AUEW, Sheffield shipbuilding industries will begin a national overtime ban. Three one-day Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions in pursuit of the national wages and.
One might have thought that the prospect of such a huge and decisive section of the working class moving and witch-hunts in the mass media.
But none of this has happened. The possibility of confrontation has casts, no emergency cabinet meetings and not even verv much oublicity.
In fact, large numbers of workers throughout the industry will only just be finding out now that a claim has been submitted at all! How is it that One of the main problems with the national engineering claim same proolem that arises every year is that the overwhelming majority of would. benefit from the monetary part of the claim, even if it were won in full.
The central parts of the claim are: an £80 minimum time rate (MTR) for skilled workers increases for lower grades; a 35-hour week, and two days extra holiday per year.
Minimum The MTR is a minimum fall-back rate, and would therefore give an increase only to those who are below it. The only other difference it makes is to overtime rates.
It's true that any increase in the MTR could have a 'push-on' effect in the localities by reducing the amount incentive However, this possibility immediate enough to motivate the workers to rally behind thẹ claim.
The demand for already watered down to weekly cut of one hour this year, with progress to 35 hours by 1982. It is hardly therefore, there is not a great deal of enthusiasm amongst engineering workers for the claim.
This situation is not accidental, It has always been the conscious policy of the leadership of the engineering unions avoid confrontation with the employers on Even in scanlon's to have the minimum wages.
for a struggle is the 35 hour year, this interests of realism'.
BOB WRIGHT
the workers thrown week without direct 'unrealistic' by mobilising proportional CIDIUYCIS position of strength.
full strength heavy blow.
like are Talling over productivity industrial action being taken is not recommendation executive council 35 hours haş union's national committee, votes to 25.
that the signal for an all-out the national seriously full-scale If anything, such ineffectual demoralising effect day, the claim was always formulated impact on The one part of the claim which could really unite engineering workers.
week.
That is why the leadership is always so ready to water it down or drop it altogether. This year, as in every other been done in the Apparently, it is 'realistic' for the union bureaucratsto see thousands of on the dole every biting a finger opposition, but to fight unemployment strength engineering workers to win a shorter claim. weak-kneed leadership that allows the engineering negotiate The employers know that if the of the confederation unions was used they would receive a They are also aware that AUEW president Terry Duffy and his make sure that this doesn't happen.
As recently as last week, Duffy was floating the idea of a national unity deal avoid any The fact that any action is being taken at all is due to the fact that the by the AUEW's to accept the employers' latest offer of £10 and refer all other issues to a working party was narrowly rejected by by But that victory by the left was not struggle against the employers. There is no one committee who believes that an overtime han and three one-day stoppages will force the employers to concede.
there is a danger that action will have a on the workers and actually weaken the struggle. This is exactly what the right-wing is hoping for.
Any sign of wavering of support for the overtime ban or the one-day strikes will be seized upon by Terry Duffy to call off the action and accept the employers' offer The ability of Duffy and friends to derail the struggle has been fac...tated by the utter inadequacy of the left in aelegates on ine nanonal committ who voted against the executive's employers' of the influence of Communist Party and its Broad Left opposition always stops well short of fighting for an all-out struggle against The sunses.
Strategy There was never give substantial immediate increase to the majority of workers in the industry. The left also went along with the watering down of the demand for 35 hours.
The support for timid industrial action is not a conscious act 'betrayal' by the CP. On the contrary. many CP militants would like to see a much more aggressive struggle for the The noblem is the strategy of the CP Everything subordinated building a broad alliance with 'lefts' of albatrades, in particular officialdom. Majorities on committees are seen as the most important objective.
The whole emphasis, therefore, is laid on giving the union structures a 'left' complexion, even if this means compromises and limiting struggles.
This line oi 'comoromise was demonstrated at national conference of anglice me shop stewards in Sheffield on 7 July.
The conference was called by 17 stewards' committees in Sheffield in order to discuss the campaign for the national claim, and over 260 delegates shop stewards committees throughout the country attended.
But the great potential of this conference was blocked at the start when the CP-dominated platform announced that there would be no Many conference thus turned into talk-shop, with two and a haif hours of fiery diatribes against the Tories and the need to work even harder to get 'lefts' like Bob Wright elected to he union leadershi This was the CP's perspective. I serious and of to within was announced that a national shop stewards co-ordinating for would be set-up in the near future the But it was made quite clear that this would essentially be a pressure group in support of 'left' bureaucrats The CP has learnt nothing from it: disastrous affair with Lord Scanion (RIP).
Despite the weaknesses of the claim and the inadequacy of one-day strikes as method socialists must be in the forefront of the fight to ensure the success of the actions would demoralise thousands of militants throughout the engineerThe ing industry. The only victors would be the employers.
struggle, socialists in the engineering industry must begin to come to grips with the more long-term problem of within the industry.
committee recognise struggle constructive the Broad Left.
failure of the limited be periphery make some impact A useful starting point would be to how weak Charter and the comrades behind it should recognise that there is no way in which they can pose as an organisational alternative to the Broad Left What is vital is that all socialists should organise a collective discus sion in order to draw up a serious and political alternative to A useful step towards this would convene a conference elaborate such an alternative which would, hopefully, attract a layer of beyond our immediate Compared to the Broad Left, such would represent tiny forces. But it would be an important step forward for al those who ar alienated by the Broad Left yet see no other vistas on the horizon.