Multinational

go back to the arrival in 1960 of S.P.S. International to the Industrial Estate, Shannon, Co. Clare. It seems that this American Corporation came to save the natives from themselves by ensuring by every means that the 400 S.P.S. workers at Shannon remained unorganised for 14 years-but that is another story. The main business of the Shannon plant is making screws for the export market, while an increasingly important section is taken up in making machine tools for the Corporation’s factories in Germany, Britain, the US and the plant in Galway and some outside customers.

Galway Factory Opens with no Job — Security It is normal practice for companys in the boitmanufacturing industry to be in a position to provide it’s customers with nuts if so needed. in 1966 S.P.S. decided to improve it’s competitiveThe Plough — page 2 transfer some of the bolt making machines (which make a product for which the Corporation has secured a fairly guaranteed market) to Galway from Shannon and place some of the new Nutmakers in Shannon thereby giving a better balance to the Galway piant, Because this wasn't done, we now have the contradictory situations of S$.P_S. making workers redundant in Galway while they enlarge the workforce at their Shannon plant. The Company claim that due to cut throat competitior on the world nut market, they are encountering difficulties marketing their product.

Union Bureaucracy Refuse To Fight As in similar situations all aver the country, the Trade Union officials seem to be all to willing to understand the Company's difficulties’. Being completely imbued with the ideology of Private Enterprise, they accept the Corporation's S.P.S. for union recognition. argument that the Galway plant cannot be run at a loss. They see the Galway plant in isolation. |n the short term, the workers of both Galway & Shannon must demand that their Union (1.T.G.W.U.) put pressure on the Co, to subsidise it's Galway operation from the huge profits made from it’s Shannon plant, This pressure should be brought to bear through the Union’‘s branches at Shannon & Galway. it’s international connections and especially through it's Transport workers. S.P.S. depends as do nearly all the companies on the Shannon Industrial Estate, on organised transport is labour to move it’s goods. The Union’s threats to black all-'S.P.S. goods was the decisive factor in the recent successful fight by the Shannon workers in Workers Unity — Key To Success The T.U. officiaidom has shown it’s complete disregard for workers’ interests. This can be witnessed all over the country as more and more factories close down with no attempt being made by the union bureaucracy to protect these jobs, In a number of cases the workers have given the lead to their fellow workers threatened by redundancy, in occupying their factories and seizing the stocks Unfortunately, this has ended in isolation of those involved in a number of cases, notably the Danus Occupation in Limerick. The reason for this being the complete unwillingness and failure of the T.U. hierarchy to lend support to these struggles by Organising solidarity and support. The majority of redundancy notices come to workers who are completely unaware of such a situation.of crisis existing within the industry they work in and as well as this a lot of firms will use and have used the present economic recession to carry out long threatened rationalisation plans. To combat this and to safeguard workers’ jobs, the'Union should demand that the books be opened to the workers to enable them to see how secure their job actually If this had been done in S.P.S. in Galway the Workers would have been forewarned and could therefore have prepared to fight the lay offs and short time. As it is, the Galway plant is in danger of being phased out completely. To ensure that this does not happen, the Galway workers need the support of their fellow-workers in Shannon. To put this in concrete terms, the workers of both plants should set up a liason committee to fight redundancies. |t was management who deliberately set up an instable industry in Galway and they did this with the conivance of the |.D.A. and the T:U. Officials. S.P.S, must now be forced to give some kind of balance and stability to the Galway factory by diversyfying the production there i.e. mak ing boits as well as nuts. Why this was not insisted upon in the beginning is just another example of the few qualifications demanded by the |.D.A., when handing out grants to industrialists,

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