USA RUN, WANT 'ERIN calling in of the receiver on 20 October to Small Heath, together with the continuing blockade of Wolverhampton, may radicalise the workforce to struggle.
The logic of the co-operative venture was taken to its extreme in the case of the Scottish Daily News. In March 1974 the Beaverbrook group decided to rationalise its printing operations in Scotland. Overnight, 1,900 employees of the Scottish Daily Express, the Glasgow Evening Citizen and the Scottish Sunday Express were thrown out of work. One of the Express compositors - Allister Mackie, a Labour councillor and JP - formed an action committee with the aim of buying the plant and establishing a daily paper. The action committee developed a formula to launch a paper at a total cost of £2.4 million, half of which was to be a Government loan.
NON-INVOLVEMENT For about a year the action committee, the Beaverbrook group and the Government were involved in negotiations. Mackie during this time was able to preserve the unity of the work force and began to gain allies who took up the co-operative cause, most notably Tony Benn. Then early this May, when negotiations seemed about to grind to a halt, Mr Robert Maxwell - former Labour MP and Chairman of Pergamon Press - emerged to offer 50p for every f1 contributed by prospec tive employees. In all, Maxwell contributed some £114,000 out of a total of £2 million. For this he demanded to be made Chairman of the enterprise.
An outstanding feature of the founding of the co-operative was the non-involvement of the vast majority of the workforce other than as a source of capital to the company - each prospective employee contributed at least £100 to company funds through the purchase of shares NO SOLUTION Despite low wages and poor working conditions the paper was never able to become profitable. Losses were running at round £2,000 a day when the paper closed, although it was claimed that £250,000 would give the paper sufficient , breathing space to become profitable.
Without exception, where the workforce has assumed responsibility for a failing enterprise through a co-operative, the rules of capitalist economics have meant increased productivity,