ONE thousand trade union delegates from some of the best organised parts of industry are expected to pack Birmingham's Digbeth Civic Hall on Sunday Called by the Campaign for Import Controls Committee (CICC), the rally come conference is a 'rank and file' attempt to revive the selective import control ampaign of the WOrKeI other unions which has spluttered to a halt in the past two It's ycals organisers are convenors in the motor industry sympathetic to the Labour left and Communist Party.
Nevertheless, despite the more anti-Tory rhetoric which will cominale unis meeung, Il 1s dangerous dead end in the fight for jobs. A quick look at the invited reveals the SoCaRCIs blem. What do Arthur Scargill and Bill Sirs have in common? Or Tony Benn and Michael Foot? Scargill and Benn talk the language of class struggle wiereds Sirs Foot practice collaboration with the bosses.
Problem And that sums up the whole prodien will call paigns for import LOS. Thev sav to British workers that their interests lie persuading their bosses the Government to produce aomesuically wildl Is Culrently imported. What tollows trom this is that British bosses and workers nave teress n commor against workers of other Coures.
Even in the 'left' version controiling multinational companies and preventing the export of capital, this is the rotten chauvinist core at the heart of import controls.
It is not simply that import controls are wrong in principle. They will lead to lower living standards and probably lose more jobs. Import controls have an immediate effect prices. Forced to buy more expensive. 'British' goods, British workera nould fall. living standards increased profits made by capitalists enjoyIN THAT GREAT afterlife in the sky there will be two heavens.
for whites and the other is for blacks.
Marie Van Zyl MISS who leads the ultra rightwing which organises protests against South Africa's 'liberal' and multiracial 'reforms' has had an inspired divine revelation about this.
Mrs Iv has 9 direct line to the Almighty SO what she is on about.
However she is determined not to give out God's telephone HELLICI protected markets would not be used to invi casc employment or wage levels.
(TGWU BL Longbridge) and Mick Drake (TGWU Ford's Dagenham)
Capitalists produce to make profits not to create jobs. Even if the bosses invest their profits at home they would buy saving machinery in order to get a better lalc return on their capital That way more jobs would be lost. Alternatively, living standards Recent estimates show that for the rate of prout lo go up enougn 10 stop the export of capital wage levels would have to drop by about £1,000 per worker a year.
Import controls, allyway. sword. In the thirties the are a two edged protectionism oI all the world's major capitalist countries led to a reducnon woro trae wolco prolonged the depression cecualco economies of the southern hemisphere. Nowadays, the only countries that second-ac bower uke b. tain could implement imDOTL COLLOS without fear of massive retaliation are the poorest countries of the world.
It is ironic that the companies where import controls are being pushed hardest by Leyland - are amongst the biggest exporters manufactured goods. The jobs of Jaguar car workers currently secure because of booming American market. Ford's Bridgend plant supplies all when reporters asked her ToI detais on the anar.
theid heaven she told them: •Talk my lawyers.' Mrs Zyl's promise that heaven will be segregated has not upset South African blacks.
They do not fancy spending infinity with a load of white racist trash.
white-male dominated South Africa even Mrs Zyl is not appreciated. When she argued with Prime Minister Pieter Botha at a by-election meeting he told her: 'We cannot peak at the same time Has your husband no taught you that? .
Maybe thinks there will be three the engines for European built Escorts. How would the jobs of these workers prolecica Dy import controls?
Fighting for the international unity of workers mutanona companies be more difSCURI spouling tionalistic catchphrases, but in the long run it is the only effective way to defend jobs and start to control tne activities of the multinationals. The recent of Ford Europe convenors in Spain points the way in this direction. Message Finally, workers will view with the greatest suspicion the people who plead for import controls to save jobs. Terry Duffy and Bill Sirs have sat. or their hands while the CIACCHY and stee in dustries have been butchered.
Duffy is on record as saying that nothing must recovery to profitability of COnDanes like Leyland. This is a promise he has carried out with a vengeance, from the sackof Derek Robinson through to the sell out o1 the Cowley strike.
Bill Sirs' message to the Consett and Round Oaks steel workers was to sit tight and support the steel unions' import controls campaign. Now they all on the dole. The Com munist Benn and Scargill are sharing a common platform with these scabs when they should be mobilising their supporters in the widest possible support for the cupation for jobs at :Timex in Dundee. Firth Derihon in Sheffield and Greenings Warrington. It is with these workers that the fight for jobs lies, not in pleas for import controls.
heavens - one for white men, one for blacks and for women like Marie Van Zyl.
Be diplomatic FIGHTING RACISM is high on NATFHE's agenda. When of their members John Ferances aaout the piglets at Han blew the their attitude black people he caused a storm.
The progressive NATFHE's executive were a bit shocked when his local union branch supMANDS OF US OrE (ELEPHONES!
POEU engineers in the City of London on the picket line. HANDS OFF TELEPHO FOR SALE... GOING CHEEP POEU Picket PROVATE •
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15 May. Jobs will be their concern, but the theme of the meeting is import controis.
That white heaven
MORE IMPORTS MEAN A LOSS OF JOBS FOR BRITISH WORKERS WHAT DOES YOUR FIRM MAKE?