Never Trust the Boss!

Three years ago, the firm of Richard Sutcliffe, agizporsiof Torys near Wakefield, Yorkshire, announced a jobs-for-life scheme. _ i promised employment for life in exchange for easing restri os demarcation rulings, working overtime as and when the semen = i. and limiting tea-breaks, Had he heard about this, no dou - ; would have sent the workers and firm a telegram of congratulations. T was three years ago. 1968 began with a message from Mr. Gerald Sutcliffe, satel ofthe jobs-for-life firm, to the workers. o ial that something had gone wrong. The company's staple business ae “ __ National Coal Board, he claimed, had drqped by more than half. e dec had come faster than expected, and new products which the company = ee developing had not had time to take up the slack, This had somes ad: company to review the whole of its labour force at its Horbury, Usse and Castleford works. All of this was an introduction to an announcement that two hundreds employees are to lose their jobs. The cutback represents a reduction of just over one-fifth of the total work-force. 1968 has seen the start of a scheme by employers to take advantage of British capitalism's economic crisis to kid workers into making sacrifices "in the national interest." No doubt there will be many variations on the "half-hour-for-no-pay shceme." With lessons like the Sutcliffe swindle to draw upon, there is little doubt that the maiority of organised workers will give these schemes the bird.