SOGAT fights Maxwell's surprise

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on pay cut by Stan Millionaire 'socialist' , Friend of the Soviet Union (i.e. of the Stalinist bureaucracy), and cardcarrying Labour Party member Robert Maxwell had a special Easter surprise for workers in the Park Royal (London) and East Kilbride (Glasgow) plants in his British Print and Communications Corporation empire: the sack.

The dispute began when workers at the Park Royal plant struck in protest at the non-payment of back pay. Maxwell responded in his usual fashion, accusing the workers of 'bloody mindedness' and 'wildcat strikes' ', and sacking 400 out of the 600 workforce at the plant.

Maxwell planned to transfer production from Park Royal to the Last Kilbride plant. But, despite the high level of local unemployment, the workforce there made it clear that they would not accept the jobs.

Maxwell also brought scab electricians, under police protection, into the Park Royal plant to produce the plates needed for the printing of the 'Radio Times' at the Scottish plant. But the workers in East Kilbride blacked the plates as well. So Maxwell sacked the lot of them.

In less than a week, therefore, Maxwell - who only recently had been feted by the Soviet Embassy in London - sacked 500 workers for refusing to go without back pay and for blacking work produced by scabs.

Expelled

Danny Beagan, chairperson of the SOGAT branch at the East Kilbride plant and a member of the local Constituency Labour Party, told Socialist Organiser: ''He still comes out with the socialist line. But I think he should be expelled. We don't want his type in the Party"

The workers at the two plants have accepted Maxwell's dismissal notices just as little as they accept his "socialist' credentials: while not doing any work, the workers have remained in the plants during working hours, thereby effectively occupying them.

Maxwell was quickly in deep water. The workforces had ignored the dismissal notices: production was at a standstill; and blacking of the distribution of his other publications had already been implemented in the London area. Not even his chums in the Kremlin could do anything to help him.

Hostile

Bill Keys, general secretary of SOGAT 82, could, though. Just as in a dispute between Maxwell and NUJ members in Oxford, Keys had blocked the blacking of Maxwell's publications, so too now Keys was clearly equally hostile to blacking.

While Maxwell disappeared off to the Soviet Union on a trade delegation, Keys ordered the blacking to be lifted, thus tamely falling into line with the ultimatum issued by Maxwell before his departure: "negotiations will resume only if the general secretary of SOGAT directs the London Central branch to lift blacking unconditionally and his directive is complied With blacking called off, negotiations resumed, but with the unions now in a drastically weakened position. Keys agreed to a return to work formula, involving withdrawal of the dismissal notices. Maxwell then returned from the Soviet Union and imposed a whole series of new conditions, relating to pay and manning levels, on a return to work.

This brought a return to square one. The Park Royal workers: remained on strike; scab labour produced the plates for printing; the East Kilbride workers blacked the plates; and the dismissal notices still stand, with Maxwell threatening to shut both plants completely unless there is a return to work after Easter.

In reality, though, the dispute could have been won by now, were it not for Keys doing an encore of the role he played in the Oxford dispute and sabotaging the blacking of the distribution of Maxwell's publications. To bring Maxwell to his knees, this blacking must be immediately resumed.

And Labour Party members also need to take action against Maxwell. For a millionaire to be in the Labour Party is incongruous enough. To have as a member someone who alternates sacking workers for fighting for their rights with junketing with the Stalinist butchers in the Kremlin is out of the question.

Maxwell managed to remain in Oxford CLP despite his attacks on NUJ members in Oxford during the dispute at Pergamon Press. Hopefully he will not be able to hang on to his party card after this latest round of union-bashing.

=3U THE government have announced that as from May, firefighters pension contributions are to rise from the present level of 64% to 104%. This will involve an average wage cut of around £6 per week in take-home pay.

The proposal for an increase in pension contributions was first raised by the government in the autumn of last year. The Fire Brigades Union (FBU), after being informed that no parallel increase in benefits was proposed, formally objected to the measure. The Home Office agreed at that time to a proposal from the union for the FBU to employ a firm of actuaries to carry out a survey of the pension scheme to see what level of contributions was appropriate.

Then, in the middle of March, the Home Office announced unilaterally, that the new level had been decided, and it was to be 10%4/o, a massive 60% increase on the previous level of contributions. They stated that they were no longer interested in the FBU's actuaries' report, and that the new rate would be introduced from the beginning of May.

Taken together with the current increase in National Insurance Contributions, it virtually wipes out the 1982 wage increase, which itself barely kept pace with inflation.

Firefighters are aware that this is a straightforward attempt at a wage cut; the government are not even attempting to justify their move by saying they cannot afford to pay fire service pensioners. It is an attempt to drive down the living standards of those

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no.126 April Page