From MICK GOSLING Over a thousand men at the British Steel Corporation's Lackenby works voted on Wednesday to end their unofficial strike for an £8 pay claim and return to work. The men had been out for just less than a fortnight, and the decision reflected not just the treacherous role of the union bureaucracy but also the failure of the strike leadership to break in practice from bureaucratic forms of struggle. The fact that the vote was only carried by a 2 - 1 majority despite the lack of perspectives for any ongoing mass Stirling Comrades Killed We have learnt with deep regret of the deaths of two revolutionary socialists who were involved in the protests and subsequent activity over the royal visit to Stirling University. They were killed in a car crash while driving to the National Union of Students conference in Margate on Friday, 24 November.
Findlay Binning was a close sympathiser of the International Marxist Group, and very active in politics around the University and in the town. He was a laboratory technician at the University, a member of ASTMS, and was on the Executive of the Trades Council. He was sacked from his job after the Trades Council issued a statement supporting the Stirling students.
Jack Carter was one of the 24 students charged after the royal visit, and was a member of the Council of Students Associations as well as being Secretary of the International Socialist Society at the University. He was an exceedingly talented comrade, a very articulate and clear political thinker, and had played a leading role in the struggle against the charges. The death of these comrades is a severe loss to the socialist movement both in the University and in the town. struggle shows only too clearly the potential militancy which was thrown away by the strike leadership.
The men had first taken action on Tuesday, 21 November, when the rod and beam mill workers imposed an overtime ban and work to rule after their 18 claim for "Parity with Wales' had been turned down. A walk out followed on the Friday when a manager changed a spindle in a rolling machine. BSC threatened to lock out the rod and beam mill men if they did not return to normal working. At a mass meeting on the 26th they decided not to return at all.
OFFICIALS SCAB AGAIN Locomen at the South Teesside works, who have put in a similar claim, would have come out with the rod and beam mill men but for the intervention of a Mr Jim Drinkwater, divisional officer of the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation (formerly BISAKTA). Drinkwater managed to persuade the men to putt off their action until procedure was exhausted by putting round the old, old story about a handful of politically motivated men being behind the dispute. "Union Man Lashes Lackenby 'Reds'". screamed the headline of the local scab press (Evening Gazette, 25 November). There followed long quotes from Drinkwater denouncing the strike. "There are extreme leftwing political moves behind this claim and this dispute and the aim is disruption of production on Teesside. There is political influence at WOrKneTe. They are not going to ruin this industry in this area. I'm going to fight hard and win. They are not just up against BSC, they are up against this organisation." No steelworker should be surprised by this reactionary drivel. Drinkwater is merely typical of many ISTC officials. The only battles most of them have ever fought have been against their own members in defence of the bosses interests. Unfortunately most of the locomen were taken in by this nonsense, and although two gangs did come out in support of the claim they returned to work after only two days.
THE POLITICS OF PARITY There was also, however, a problem. bout the type of claim the men put in for. By jo-tify. ing pay rises in terms of "parity', or of rutaining differentials such as the rod and beam mill fitters have, workers immediately open themselves up to the attack that the work is not comparable, and in come the work study men, the productivity agreement made with union officials, and longer dole queues. Therefore, while supporling the present struggle, we would argue for claims which can maintain and improve the living standards and fighting strength of the whole working class regardless of comparability, parity, profitability or anything similar. ....AND REDUNDANCIES More importantly, the whole question of redundancies was not raised in the dispute. Yet this is the urgent problem facing steelworkers throughout the country. A single local example demonstrates just how important this is as a unifying focus.
The workers at Lackenby are in a strong position; their plant has only been open a couple of years. But just a dozen or so miles away, at Hartlepool, there is a completely different situation. There, the ISTC branches have not put in for E8, nor has there been any support forthcoming for the Lackenby men. The reason is simple: the men are scared of getting sacked. BSC plans to close all its Hartiepool works by 1974, and the hivedoff pipe mills are also threatened with closure. Solidarity action would only have been likely if the Lackenby men had guaranteed to make a firm stand against redundancies. This sort of exemplary action could also have laid By J.R.CLYNES, PIERS CORBYN and RICH PALSER ISTC official Mr Drinkwater the basis for the development of a national struggle against the massive redundancies planned by BSC over the next three years. Only if such questions had been taken up could the Lackenby men have avoided the isolation which affected their struggle. As it was, the strike leadership did not even break from bureaucratic procedures, so that even the mass of the strikers were not brought into their own struggle. There were no regular mass meetings, no organised picketing, no mass propagnada campaign in the rest of the Lackenby works (which employs over 5,000 men) - in fact, there wasn't even a strike committee! No wonder then, that demoralisation set in; what has to be ensured at the very least now is that there is no victimisation of the leading militants after the return to work department. Any strategy for fighting