KICK OUT THE TORIES | IMGpapers 1980

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THE 1980s have started in the best possible way with 100,000 steelworkers on strike in a direct challenge to the Tory government. Already the battle lines have been drawn.

BATTLE LINE ONE is over the mis British See Corporation so backed by the Tory Industry Secretary Keith Joseph. With inflation running at 20 percent that would mean a slashing cut in the living standards of steel workers. And this is what the Tories are out to do to all our wages.

BATTLE LINE TWO involves what the Tories call "secondary picketing'. The steel unions have called for the stopping steel imports. That means solidarity action by dockers, railway and other transport workers - the very typ of action the Tories want to outlaw i their 'reform' of trade unions. BATTLE LINE THREE concerns the Tories industrial strategy sacking workers to pay for the bosses' crisis. Joseph and his puppet Charles Villiers -the highest paid boss of any nationalised industry - say 52,000 steel jobs have to go because the industry is in a mess.

But who is BSC losing money to! BSC's interest payments on loans increased from a rate of 8.2 percent in 1972 to 13.4 per cent in 1978. Compare that with the American steel Industry interest and dividends payments which amounted to 6.5 per cent in 1972 and 6.05 per cent in 1978. It is BSCs payments to the bankers which should be chopped not workers jobs.

These are the issues in the strike. A victory for the steelworkers would be a defeat for the Tories' attacks on jobs, wages and union rights. That's why the steel confrontation amounts to a War against a whole range of Tory policies.

It's & war neither the steelworkers, nor the rest of us can afford to lose. This government must be brought to its knees. THE KEY TO VICTORY *No movement of steel or raw materials, either at the docks or on the railways *No special exemptions for private industry, run down the steel stock and boycott the use of all private and imported steel Photo: LARRY HERMAN *For all out strike action, the craft unions and steel workers in the private sector should join the strike *uropean and merican steelunions im *For solidarity boycotting the British industry *Every trade union and Labour Party branch should support the steel workers by setting up local labour movement support committees through the trades MAKE SURE THE TORIES LOSE

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