branch at the Civdescale steel works and я member of the union's national negotiating committee, called last Thursday for the TUC to stop around unions and management in the steel strike and to dramatically increase its support for the steel workers.
'Everyone who works with steel should be called out, whether they're in the private or public sector,' McKenna said. 'Steel is used in cars and engineering - they've all got to come out. We need an integrated strike'.
Speaking in the Scottish strike headquarters at Motherwell he said that every steel worker was convinced that it was the Tories who were forcing the BSC's hand:
In McKenna's opinion the original 2 per cent offer had been better in a sense than the present one, which would involve the loss of the guaranteed working week.
'Due to the nature of the industry, demand Only gel orders cost bry Says works The only get orders worth 2 or 3 days' work. guaranteed week which the corporation now wants to abolish weekly wage on average.' McKenna challenged the figures that BSC is using to justify the closures.
argued. £200m a year in interest payments to the banks. This figure snoulan l be mcluaco m accounting. Dockers John Hamilton, another member of the Clyde strike committee and an ISTC branch _ at Ravenscraig, Grangemouth docks that morning to see the dockers. Rumours had been circulating that the corporation was attempting to steel via Grangemouth Rotterdam. run-up to the strike.
According to the reports, the steel was being imported either as european steel or. the road, as privately-produced British steel.
Steelworkers in Cleveland will be among those taking part anti-cuts demonstration in Middlesbrough on 9 February.
The protest has been backed by 'the TUC's Northern Regional Council and will bring workers, nurses, clothing workers, and the Fire Brigades Unions, as well as the steel strikers.
The steel strike itself hotted up last week Middlesbrough management steel Hadfield and Partners called in the police in an attempt to intimidate pickets.
The pickets had been nearly run down by a lorry leaving the factory carrying scab steel. When the pickets attempted to talk to other i drivers Hadfield's general manager John Crow called in the cops.
But even the police were a little aggrieved at being summoned Crow. "The pickets were behaving quite reasonably,' commented police officer. secretary of the ISTC staff arbitrating between is worth 13 per cent of the 'We don't operate 'We have to pay back had been to Wishaw ie-import its and Leith roadway after having exported it in the confronted once on now virtually certain to close. "There IS a in an council when stockists down a steel Lanarkshire.
lorry works.
by Scunthorpe WAT2 40 The dockers were solidly behind the strike and no steel would be moving out of Grangemouth or Leith from then on The picketing was now concentrating on the steel stockholders. has east Saturday, (Boards with nais Saturday, boards profruding and broken glass were found in the . by the yard. lorry drivers who threatened with the sack if they didn't smash through the pickets.
The lorries were stopped while talks were held between ISTC officials and the manager of member at the Corby plant, which is Black of experience.
When 84 of us went on a flying picket to Birmingham last week, I was the only one who had been on a picket line before. But that's rapidly changing, and more and more people are saying: 'Christ, they're asking us to give up pay jobs and they want to cut our DETERMINED picketing has closed stockists at Wishaw, Management at the company, Steel Stockists Ltd, agreed on Wednesday of last week to shut their depot gates for a month after a 100-strong picket line had prevented a number of lorries from entering the Because such picketing has been THE strike committee in Scunthorpe jointly organised by ISTC, the Blastfurnacemen's Union, and the General and Municipal Workers, is determined that no steel will move on Humberside. A thousand flying pickets are in operation around the clock at the ports of Goole and Immingham, and there are pickets outside the gates of 22 private steel stockholders in the area.
Scunthorpe, like Shotton, Corby and Consett, is a one-industry town and already local traders say sales of food have dropped by 20 per cent. Before the strike there was little enthusiasm for action, but now attitudes among the 18,000 steel workers and their families are hardening. They are prepared for a *I have never known trade unionists in this area anxious to picket before,' says the ISTC joint committee chairperson Stan Sheridan. to realise that their quarrel is not with British Steel but with the governmment.' The dockers at Immingham are unloading steel but, with the support of railworkers, are refusing to let any steel leave the port. At Hull, on the other side of the Humber, the dockers are refusing to unload any steel cargoes. In Scunthorpe the Steel Action Committee, formed to fight BSC's closure plans, is busy taking soup to the picket lines.
