The Sit-in: a Focus of Resistance

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TEN YEARS ago, in the summer of 1971, began a struggle against rédundancies at Upper Clyde Shipbuilders that was to become a focal point of resistance to the attacks of the Heath government.

For the first time in recent British history, a large workforce moved in and took over the shipyards which the Tories had planned to carve up: Since that time the tactic of occupation and even the particular action of "work-in" developed by the leadership at UCS have become well known and popular within the broader workers' movement.

The last few years of struggle against cuts and closures have seen occupations of factoriesincluding Gardners, Laurence Scotts, Lee Jeans . and also hospitals and even nurseries.

Yet in every case such occupations have faced major political obstacles-both in the limitations of their own leadership, and in the refusal of trade union officials at national level to mobilise the kind of supporting strike and blacking action needed to Indeed no occupation since the UCS work-in has been in such a powerful position to reach and grip the imagination of the broader labour movement.

Yet the leadership at UCS, dominated by Stalinists of the Communist Party, never had the slightest intention of developing from the shipyards a generalised movement of the working class to defeat the Heato gone CP the main question was preserving their cosy relationship with the top layers of the trade union bureaucracy and developing further support for their own politics of parliamentary reform and "peaceful coexistence' with capitalism. Such politics i Tooking back at the US experience draw the lessons from a missed opportunity to mobilise action against the Heath government. But at the same time we must see the possibility that a firm stand in struggle against Thatcher in 1981 could likewise, given a supporting struggle within the labour movement, offer a focus for the whole working class.

TO CHEERING crowds of ment showed that they were Clydeside shipyard workers, determiend to kill off what UCS mass meeting: the workforce was never fully mobilised to take over by Andrew Hornung ensure victory. ment announcement that Upper Clyde Shipbuilders would be shut down with the declaration that:

"We are not going to strike. We are not even going to have a sit-in. We do not recognise that there should be any redundancies and we are going to work-in."

Reid was the key member of the co-ordinating committee which linked up the four UCS yards, Clydebank (where Reid was a shop steward); Govan, Scotstaun and Linthouse: :**.ir...• The Tories announcethey courant carre they carried out their plans if to sell off Govan-Linthouse and close the other two, thousands of workers would be directly affected and up to 20,000 might lose their jobs altogether as the effects of the closures worked their way through the system.

Millions

The decision to stay and fight did not just inspire the thousands of workers who , listened on 30 July 1971. It • inspired hundreds of thous ands-perhaps... millionsGeneral meeting of wort Reid (centre) with Benn: throughout the coun many of whom were following the UCS examp Reid was not quite * when he claimed that se is the first campaign of kind in trade unionism,? it struck hundreds of th ands of workers as 1 novel and brave.

Above all. it seemer promise a militant fight the right to work-nt wrangle over redund money or silent subma to capitalism's surgery. Ucs work-in followed by a whole spa factory occupations, ins, and sit-ins-some a redundancy and some i port of wage claims, claiming to be followi! Clydeside example..

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rs in the Lip occupation: mass involvement and struggle against the bureaucracy was the key to victory le sell-out was to come from Stallnısi itauers ururs «uw »..".. ¡to: FOI ion Mic TES SMIps NOT SELLUS Unfortunately the tough talk was not followed by tough action. The work-in' represented neither an effective tactic to force the government to concede the right to work for the Clydeside workers, nor did it represent a first step towards mobilising the working class for a take-over of industry.

Liquidator

The insistence that government-appointed liquidator, the Glasgow accountant Robert Courtney Smith, would never be permitted inside the yards was followed by his being allowed to work in peace from the Linthouse administrative headquarters or int company. repaine londone amano TICS stewards Worst of all, the workin was clearly going to be nothing more than a cynical stunt in which the men would finish off the ships in the yards for free, unless there was a clear decision that no ships would be released until the workers' demands were met.

That is, until they could be sure that there would be no sackings and that the solution covered all four yards as a single unit.

Quite the opposite happened. After insisting that all the ships under construction during the work-in would be held, the stewards backtracked on this on November 3.

