Interview with shop stewards.
The situation at River Don arises out of a strategy laid down in the early 60s aimed at eliminating product duplication and greatly reducing the labour force. The strategy in this case goes a stage further and eliminates one product altogether, namely heavy forgings. At the same time, the policy of the unions has been one of inertia in the steel industry; a refusal to fight redundancies. Accepting the lessons of UCS, the workers are therefore taking the situation into their own hands-with verbal support from the AEWU.
Workers in both the private sector and the British Steel Corp. are attempting to combine to prevent plant from being hived off.
Thousands of Sheffield workers stand to lose their jobs following the Government's decision to hive off the River Don works of the British Steel Corporation to the privately-owned company of Firth-Brown Ltd. The first redundancy notices are due to go out this week. Red Mole reporters talked to two shop stewards from different sections of BSC, one a member of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers (also referred to as AEF in the interview), the other a member of the British Iron and Steel And Kindred Trades Association.
-What is your position in Rotherham BSC? AUEW Steward: It's Rotherham works geographically, but our machine shop comes under the River Don management for all of our work and costings. It's the BSC Special Steels Division, but it is part of the River Don works. BISAKTA Steward: This appears to be part of a deliberate policy from 1969 onwards. This policy was to group all geographical areas into product groups as against geographical groups. It was done after a lot of pressure to rationalise while steel was under the private sector. The general idea was to make product duplication obsolete. -What are the unions involved at BSC Rotherham?
AUEW S.: There is only one union in our shop and that is AEF. We have BISAKTA members, but they are not really involved in the fight to halt these closures at River Don.
BISAKTA S.: Overwhelmingly in the steel industry, the main shop floor union is BISAKTA but in the particular department which A.S. is talking about, the process is more engineering than production, so therefore most members would be in AEF, or to a lesser extent the T&G or GMWU.
A.S.: As far as 1 can gather, BISAKTA officials have promised that if our shop was closed, the machinists in the shop will be transferred back to Rotherham works. This is complete nonsense when we look at the redundancies which have already occurred in the Rotherham works. B.S.: What the officials say about assimilating BISAKTA workers back into the rest of Rotherham works is a lie because it would directly contradict the announcement made in 1970 that 1,300 people would be made redundant at Rotherham works at the end of 1972. The report further states that more redundancies would follow. Given this, how could the Rotherham works swallow up the redundant labour from the machine shop? -What are the possibilities for redundancies in your shop and in the works generally? A.S.: Well, if this River Don sell-out goes through, then obviously we are finished. Even if it doesn't go through and River Don is saved, our position is still very doubtful. About 90 of our (AEF) members and between 50 and 60 BISAKTA members will be affected. -The River Don closure would affect 4,500 workers, and if that happens your machine shop will be closed as well. Is there any sign of redundancies other than those which will result from River Don?
B.S.: Yes. They have already been declared, as l said earlier. The Park Gate blastfurnaces are to close, and following them the melting pot which. relies on the blastfurnaces for supplv. There is speculation, through management leaks, about the closure or hiving-off of one of the two primary mills in the Rotherham works. If this happens it could lead ultimately to the sacking of something like 6,000-7,000 workers out of 12,000 currently employed. -What are the official unions doing about itthe AEF and BISAKTA?
A.S.: Well, the official policy of the AEF is not to accept redundancies. Their policy is one of worksharing but unfortunately management have been getting round this, and the unions have been losing out because workers have been accepting redundancies and the unions haven't been able to stop this.
B.S.: BISAKTA's policy is entirely different. The policy of worksharing was abandoned before nationalisation and the union is in fact actively acquiescing in the creation of redundancies. All one has to do is look at the "Green Book" productivity deal which agrees with the need for flexibility of labour, for streamlining, and the introduction of measured day work, time and motion, job evaluation... These methods are all designed to shed labour, and 25,000 process workers will have been phased out of the industry since 1965 with the deliberate cooperation of BISAKTA. A.S.: The results are probably not much different though between the different unions, because voluntary redundancy has been a way out. There has already in fact been a certain amount of voluntary reduction at the Rotherham works.
B.S.: But this difference of policy between the AEF and BISAKTA is disastrous because it creates a division between shop floor workers who have got everything in common and should fight together. It creates a lack of solidarity, sets workers against each other and plays into the hands of BSC's deliberate policy to do just this. -Could you tell us more about voluntary redundancies and what is involved because it appears to be quite important?
A.S.: We had a shop stewards meeting in February. The management had said they were going to make thirty men redundant. Our official reaction was to reject redundancies completely, but about 29 workers volunteered to be made redundant. This completely cut the ground from under our feet because we couldn't stop them becoming redundant. But we did say that although these men were made redundant we were not going to lose their jobs. So what we have been trying to do is to keep job opportunities in policy. open.
B.S.: I agree with what you have said about redundancies. It is very difficult for shop stewards to fight redundancies when men of 63 and over stand to get up to £1,500 and actually want to be made redundant. But with regard to the other aspect of job loss, the attitude of BISAKTA is different from AEF because it actively agrees with the elimination of jobs. This can only be fought by unofficial action on the part of shop stewards within BISAKTA, because it is the policy of the union bureaucracy that jobs should be done away with. —Is there much work done together between AEF and BISAKTA?
A.S.: I would say there is almost none. I think the only contact is at Works Council meetings where representatives do talk but I don't think there is joint official action anywhere along the line against management.
