How the media crowed at the turnout of only 300 on the demonstration against unemployment in Coventry last Saturday. The Lord Mayor was there, Audrey Wise was there, but where, inquired the gentlemen of the press, were the 15,000 workers invited.
The demonstration was originally called as the result of an angry meeting of 300 shop stewards who sharply criticised the inactivity of the local Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions on unemploy ment. The spirit of the resolution was for a day of strike action, which would have provided political support for the struggle at Chrysler. But the union bureaucracy, led by Frank Chater OBE, a leading light of the right-wing Catholic Action, cynically ignored the feeling of the meeting and delayed the demonstration until after the defeat at Chrysler.
The demand on which the demo organisers attempted to mobilise the membership was for Coventry to be made an assisted and redevelopment area. Such a policy has no correspondence to the immediate needs of Coventry workers, simply diverting the struggle for jobs into interminable discussions with the "Most of us came here on the promise of good homes and good jobs.
We got nowt except high rents, 'cheap' homes and the nag of wondering whether a job would be there next year, next month or, this time, even next day.' Those were the feelings of one worker in the Lancashire new town of Skelm. cisudie last weekle aean ora New Jerusalem of high density housing and stable employment for those fleeing the slums of Merseyside has turned very sour indeed. Unemployment already stands at nearly 10 per cent. If the closure of the Thorn's V tubes factory goes ahead! another 1,370 will join the dole queues.
The nightmare of nearly 20 per cent unemployment will become a reality.
The closure of what is one of only two remaining colour television tube factories in the country was announced THE FIGHTING MIR Department of Industry. What a prospect — no wonder so few Coventry workers bothered to turn out.
Meanwhile, the "moderates" in the Coventry/ Chrysler shop stewards committee, having sold their membership down the river, are now running as fast as their feet can take them by applying for voluntary redundancies. The rush has been led by Bob Morris, right wing T&GWU convenor at the Stoke plant. Morris's contribution to the Chrysler struggle was to denounce as 'left wing rubbish' any idea that Chrysler's problems weren't the responsibility of the workers.
Those remaining stewards who supported the Chrysler-Government deal should be turfed out by the membership. A new leadership should be elected in the plant, committed to opposing the implementation of the deal and the massive productivity drive being launched by the Chrysler management.
In Coventry as a whole, the fight to build a right tc work committee and a conference of the local labour movement to halt the retreat and adopt a policy to defend jobs must be the conclusion drawn from Saturday's fiasco. after months of secret negotiations between management and the Government.
In the course of these talks, Thorn's were paid nearly a million pounds by the Labour Government to delay mention of Closure unus December ability to land 22 inch colour tubes in this country at a cost of £34, Toshiba, Hitachi and Sony are not likely to be InTerested.
Blind alley Thorn's announcement has predictably been greeted with a chorus of demands to prevent une closure. sur so tale tor import controls from the trade union only suggestion of how a real fight for "lefts" and the Tribunites. The blind alley jobs can be waged has come from the of a campaign to stop the flooding of Britain with Japanese TV túbes has been opened. But as Bill Connor, leader of the Labour group on the West Lancashire in at the factory. District Council, told Red Weekly: "Import controls are only a question ol the working class solving the internecine strife between the warring capitalists of Open books different countries.
dale Labour Party Young Socialists, Bill Connor called for a broad-based under workers control.
Member.
RESCUE SCHEMES class in this country, ally leads to mass redundancies.
Even more bizarre than the idea of import controls was perhaps Thorn's stewards telegram to the Japanese embassy, ask ing them whether any industrialist in Japan would like to take them over. With the A mass meeting on Sunday voted full support to any actions the stewards take local Labour Party and the Labour Group on West Lancashire District Council, who have pledged themselves to support a sit with the son of the t6 limit.
At a meeting organised by Skelmersin talks such as those at Chequers. action committee to be set up to defend the Thorn workers' jobs. He went on to RECALL THE TUC! call for the books of Thorn's to be opened to the workers, and for the nationalisation to account!
Two confidential documents revealed by the Tory press ever the last fortnight show the real meaning of the industrial policy unveiled by the Government at the private meeting of the National Economic Development Council at Chequers in NovAccording to the Sunday Telegraph (18 January), the secret docu ment NEDC(75)67, outlining criteria for support for industry, has such a hard approach that 'any Tory industry spokesman who made a speech urging these criteria on the Government would be denounced as a monster'. The Telegraph city editor goes on to exult: "The section I particularly enjoyed (this is after all the official Government policy) is the one on rescue operations. It amounts to a paean of praise in favour of receivership as a means of industrial organisation' This is more than a sick joke. The Government has more or less taken over the industrial tactics of Sir Keith Joseph. The document states: "A receivership or a liquidation does not necessarily involve the complete cessation of a company's activities, since the responsibilities of the receiver will often best be fulfilled by maintaining the business as a going concern in order to secure the highest price Consultations with the work force cannot be taken to the point of, in effect, negotia. tions with them about the disposition of public funds'.
This document explains the enthusiasm of industrialists for the outcome of the Chequers meeting. It provided the teeth for the vague generalities to which the TUC leaders put their names. That is why the Government is so keen to keep it hidden from the mass of the working It also explains the tactics of those loyal supporters of Government policies in the steel industry and Chrysler - men like Bob Morris at the Stole, Coventry Chrysler plant, and Bill Sirs of the Iron & Steel Trades Confederation - when they try to divert the struggle for jobs into demands for negotiations. The Government is all in favour of negotiations, but only within the framework of a 'rescue scheme' which automaticHealey, Wilson and Varley announce new Chequers strategy at press conference On 14 January the TUC side of the NED confirmed its support, along with the Confederation of British Industry, for the Chequers agreement. The previous day, however, the Financial Times had taken the lid off the wheeling and dealing inside the TUC. It revealed that a private TUC document was circulating amongst senior union leaders suggesting how they should meet the threat posed by the growing rank. and-file opposition to their lick-spittling to Wilson.
The document accepts the fact that there will be 1.4 million unemployed by the middle of this year. It accepts that 'consideration needs to be given on a continuing basis to reducing the rate of inflation', confirming its willingness to be involved this summer and in following years All the TUC requires in return is a commitment that unemployment will be reduced to 600,000 by 1978. This is just bluff. Most commen tators accept that unemployment will remain above one million until 1980. The TUC protests at this fact — yet supports the very policies that will make sure that this state of affairs continues. Indeed, its only real complaint is that the Government has not involved the TUC enough This collaboration must end. The TUC should be flooded with res-