action and mass strikes to demand the right to work.
In the struggle against unemploy for the crisis — which class will impose its solution.
Any working class answer to unemployment must begin with a clear rejection of the capitalists' right to chop and change their workforce as they please. The slogan of work-sharing with no loss of pay strikes right at the heart of the capitalists' right to rule. It demands that the entire labour force be maintained with full pay, with the available work being shared amongst all the workers by reducing the numDer Onours worKed.
OCCUPATIONS
In many industries, particularly motor manufacturing, the bosses are already operating their version of work-sharing - three and four day weeks have been introduced in many plants because the employers fear that any attempt to implement large scale compulsory redundancies would lead to a wave of factory occupations.
But what this also proves is that the workforce has the strength to demand that full earnings are maintained. If the bosses want to reduce the working week-fine. We'll even give them a hand by forcing all the unions that have passed motions for a 35-hour week to launch a united campaign for this demand. But any reduction in hours must not be at the workers' expense.
OFF THE DOLE
Work-sharing with no loss of pay, whether it's in Chrysler, Leyland or GEC, means that workers' committees in every plant and combine open the company's books to work out how much work is available and then divide it up equally between plants and inside the factories. If some sections have to work longer hours than others in order to maintain the the labour movement against the Tory policies of the Wilson Government. But if it is to be more than a ritual parade to Parliament, carefully controlled by a section of the trade union bureaucracy, it must be a real day of flow of production, then this can easily be overcome by taking workers off the dole queues.
Everybody gains through a shorter working week, and nobody loses through loss of earnings. employed are linked to the employed in a common struggle. If the bosses oppose work-sharing it is redundancies, victory is in sight for the 360 workers at the Balfour Darwin tools factory in Sheffield. A member of the sunke commitee tole nee week mal after two meetings with Darwin management and a director from parent company Edgar Allen, the firm had agreed to provide jobs for all the workers who had received compulsory redundancy However, a mass meeting on 13 November voted unanimously to stay out on strike until some questions concerning the redeployment of the reinstated workers had been cleared up.
Although the occupiers have won eir mam cemand lor no combusor redundancies, militants are under no illusion that this is the end of the fight to save the engineering works. Talks are continuing with management to attempt to rer me company to can ourd tour vestment programme. But rather than relving on the bosses who have just tried to sack them, Balfour Darwin workers could lead the nigne in snernield for the nationalisation of the whole private steels industry the most profitable sector in Sheffield. steels.
not because of any technical objections - in industries like textiles where the employers have the upper hand, workers have been on three and four day weeks for months but because a real struggle for this demand will spill over into a fight for workers control over producA10n In some industries it is not even a question of reducing the number of hours worked, but of eliminating massive overtime working. More workers means that lump working has come back to the construction industry with a vengeance. In Woolwich, unemployed building workers have started campaigning for extra jobs at the Thames Barrier Project - a huge flood prevention scheme where twelve hour shifts are being worked seven days a week.
The unSEVEN DAYS!
At the North London Taylor Woodrow flyover site at Staples Corner, 200 men walked off the site last week when 42 men were made redundant. Alongside the sackings, other workers were expected to go on working seven days a week!
from seven GEC factories in the city have adopted the demand for work-sharing. A trade union committee with representatives from all seven plants is to draw up the plans to implement this. But the local union leaders have no intention of fighting for no loss of pay.
would involve an all-out fight to throw open GEC's books to reveal the current state of orders, sales and investment and then the re-allocation of work between the existing workforce. Campaigning on this class basis could force the Labour Government to put up the necessary finance to re-equip the industry, and reverse the cuts in Post Office spending which are responsible for many of the sackings.
TRAIL-BLAZING It is the workers occupying the Personna Razor Blade factory in Glasgow who are currently blazing the trail in the fight for the right to work. They have rejected the management's plans for sackings, and are demanding work-sharing with no loss of pay. the 26 November demonstration must see to it that this struggle gets the support of every militant.
These workers are saying it is the bosses' crisis and they must In Coventry, over 5,000 workers This is because any such struggle Islington Branch:
TIon Workers on
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VICTORY IN SIGHT AT BALFOUR DARWIN After ten weeks of occupation against