poorer industries are example just after the U.S. Senate has bailed out Lockheed with a $250 million guarantee on which the future of the RB211 depended, it would drive the Tories crazy. The computer industry, which is the star at the moment for the Tories, would be hit hard, Most ironically, and most fortuitously, the Industrial Relations Bill becomes law this week. A general strike now in Scotland would throw absolute contempt upon it, and give workers greater confidence to fight it in future. It would also be a massive blow against incomes policy. With solidarity strikes following in Britain, neither the Tories politically nor the bourgeoisie economically could withstand a general strike for long.
An obvious danger at the moment is that the shop stewards will shy away from the task of building a general strike or from extending class conflict beyond the yards. To some extent, though not entirely, the continuation of the work-in into the indefinite future cuts across the task of building solidarity strikes. If the work-in continues, it will oneyTO either lead to conflict with the state, or else the Liquidator will tread softly, allowing the men to finish the ships.
Although it is impossible to predict, even if other circumstances don't intervene, both these variants would lead under present circumstances to the same ultimate result. But the continuation of the work-in demands a form of solidarity from workers in the supply industries that is very difficult for them to give. It is one thing to "illegally" build a ship when you are surrounded by 8,000 determined men, have control over the river, and control over the gates. But it is quite another matter for workers in what will often be quite the sure small enterprises to defy their bosses, produce "illegally".
and "illegally" transport supplies to the yard. This demands a higher level of consciousness and commitment than is perhaps demanded of the shipyard workers themselves. Again, if strike action in solidarity is demanded of them the Tories, they have to live for perhaps a week or more on social id hit the security for expressing solidarity with workers who are still hit tor working and hence getting paid. nationalised while all the cream goes to private business, which is what the Labour Party seems to mean by socialism, nor one in which, even though all industry is state property, a group of bureaucrats take all the decisions "in the name of" the workers, which is the case in Russia. The problem is to really start moving towards a socialist society-but obviously, if a socialist society means one in which working people control and manage all the wealth for their collective good, any situation in which workers begin to increase the contro. they have, to challenge the bosses right to decide, The only real solution for U.C.S. is socialism. But U.C.S. workers on their own obviously cannot achieve socialism. What is necessary is, in the short term, to build such workers' power that the Government can't carry out its present decisions to close the yards, and to do it in such a way as to help the longer term aim of moving towards socialism, a society run and managed by working people themselves. In order to do both these things, the workers at U.C.S. have to involve more and more other workers on their side.
There seem to be three different ways the U.C.S. workers can try to use the occupation to involve other workers. TOKEN OCCUPATION OR ...
The first would be to see the occupation as a symbolic or token gesture of resistance. The yards could be occupied for a period decided by the workers, in order to get maximum publicity for the case, and maximum sympathy from other workers. The difficulty with this use of the occupation is that, when the period was finished, the Tories would almost certainly say, "Well, we're very sorry for you, but the yards are going to close"-as they did in Jarrow in 1934. The most extreme gesture of this type would be to destroy the yards rather than leave the machinery, etc. to the bosses. But although this would get worldwide publicity, and horrify those who think that private property is "sacred", it might solve the bosses' problem in one way, since while the yards are there, they are a problem; if they went, there would be some nice fat insurance payments for the bosses (not the OCCUPATION TO KEEP PRODUCTION GOING The second way is to try to keep production going with the yards run by the workers. This not only gives publicity, but it defies the rights of the bosses to some extent. If successful, it would involve more and more workers outside UCS, who would have to take over their factories in order to provide supplies. A bit of imagination and one could see a situation in West Scotland where workers were running most of the industries while the government and administration were still in the hands of the bosses and their representatives -a situation of dual power. That would certainly be a springboard for socialism. But would it be possible to get from the here and now to such a situation? There are big difficultires. If U.C.S. workers "work in" illegally and go on producing ships, the work they do is still fulfilling plans and orders laid down by the bosses; the ships are going to the private firms who ordered them. In one way, that isn't EXTEND THE STRUGGLE BEYOND THE YARDS If the UCS workers are to develop a strategy to defeat the Tories on this issue, they have to move in the direction of general strike. The question of whether or not the men continue work in the yards has to be seen in relation to this objective. For only a general strike would apply any sort of force against the Tories to concede demands.
Extending the struggle beyond the yards into a general strike is imperative. Protest strikes are insufficient. Mass strikes and occupations, rent strikes, hire purchase strikes, rates strikes, etc. are vital. This initiates a period of mass class struggle in West Scotland, with different sectors of workers making all kinds of demands against their bosses, With this massive power of sanction, demands could be raised for finance for UCS under the control of the shop stewards committee, and completion of nationalisation without any compensation. If these demands were not met by the Tories when confronted by general strike, and if the workers in Britain did not come out in full solidarity, then.
the Scottish workers have a power base, the massive support and active involvement in struggle of the whole working class, from which to launch a struggle for workers' selfmanagement across whole sectors of the Scottish economy.
If you would like to be put in touch with the International Marxist Group (IMG) or the Spartacus League, then write to The Red Mole, 182, Pentonville Road, London N. 1. Tel.No. 01-837-6954. so much of a challenge; the challenge would be that the workers were running the yard. But if the workers are illegally running the yard, who will provide the 1,001 supplies needed to make ships-from electricity and steel to piping and all the different fittings. Businessmen won't. So the workers in all the supplying firms will have to take them over too. And of course, the workers in the firms who are supplying them-and so on. Now, if only one important group of workers didn't occupy their own factory, the whole question would come to a halt. And who would provide pay? The banks won't pay out to a U.C.S. illegally run by its workers-still less to a supply tırm which has been taken over. The food producers would have to take over or be taken over in order to make sure that the workers were fed. So that, while a long-term "work in" would be good in theory, at this stage it has some pretty huge disadvantages The third way is to use the occupation as a special kind of strike-one in which the workers take over the yards, stop production and determine who and what goes in and out. This has a number of advantages. It denies the right of the bosses to determine what is produced. It denies the right of the prospective ship owners to get their ships, and it shows that the workers who produce the wealth are taking the decisions. Some of the many machines and the skills of the workers in the yards might be used while supplies lastednot to produce ships, but to make anything useful for people that the workers decided upon. Workers in supplying firms could be encouraged to join in and take over their firms, as the bosses cut off supplies, and workers in the rest + of Scotland, and all over Britain, could be encouraged to show solidarity by striking and occupying their factories. The failure of workers in any one factory to show solidarity would not endanger the whole operation, as it would in a "work in", and tremendous pressure could be put on the S.T.U.C. to call a Scottish General Strike-and occupation. Of course, there would also be many big problems with this way too-if there was not sufficient solidarity action, the strike might in the end be defeated; and there would be big problems about payment. But there is no easy way out, and this would seem to be more effective than the first way of using the occupation, and have less dangers and problems The U.C.S. workers are showing in a practical way by their occupation how to develop workers' control. These seem to be the three main lines of action open to them. The question is, which is the best in terms of the short-term aim of generating sufficient workers' power to stop the Government, and in the longer term of making a contribution towards really solving the problem by assisting the move towards a socialist Britain. The U.C.S. workers will have to decide their strategy. We will help it in whatever ways we CLYDESIDE A CHALLENGE WORKING CLASS
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