It was promised that the threp chins then released, however, were to be the last. The New vestmaster it?

was also released. This time there were angry protests. and again there were solemn oromise: that "this demisely the last" . But on April 3 two more ships left the yards.

The work-in' never took on the bold form proposed arly on, when it was sak hat the stewards would ge new orders and workers at other plants would be asked to see that UCS got the materials it needed to work on these orders -a plan which necessitated an enormous rank-and-file mobilisation and the abolition of the targets set by the employers in favour of those decided on by workers.

It was never even used as a means of holding hostages -sea-going steel-hulled hostages-against a guarantee of no redundancies.

The work-in was in effect a stunt to prove that the workers weren't lazy and were "not strikers" Reid insisted on many occasions: 'We are responsible people and we will conduct ourselves with dignity and discipline."

The Heath government and British capitalism could not be threatened by such attitudes. They could only benefit.

Not surprisingly, when the final agreements on UCS were signed, saving for a limited period a large part but not to theobs i productivity agreement with no-strike clause plus a reduction in wages.

Capitalism was not quaking with fear; it might well have been shaking with laughter..: that so energetic il strugglo, so determined a workforce and so thrilling a battle could so meekly be led back into the normal channels of capitalist lite.

• Crucial in this campaign of political containment, making sure that the struggle never developed its real potential in political and organisational terms, was the Communist Party, whose members above all Reid.

Jimmy Airlie of Govan and Sammy Barr of Scotstoun dominated the shop sewards" committee.

General anti-capitalist phrasemongering for militani occasions wis cheap: it meeting of 80.000 was tokd. provide the right to work, and if the system can't provide it, then we are ending it."

But Reid's words were different when faced with placards from militants of far left groups calling for a general strike to end the Tory government. He had them excluded from demonstrations where he could.

Exactly two years later in the French town of Besancon, near the Swiss border, the workers at the Lip watch factory, decided to fight under the slogans: "No shutdown, no sackings" Their struggle was quite different-and vastly more successful-than that of the UC'S workers. But again, the occupation and work-in were the central tactics.

Far from trying to prove that the Lip workers would be responsible and loyal employees for any future employer, the militants there broke through the norms of capitalist legality : almost from the outset.

For instance, immediately the workers heard that the firm had filed for bankruptcy, they invaded the offices, captured the provisional company directors and, while they were locked up, helped themselves to the firm's secret files.

(At UCS it has been so different. Tony Benn and even Harold Wilson identified themselves with the workers' aims and actions "so long as they didn't break the law" • gaining publicity but never being put on the spot).

The entire Lip workforce was soon organised into various commissions-production commission, securitv inmmission. propaganda.

administration and sales.

This policy followed the line of the Defence Committee (later called Action Committee) established by left-wing militants in the works earlier on.

Unlike at UCS, the Lip workers decided that they wanted daily mass meetings, more frequent delegations, more demonstrations and the involvement of the surrounding firms' workers.

The leaders of the Lip action well understood the need for maximum involvement and for every effort lo break down the isolation of the workfore. In this they had a much harder job than the VO'S stewards, situated as they were in a working Unite with otrono militant traditions.

There were frequent street blockades when Lip workers would force the traffic to stop so that motorists could be given . leaflets explaining their fight against redundancy.

The decision to occupy and produce watches was. widely seen as an experi ment in workers' control. But the Lip militants were less starry eyed about what they were doing.

They understood that there cannot be real workers' control in one factory, that wnat they were doing providing the best conditions for a fight to force the government to guarantee all the employees work.

In this they had an easier job than the UCS workers. Firstly the Besancon works was largely an assembly plant and there were plenty of parts there to work on; secondly they managed to capture a treasure-trove: of 25,000 watches that had already been completed but not delivered; and thirdly; watches can be readily sold (particularly when they are being : offered at about. half-price by bypassing the retailers) but ships cannot.

