The Willesden Centre for Socialist Education fully supports the decision of the E.N.V. workers and shop stewards to reject the closure the E.N.V, factory announced by the management. The closure would put 1450 workers out of a job. But the Eaton'scombine is glad to use the government's freeze as a pretext for closure. They make plenty of profit out of the workers in their many other factories in Europe and America, and are not interested in the lives of the workers in Willesden who rightly refuse to have their excellent shop-floor organization dismantled and their wages: . and conditions undermined. :
la
Mr John C, Townsend, managing director of the Willesden factory does not face the dole queue on closure, nor do Messrs Freeson and Pavitt, the so-called socialist MPs for Willesden East and West, who voted for the governments prices and incomes bill, including the freeze provisions. These parliamentary gentlemen are in favour of the Tory method of creating unemployment, of putting capitalisn back on its feet, That is how they reward the E.N.V. workers who have earnestly supported them over the years. Before they gush crocidile tears for the E.N.V. workers, let us take good note that they voted for the freeze and for unemployment which it involves while, of course, their respective four thousand pound salaries remain undisturbed.
If their minds have now been changed about the freeze then they must be expected to take immediate steps to mobilize the local Labour movement against the governments reactionary policy. They must demand that the government steps in to prevent the closure of E.N.V., taking over the factory if necessary and keeping it running, and that the books of E.N.V. management be opened to the shop stewards so that they can see the real situation for themselves,
But the E.N.V. workers can not count on these M.P.s. They mst rely on their own strength if these demands are to be gained. It is the workers who produce the goods at E.N.V, factory, and they have every right to sit tight and refuse to budge from the factory at the first attempt to impose cuts or sackings. The Labour Government has made it illegal for workers to be evicted from their homes yet they now encourage the eviction of those same workers from their jobs, their very . livelihood. The E.N.V. and all workers have a fundamental right to a job. ¢
The E.N.V. workers in building a strong shop floor organization over ’ a long period have strengthened other workers in improving their wages and conditions. It is clear that the employers regard this organization as their main target.
The Labour Movement throughout the area must declare unflinching solidarity with these workers who are in the forefront of the battle against unemployment and the wage freeze. :
signed The Willesden Centre for Socialist Education,
c/o John Holland, 109 Chevening Road, N.W.6.
CSE NEWS
New branches of the Centre for Socialist Education are still being
formed at a steady rate.
The first meeting of the Coventry Branch will take place on Tuesday,
45th September, at 8 pm, at 9 Thirlmere Close, Hawthorne Lane,. Coventry,
The convenors are Pat and Jack Knight, A number of Coventry shop
stewards attended the highly successful CSE seminar on workera' control,
last June, when 200 trade unionists and socialists gathered to advance
plans and projects for workers control in different sectors of industry.
In Cardiff, a new branch has been set up with Jack Brooks as Secretary
and Les Paul as Chairman. Les Paul is an active memberof the National
Exevutive of the Inland Revenue Staff Association, and Ray Collins, one
of the founders of the movement for workers' control, at the first
Nottingham Seminar, is on the committee. The eddress of the group is
57 Janet Strett, Splott, Cardiff,
Yet another new group is being formed in Gloucester, under the convenor-
ship of G.Hopwood, 30 Wedgewood Drive, Longlevens, Gloucester,
The next steering committee of CSE will take place on 24th September, in
London. mong projects to be discussed are a suggestion for a dictionary
of the left, anc a vigoroug pamphlet against the Government's foreign
policy, by Konni Zilliacus, a founder member of the Centre.