B.S.: There is no contact at all at local level, and the only contact at national level is that they happen to sit on the Joint Steel Committee of which Davies (Gen. Sec. BISAKTA) is chairman. Locally BISAKTA actively deny any link-up with AEF at shop floor level. At River Don, for instance, local Divisional Officers have been heard to say that we go this alone and don't want to be mixed up with AEF, or any of this silly business like UCS work-ins. This obviously means that they don't intend to fight the redundancies at River Don; the AEF do. A.S.: In talking about the unions working together, I was referring to the Rotherham works set-up. At River Don, I believe BISAKTA, along with ASTMS and DATA, are fully involved in the fight to save River Don B.S.: If BISAKTA are involved at River Don in a joint effort with other unions, then to my knowledge it is completely unofficial. -From all accounts, BISAKTA and even AEF do not seem all that successful in fighting redundancies. Would you agree with this? A.S.: Yes. I would agree that they are not successful in fighting redundancies. B.S.: The reason is, I think, that BISAKTA, the overwhelmingly powerful union in the steel industry, has a capitulationist policy and this really puts AEF in an extremely difficult position. AEF have got no mass support in fighting redundancies because the vast majority of steelworkers are in BISAKTA whose support can't be relied on.
A.S.: Yes, and even in other industries AEF haven't been successful in fighting redundancies. They have tried but even in engineering works they haven't been very successful. -What is the reaction of the men to this. Is there a lot of frustration?
B.S.: Yes. People say-we can't fight alone, if we fight no one will support us, etc. It is linked also with the steel boom in the '50s and management concessions to the unions more or less on demand. These concessions ended by the middle '60s, but the legacy of the '50s still exists. This combined with a lack of support between different sections of workers creates a very exasperating situation for the men on the shopfloor who are fragmented and isolated. Their anger is not necessarily directed against the Steel Corporation but against the unions. Nationalisation is often blamed for this situation with the argument that this didn't happen under private enterprise. This is mistaken because nationalisation is in fact being used brutally to carry out the tasks of private industry before it, which in practice means going along with the Benson Report in sacking 100,000 out of a labour force of 300,000 in 1965. -How do you see the situation developing? A.S.: Well, I don't think the unions can settle this. The only way we can settle this, I think, although I don't like waying this, is by getting a Labour government back, with a real socialist policy in the Labour government-one which will really expand industries in Britain and get workers off the dole and into the factories. The unions aren't organised enough to do this. In our union for instance there are 1½million members, but we'll let 100 workers in our shop get the sack. They are unions in name but not B.S.: What I would like to see developing is mass solidarity action between different sections of workers. But to precede this there must be a fight for trade union democracy within the unions themselves, and rank and file committees must be set up nationally. I don't see the return of a Labour government with socialist policies as a viable alternative. We've had all this before, especially with Labour in opposition the "left" rhetoric and calls for "nationalisation". Nationalisation is no use unless the workers actually control the means of production. -In what way do you see workers fighting redundancies?
A.S.: I'm not really clear on this. At the moment there only seems to be one way-out of the factory and into the dole queue. There is some fight in the River Don workers. They have got their backs up because this sell-out has been a Local marches to Speakers Corner leave Archway 1pm March organised by Anti-Internment League. Phone 01-603 3085 For 01-278 2616 for further details. big shock to them, but I'm doubtful about the extent of the solidarity.
B.S.: Because of the type of production at River Don, a work-in is out of the question. I imagine that the workers will take over the factory not as a work-in but as a stay-in, to stop any machinery going out of the factory to the private sector. But this means mass support, again from the rank and file, because the unions will not rubber-stamp such action. They may if the action is on a large enough scale pay lip-service to it, but they won't give it active support. A.S.: There is already a policy about not moving the machinery but that is not really what Firth Brown's want. They are after the order book and the goodwill. There is also a policy in operation to black certain jobs, but how will the they know which jobs to black? -I understand that you are involved in the Rotherham Steel Committee. What is the role of this Steel Committee?
B.S.: The need for a steel committee comes out of all that we have been saying. It is an attempt to create a rank and file alternative to the trade union and industrial structure in this area. And we see the need to link up nationally with other industries even at the basic level of coordinating information. This flow of information is nonexistent in the steel industry at the moment. It is also important to act as a pressure group on the steel unions. For instance, in the case of BISAKTA it is necessary to exert pressure for a national conference as a first step to breaking its authoritarian structure. Interest in the committee is growing; at the moment only an autonomous rank and file steel committee can break through the barriers erected by the unions themselves and lay the basis for effective solidarity action in the struggle against redundancies.
-What tactic is BSC using to calm down resistance to its measures?
B.S.: The main tactic is very clever, one of mystification, which is carried out by means of their media Steel News which is given away on the shop floor in thousands. They play each section off against the next depending on which set of workers is most militant at any given time. The second tactic is the manipulation of internal costing procedures giving out spurious figures of profits and losses. These dividing tactics are very effective and get workers hoping that other departments will close down and put them on full time...
A.S.: One of the tactics being employed at River Don is the promise that if unions cooperate with BSC, although some jobs will be lost, some jobs will actually be saved. Straightaway splits occur, as has happened at UCS where the same tactic has been applied. -Do you think a bulletin can help counter this? B.S.: Yes. I think this is extremely important. We are working towards the production of a bulletin and hope to have the first one out soon. Interviewers: Tom Mole and Paul Neville MASS DEMONSTRATION IN SUPPORT OF THE IRISH STRUGGLE -OCTOBER 31stRELEASE ALL INTERNEES! WITHDRAW THE TROOPS!
Rally Speakers Corner (Marble Arch) 3.30 pm, followed by march to Whitehall.
"Crown", Cricklewood 1.30 pm Hammersmith Broadway 1.30 pm