Sectarianism and austerity in the North

THE DEAD END OF

In August and September

LOYALTY

1000, mostly Protestant, workers will be thrown on the unemployment scrapheap: 700 will be laid off from Short Bros.

from Harland and Wolff shipbuilders.

and over 300 Both companies are owned by the British government and both are about to be privatised. The announcesent of the latest redundancies tame in the week just before both companies broke up for the two week ‘twelfth’ holidays. Aweek later sany of the sane workers were passing resolutions at the end of the traditaonal Orange parades professing loyalty to the Queen and country which had just kicked thea in the teeth. Not for the first time and certainiy not for the last loyalty mas show more and more to be an aabiquous asset for Protestant workers.

Tt wasn't always luke this. The Belfast shipbuilding industry used to be the biggest in the world - employing over 30,00) workers. Shorts alone employed over 70,000 during the early 4's. Tt mas industries like these, tied to the imperial market, that forsed the economic basis for partition. Now both employ only aroumd 10,000.

Moreover such has been the decline of industry in the Worth of Ireland that they still fora a central part of the econosy - 100 of all sanutacturing jobs and half of those in the engineering industry. These are the jobs now threatened by the privatisation program. [f both companies were to fold the knock-m effect on the rest of the econoay would be dramatic. Harland and Wolff alnoe does business with 680 other Companies in the Morth and it has been estimated that a further 3000 jobs would be lost if the two fires were to close.

THATCHERISH

It as quite clear that this is a risk that the British governaent is quite presared to take. far from proving that a British withdrawal is on the way it proves exactly Ehe opposite. So confident is Thatcher of her position that the econoay in the Worth 1s to be treated in exactly the same way as that in Britain ~ even though the results could be disastrous. The position of Shorts in the Northern econoay is equivilent to a company in Britain employing 280,000 people - British Airways, Gas, Coal, Rolls Royce and daquar all rolled into one. The long decline of the Shipyard and Shorts seans that their importance as a bastion of Loyalty to Britain is now such less.

This decline is ultimately due to the long tere recession in the world capitalist economy, especially in shipbuilding but, massive subsidies notwithstanding, it has been aggravated by deliberate Governsent neglect, particularly glaring in the case of Shorts. The company has been saddled with massive interest payments, the bulk of which originated in 1964 when the governsent of the day renequed on an order. Investment has been woeful. [t averages “7,500 per eaployee, compared to an industry average of “10-15,000.

UNTONS

The trade union caspaign, faced with an uphill task, has pointed to this history of neglect, but it is clear that the bureaucrats who lead the union movement have already given up the struggle. The fight Page 14 against privatisation has given way in Shorts to demands over how it should be implemented and in Harland and Woléfs the workers have been sucked into particapation in a ‘Management /Esployee Buyout’ schese in partnership with a Norwegian shipping capitalist called Qlsen. It is already clear that while workers will be expected to put up “2 million of their ow money they are going to have absolutely no say in the running of the company. Under threat of dismissal they were asked to sign an ‘agreement’ which would mean a significant deterioration in their working conditions.

Paying tor your ow slavery seeas to be the new deal being offered by trade union leaders in the North!

LESSONS

The saga of the Morth’s shipbuilding and fircraft industry has many lessons for socialists: ~[t shows the decline of the Irish Unionist Capitalist class, again reinforced recently by the takeover of the local unionist paner “The Newsletter’ by an outside company.

“It illustrates the declining economic base for partition. Hore clearly than ever before it highlights the dead end which loyalty to dritain offers to Protestant workers. Host oof all however it reveals the continuing tragedy of the yawning gap which still resains between those fighting for a United Ireland and Socialisn and a Protestant working class facing its om attacks from imperialism while still remaining bound to it.

JOE CARTER.

THE SOCIALIST VIEW

[he #irst-thing that socialists should be Clear about is that they are opposed to the redundancies at Harland and Wolff and Shorts. They are Opposed to the worsing Of worker's conditions and opposed to privatisation. This is an elementary duty of socialists, but it needs to be said lest Some succumb to the sectarian attitude that ‘Loyalists® are now getting a dose of their own medicine. Sectarianicm 1s a cancer which has injured Nationalist workers most of all. We can not advance by promoting it.