Driven out

The daily paper published by the occupying workers explained precisely why working-in without selling was nonsense, since it was only a way of working for the creditors. "How can we accept," asked the paper, "the idea of working simply to pay the creditors and After two months in occupation, and : despite elaborate precautions by the security commission, the workers were driven out of the factory by CRS police in mid-August. The solidarity movement was loud in its protests and there were strikes in many parts of France.

The farmers of nearby Larzac sent the following telegramme: "We protest at the invasion of your factory by the police. We are interrupting our harvest work to stop the traffic on the A9 to tell people of our support for you. Victory will be ours."

But the invasion didn't stop either the watch production or the sales and payment of the workers.

Operations continued in secret workshops which the police searches failed to find just as they failed to find the 25.000 watches). New meeting places were also found-as was new canteen.

The UCS workers faced little repression and quite favourable publicity in the media. The Lip workers, on the other hand, faced arrest, police brutality, attacks from fascists and the constant attacks of the media.

Throughout the struggle, the motive force had been the Action Committee of militants-a committee which was self-appointed and open.

It managed to put pressure both directly and indirectly-through the mass meetings-on the majority union, the CFDT, which took quite radical positions in the fight.

The Communist Partydominated CGT, however, the other main trade union federation at Lip never broke from its ultra-bureaucratic routine. It was at once ready to ditch. the struggle-and far more eager to stop the far-left gaining the attention of the workers than to fight the government.

After, a huge march on Besancon in. late September, the CP weekly France Nouvelle' was obviously worried at the widening scope of the struggle and warned, "It is not the time to make this struggle into the focus of the national or international class strugele."

In the following month, the CGT recommended acceptance of the government's Giraud plan (which did not guarantee that the works would stay open without job loss).

When this was overwhelmingly rejected by a mass meeting, the CP joined the harrade of nress abuse. amninn the workers of the accusung me muinuis ve dreadful crime of "letting themselves be influenced by adventurists of the ultra-left who are taking them down a very dangerous road."

Victory

Despite increased repres sion against the Lip workers, the CGT ceased to be active in the struggle after that.

The increased repression did not cow the workers, nor was the workforce eager to prove their meekness to any prospective employer.

Indeed, when the industrialist Arbel opened a works in Besancon as part of a plan to ished by the Lip employees in a night-time raid.

Despite numerous refusals by the government to countenance the re-opening of the entire works, the workers finally won.

The Dole agreementsnamed after the city not the queue!-were approved by a mass meeting in late January 1974. Work could start as normal" once the police had left.

Both the Lip and the UCS actions, despite the enormous limitations of the latter, had the effect of providing an inspiring example to the working class of fighting unemployment not by begging but by occupation and control.

Naturally these struggles could not become practical starting points for a fight for real workers' control outside of a general revolutionary situation.

This isolation-though in both cases there were enormous efforts to overcome it by developing a solidarity movement-was also felt the political level: even at Lip there could be no more thàn talk about general anticapitalist strategies against unempioyment while demands were limited to the fate of Lip itself.

Certain lessons are clear.. The illegal action of the Lip workers-their temporary capture of the provisional directors and their sales of the watches they held and made-did not distance them from the French working class nor was it an obstacle in dealings with the government.

Indeed the challenge of the occupation and its tactics to capitalist law and property rights-something felt by many UCS workers, although they did not go so far-was important in raising the level of consciousness of the workers.

The Lip occupation 1ird I0 a cse ucgc cc vv -larror dacree the action, revealeu unt puwer ur - -л° _ — manslad tha nnwuar nf the occupation tactic as a way of forging a fighting unity among the workers.

The UCS action, however, because of the dominance of the CP, did not develop the forms of participation and control by the mass of the workforce that existed at Lip.

The politics of the UCS leaders also guaranteed that the trade union and labour leaders would get an easy ride.

In fighting for occupations today we must recognise also the need for a new leadership independent both of the trade union bureaucracy and of their hangers-on in the Communist Party.

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Jimmy Reid responded to the previous day's govern-

NEL JES

then, if it comes to it, find ourselves made redundant?"

empioy a reduced work- force, the works was demol-