Tuam Fight Goes On

The campaign to save Tuam sugar factory has been rather low key over the recent period. With the workers in the plant tied up in the sugar campaign, those who urder the full glare of national publicity posed as their defenders, have been busy finding other spotlights under which to display their insincerity. Now the Workers Action Committee are moving back into the fight but their battle will be an uphill one. As Vincent Gaffney of the WAC pointed out after the Dail voted to close Tuam next year -“instead of having our heads chopped off this year we will have them chopped off next year.”

The Coalition‘s decision that “Exchequer resources be provided for CSET to enable it to continue sugar production at Tuam for the 1982/3 beet campaign and that absolute priority be given to securing new industry in the Tuam area” has cut right across the Tuam workers’ efforts to encourage local farmers to grow more beet. While present growers may be willing to continue in beet production for another year, it will be difficult to entice other farmers to become growers for just one more season, especially as beet is grown as a rotation crop - a method of farming requiring a high degree of planning. NATIONAL CAMPAIGN In this situation trade union backing for the Tuam workers will be vital. But within the confines of a weak Sugar Company the possibilities for a successful campaign to save Tuam is not great. However, ona broader scale, and with unemployment heading for the 150.000 mark, Tuam is the ideal case on which the trade union movement can build a national campaign against unemployment.

In the past, Trade Union leaders have dodged the question of fighting redundancies, using the excuse that the workers involved were tempted by the lump sums and the pay related benefits. In this case, there can be no doubt that the trade union movement has at its disposal a group of workers, a whole town even, willing to stand and fight.

STRATEGY There are two immediate aspects to such acampaign. There is an urgent need for the Workers Action Committee, the Shop Stewards from the other plants (especially the National Sugar Committee of the ITGWU) and the leaders of the various unions in the Sugar Company to meet around the table to thrash out a strategy for taking the Tuam issue out of the clutches of the politicians and building an action campaign to force these same politicans to underwrite the future of Tuam.

Secondly, each and every trade union member in the country must be made aware of the importance of the Tuam fight. This can be done by inviting members of the WAC to union branch and Trades Council meetings around the country. Requests for speakers should be sent directly to the Action Committee, c/o The Sugar Factory, Tuam.

PAGE 4 SOCIALIST REPUBLIC ANNA Walentynowicz was a veteran activist of At the risk of our lives and our freedom, in defiance of the draconian virtually every city, town and plant.

SOCIALIST REPUBLIC PAGE 5.

The 21 demands of the Inter-