This being said it must be understood that this is only the ABC of socialism and Connolly long ago berated ; “our socialist f#riends...who have never got beyond the ABC of the question”. The fight at Shorts and the Shipyard is not an/cannot be a siaple ‘class struggle’ with the workers on one side and the bosses and state on the other. Socialist who see the issue in these teres and secretly hope that sosehow Protestant workers can come to socialise through this econoic struggle are kidding themselves. It is quite possible for many Protestant workers to be militant om Pconowic §=— questions «and throughly sectarian as well. They see thesselves as not just defending jobs for the working class but also the privildges of their om section of that class. This is not just some sectarian idea in their heads. It is the actual reality. The ‘Yard’ and Shorts are bastions of reactionary Loyalist privilige. Socialists who refuse to confront this do a disservice to everyone, This is true not least for Protestant workers themselves. Ignoring the sectarian dimension is tantamount to condoning it and means that there is no realistic possibility of sobilising nationalist workers in the fight. Why should they if the jobs being fought for are not theirs also? The basic trade union policy of opposing voluntary redumany 15 understood because jobs are seen as belonging to the working class a5 a whole and not the property of an individual worker to sell, [t is even more clearly understood that the jobs in the two fires are not the propery of the whole class.

A basic point that socialists have to make is that they should. The nueber of Catholic workers in the firms aust be increased until it reflects the balance in the overall population and trade unionists should be in the forefront of the fight to enforce this.

OBJECT ONS

A standard objection is that this seans sacking Protestants to employ Catholics, Thats simply a lie. Recruiteent for new jobs and normal stat? turnover should be utilised positively to achieve equality.

Anyone objecting to this is only paying lip service to equality - all other proposals are Sleply window-dressing which don't have

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ahope in hell of changing the sectarian balance. ‘Equality of opportunity’ seasures don’t lead to equality of results - and it's results that count. A second objection is the old chestnut that by raising questions of the religion ot the workforce we are being sectarian. This nonsense implies that 1 we don't talk about a problem it will go away. Sectarian discrimination exists and these who refuse to confront it are in tact capitulating to Loyalisa and abandoning the fight for socialise before they have even begun. The history of socialism in the North is littered with the fulks of so-called Soclalistswho first condoned and then went on to defend the sectarian set-up.

WORKERS UNITY

This is the socialist approach, It seeks unity of the working class on the basis of equality - not inequality and oppression.

Karl Mars explained in the ‘Communist Manifesto that the key distinguishing feature of communists was that they stood for the interest of the whole working class and not just sections of it defined by nationality, race, sex or religion. The fight for jobs at Shorts and the Shipyard can only become a fight of the whole working class if the jobs really do belong to the whole class - Catholic and Protestant.

To sany people this view sees utopian. — Protestant workers are hardly likely to spontaniously support sucha policy. The trade union leaderships are even less Likely to campaign for it. Catholic workers are by and large o the sargins of the industrial workforce and the trade union sovewent. Yet the present policy has led to many Northern Catholic workers as seeing the trade unions

as politically irrelevant. Tt has eeasculated the union movesent in the whole of [reland. ‘Worker's Unity’ has ment capitulation. to Loyalise, at best lip service on questions of repression and discrimination and at worst a cory collaboration with state forces.

The right-wing veto has gone wel! beyond the national question to engender a right-wing consensus anfcollaboration on social and econowic questions. it has helped underpin reaction in the ranks of British trade unionists and prevented discussion of the British occupation of Ireland.

The struggle for 2 true workers unity falls to socialists milling to work inside and Outside the unions to pose an alternative to the present reactimary policies based on the needs of the class as a whole.

ALTERNATIVE

Dur probleas do not end there, for what is our alternative? Opposition to privatisation isplies support for continued British governeent ownership and reinforces the tendency of Protestant waorkers to look to Britain for support. Are socialists to support British omership and control of resources which should belong to the Irish people? fur alternative is that these industries should be controlled by their workers in the framework of a 32 county national plan draw up by the trade unions and communities and presented a5 a workers alternative to the austerity measures of the British and Irish governments, the EEC and the International Honetary fund. these are the ideas that Peoples Democracy is fighting for. We realise that they are ideas that will appeal firstly to those North and South who agree with the republicans in seeing isperialist dosination as the root cause of the impoverisheent and repression of the [rish people, The road to winning the support of Protestant workers for a revolutionary programme say lead throwgh Ballygun and Limerick.

Gut above all they are ideas whose time has come. Full employment for Protestant workers (at rock -Dottom wages) rested on a systea oof British domination that partitioned the island, led to constant discrimination and ass unemployment asong Worthern Catholics, the empoverishment of the Southern economy and ensured that the inevitable uprisings on both sides of the border would be met by state repression and has now led to twenty years of continuous war, The economic base that led to the syebiosis between Loyalisa and imperialisa 1s fow in decay. laperialism can no longer deliver full emgloyeent for Protestant workers and the politics of loyalism offer no solution. [ts up to us to put the only real solutions - based on the power ot a unified working class.

IDE CARTER.

THE FLAG FLIES AT SHORTS

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