BSC has said that Scunthorpe is to lose 4,500 jobs by August, but the figure is expected to be around 6,000 — a third of the workforce. 'If the men take their redundancy what work will there be for my sons when they leave school?' asks Penny Jackson, an action committee leader who is married to a steel worker. If the closures go ahead Scunthorpe will be decimated. The Labour Council is vainly seeking to attract new industry to this isolated spot on This Saturday the local action committee is organising a regional conference on the steel struggle to mobilise opinion against the closures. SCABsteel protection — a cop warns a picket outside asteel stockholders yard in Wishaw movement of all steel. broken withdrawn.
nails picketed on A hundred pickets had been seen to be effective it has been labeled OI Davidson described the closure of the Wishaw stockists as industrial demanded that the Tories' anti-union legislation be introduced at once.
Such frenzied attitudes are further proof of how important "secondary" picketing is, and how the struggle in steel is closely linked with the battle against the threatened laws of Tory Employment Secretary, James Prior THE South Yorkshire Association of Trades Councils has set in motion a 24-hour local general strike on HAULAGE the yard, who eventually agreed to halt the But the agreement was as soon as mass pickel "There will be no agreements," said John Hamilton GKN Stockholders in Rutherglen is being La 24-hour: basis. Pickets told Socialist Challenge that they had turned back all the lorries attempting to enter the yard, and stopped four lorries from leaving it.
The controntation had developed first thing in the morning as the four lorries formed a convoy with headlights blazing and approached February against policies.
All the main unions in the South Yorkshire 66,000-strong NUM and the AUEW — are presently meeting to support the call and finalise preparations.
The Yorkshire Campaign Committee, which support for the 28 November national anti-cuts demonstration, has begun a programme of factory motorcades, and public meetings ensure a massive February, Summing up the Yorkshire labour movement, councilJor Roy Thwaites, leader of the South Yorkshire county council, remarked:
union movement here has taken the lead in the fight, not just against the government's economic and industrial policies as a whole.' Association of earlier this month expressed disgust ai the TUC's inactivity on this front, particularly its "cowboys'.
was finding Heath.' wouldn't win on pay more the pipe line. demo including the impressive • t0 council. turn out mood of the I am delighted that the trade The meeting of the Yorkshire Trades action delay in leaving a are Euro MP Dick Caborn commen- timetable for Tory-controlled reorganised not from The confederation 0f week.
Manchester Trades Benn and Derek also the country endorsed by stops calls and against the lorries, all driven by non-union The manager of the yard finally ordered the lorries back into the sheds.
Thatcher, the pickets said, had reckoned the steel workers would be a soft option, but she differently 'Villiers Thatcher's puppet. We've got to get rid of this government, just like the miners did with One picket said: "The Tories got elected and immediately handed massive pay rises to the offered an insulting 2 per cent as well as 52,000 redundancies. It's the same with BL. They've got to go. Every steel worker in BSC and in the Workers on the Rutherglen picket came from three plants in the area. Only one, the massive fully-integrated plant at Ravenscraig, closure plan. Hallside is definitely closing at the end of March with a loss of 600 jobs.
The strikers on the picket line had already received their redundancy notices. «We're trade unionists. It's a matter of solidarity. They've The other plant, Clydesbridge, was not yet definitely up for closure but is to be reviewed this month. The strikers considered that they support of workers in the rest of industry who Pat Shevlin, spokesperson for the Scottish steel workers' strike committee, is insistent that the strike should be extended to the private steel have everything to do with our dispute. We are not simply on strike for the steel workers for every British worker whose pay claim is in 'If the government and BSC grind us into the ground every other settlement will suffer.
Lancaster anti-cuts 'STOP the cuts, defend our unions' is the slogan adopted by Lancaster and Morecambe Action Committee for a demonstration and rally against the this protest has come from the trades Labour Party executive and left-wing Speakers at the rally will include Right.to Work Campaign.
The demonstration in Lancaster Fenton Street, behind the GPO. Bring banners and placards. Further details from Roger Smith, tel. 0468 21474.
Bristol teachers'
TEACHERS at three schools in Avon refusing implement the • the new term. Aven's council, front runner in education cuts, bas school timetabies to assimilate the effects of job loss Ayon division action representing NUT members in the area, has called a strike for 16 January. schools where teachers voted by a two-third majority to take strike action in a ballot held last November, a third will be called out for three days each O seA a motion epo mie Nat sent a motion NUT executive calling for solidarity action. For strike action to be officially approved by the union, it has to be NUT's national action committee. So far no date has been set for this body to meet.
Pressure needs to be put on the national action committee to make the Aven strike official.
Socialist Challenge 17 January 1980 Page I1
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One-day strike against Tories