JOBS CRISIS IN THE SIX COs all-Ireland trade ee _ needed

In July the Northern Ireland Office released figures showing a total of 84,600 (15%) unemployed in the Six Counties, Even areas which had previously escaped the wor st of the economic crisis were showing gaping wounds -- eg. Belfast, 12.1%. A more recent report by the Cambridge Economic Policy Group predicts that unemployment in the North will increase dramatically in the coming years, 107,000) out of work -- or 20% of the workforce -- is the forecast for 1983, At the moment the traditional Catheclic ghettoes are the worst affected, eg. Strabane already has: a 27.5% unemployment rate. The CEP report expects even worse news for these areas in the future, TORY ECONOMIC PLANS The Tory plans for the North are designed to reduce employment and within this framework to increase the burden carried by the Catholic workers, The Tory budget for the North envisages no overall increase: in funding, but intends to redirect finance. Thus funds for public services -— the lower echelons of which are an area of employment for the Catholic ghettoes -- are to be cut by £100m; this money will be redirected towards industry. The justification for thisis a 29% increase of first time surveying visits by foreign multinationals, Past experience shows that if foreign firms are to be the mainstay of new job creation then there is little hope for any change in the pattern of discrimination against Catholic workers, The Economist has pointed out that such firms are attracted by the availability of skilled and trained labour; they are The most dismal aspect of the situation is the complete inability of the trade union leader ship to offer any policy of resistance. The demonstrations in April and May against the Tory economic policy were abysmal failures, Yet a resolution at the ICTU conference dubbed this campaign a success. An amendment from the National Union of Public Employees which stated "Congress regrets the unnecessary confusion caused by the divided and limited support for the demonstrations of 2 April and 14 May, 1980 was much closer to the truth. The Economist most aptly summarised the campaign: ''The Trades Union Congress days of action hardly caused aripple in Ulster apart fror non-arrival of London newspaper s, It all adds up to the Protestant work ethic, although nobody is supposed to say so!!, ICTU MUST ACT Wh atever about the ''Protestant work ethic!! it needs to be said loud and clear that resistance to the economic crisis has been paralysed by the pro-—partitionist and sectarianism of the trade union leader ship. Their cant about "workers unity" and Protestant worker s, Fi is a miserable excuse to ignore the plight of the Catholic ghettoes, Their sectarianism is demonstrated by an obvious unwillingness to mobilise the most oppressed and exploited section of the Northern workers. Without such a mobilisation there cannot be an effective and fighting unity between Catholic So long as the specific oppression and exploitation of Catholic workers is ignored there will not be an effective response to the economic crisis, There is no chance thut the Northern trade union leaders, trapped as they are in a Partitionist strait-jacket -- the Northern Ireland Committee -- will leada real struggle. The initiative for this must come from the all-Ireland trade union movement. There is an urgent need for affiliated organisa~ tions to demand that the ICTU face up to its responsibility to those workers who are being betrayed by the Northern Ireland Committee,