THE RESPONSE of the trade union leadership in British Leyland to Edwardes' plan for a Around of redundancies closures has clearly shown the need for a fight to change the leadership at every level. A new round of redundancies, following on the 20,000 jobs already lost in the last eighteen months, was clearly on we carus tor some lue. Leyland Cars Joint Negotiating Committee had advance notice that this was pending, but they did nothing until Edwardes made the formal announcement.
By Tessä Van Gelderen THE BRITISH Oxygen workers' pay claim is the first in the round of winter claims — and the BOC workers look set totake on the company.
The main element of the claim is for £25 on their basic wage. They have already rejected derisory offer of £7.
Management has tried to turn the emphasis of the increases towards the shift allowances, but this has been rejected as divisive who do shift work from those who don't.
The workers' claim around increases in the basic wage.
This becomes even more important redundancies overtime already threatened for eariy next year.
Micky Bouiter, secretary
Transport Union at BOC sees the struggle for a 35 hour week without loss of pay role in the redundancies:
'We will have to go for 35 hours for 18 hours pay it we're not to lose any jobs. And that pushing up the basic rate now?
The unions al BOC have won the right the books, and their claim is based on an Assessment of the company's abilit to pay. Predicably this assessment is correct.
The BOC claim is an example to other workers of how to build a united fight to defeat the bosses and the Tories reactionary policies.
THIS time last year Ford workers had already been on strike for over four weeks for a f20 a week increase and a tOIl This year National Joint Negotiating Committee is in the process of presenting the claim and 57,000 Ford workers don't even know what's in it.
There has been no discussion in the union branches, unte committees have had only token discussions decisions have been ignored.
No notification of the claim has been issued to the shopfloor. The most diligent of noticeboard scourers might have found the 'guidelines' for the claim - a 'substantial' hours. a cost or lying agreement. a lineworkers' allowance and improvements in pensions.
Unless there expect a flabby deal — perhaps like the Vauxhall's deal living agreement' means talks cannot be reopened until inflation has risen by at least 16 per cent.
The stewards at Dagenham called a 'B' shift shop September to endorse the 'guidelines', but supporters of the Ford •Group called for a figure of £125 basic to 'he named and put forward in the claim' and opposition and plant COLLYCLU.
Edwardes ahead.
The the plan met in into action. management's splitting those ignored clearly There and loss of CINCHIL membership Hackney, assured fight against dominant also means company's the ỚC deny tha meant unions .. and Ford's lousy one and even the their increase, shops stewards StEVILS reconvening of the stewards COst Or mined the claim last year.
talks when mid-November Workers arguing and building for. shop When the details became clear, the LCJNC set up an emergency committee to prepare This consisted of officials and senior stewards and So thoroughgoing opposition prepared by the emerged from the first declaring that he had the amber light to go Within days the leading convenors were backtracking and declaring their opposition to and their readiness to fight. unofficial British Leyland Combine Committee Birmingham and also came opposition to the proposals, but they no plan of campaign to turn this opposition Many plants did not send any delegation to the meeting, and two of the major plants faced with closure — Castle Bromwich and Canley — did not speak.
The Combine's opposition consisted of calls for blacking of transfer of work and resistance in the threatened plants. exactly the formula which failed so dismally at Speke. The alternative to the Edwardes plan put forward was a call for more investment, an expansion of production, and import controls. The inability of the Combine Committee to put forward any real plan of action left the initiative in the hands of the bureaucracy. The executive of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions met Edwardes last week and endorsed his plan. They completely Combine delegates on the LCJNC, and leaderships from convenors to shop stewards. can be no more demonstration of the complete impotence of the present leadership faced with ment's attacks.
There is no doubt that Edwardes will get the he seeks the have no viable management's rationalisation plan, and there is no prospective leadership in BL. with sufficient support on the shopfloor to combat the sell Bul of the bureaucracy The responsibility for this situation lies with the Communist Partv. The CP has been the political force among leaderships throughout the last ten years. Since the Ryder report, introducing participation, the party has gone along with scheme after scheme to make BL viable. Every scheme has meant more job loss, more speed-up, and so on. Through their leadership at Longbridge, the biggest BL plant, the CP won acceptance for participation and mosals. unions management ensuring the future of Leyland. It meant the surrendering return for involvement in bodies such as the WORKERS at Fords on strike for a decent wage last year. stewards conference to meet to discuss and unite to fight for the claim. These proposals were carned unanimously.
There have been calls from various committees the Coventry shop conference which deterover We have to build on the feeling that exists already against the way the claim is being handled. A lobby of the the company replies in every liTe minimum too requirement to keep up pressure. This is what the Ford Workers Group and other rank and file militants will be management decisions.
committee committee that meeting The out in drew up plan to cut 20,000 jobs. establishing LCJNC, neglected.
This is shopfloor.
Confed The only the plant Committee, convincing the right direction.
ballot. The alternative to plant Participation independence STOP PRESS: Just four days before the claim is to be submitted, workers have finally found out what's being demanded on their behalf.
Their leaders are demanding a f26 increase plus cost-of-living agree ment. And despite all the demagogy the about importance of fighting for a 35-hour week, it's not even in the claim!
Instead what's proposed is paid time off (amount still unknown) for full week worked. This is not different . from a productivity deal, since any week disrupted by disputes or other factors would mean no time off.
More details next week. Cars Council, which was used to rubber-stamp The bureaucracy was strongly in favour of participation because it allowed the officials te become fully involved in the affairs of BL, thus undermining the independence of shopfloor organisation, In particular, it weakened the position of the shop stewards, who had led the resistance to speed-up and redundancies.
The plant leaderships involved in participation that when Edwardes announced his first job-cutting plan they gave him a standing ovation. And the unions and. management together voted for management's They went along with management again in corporate bargaining which dominated by bureaucracy. As a result independent structures based on the shopfloor have been completely The Committer become a rump, with only limited attendance the plants and no authority on In the present ballot, agreed to by bureaucrats, everyone sweeper to Edwardes himself will be voting. One section of the membership will be voting to do away with the jobs of another section. There is no doubt that the result of the ballot will make it very difficult to develop a fightback. But these problems must be faced.
current capable of starting a fightback in BL today is the far left. To date unfortunately, it has worked together too little The decision to set up the Leyland Action involving people from Solihull, Longbridge, Cowley, and Jaguar, was a step in NATIONAL Vil welters CANLEY workers demonstrating on 9 October against redundancies newspaper crisis Crowds welcome eleriéd editorial board Ford remarkably stupid.
strongly the has the the the speed-up, for of trade union democracy.
leadership in BL.
BL UN Bank clerks of tit -TRUE, Our Timesonly appeared on our pages, and there wasn't a work-in in New Printing House Square. But there was Times Challenger, which helped to launch the press freedom debate within the labour movement, and the Thomson management has emerged from the 11-month fiasco looking Having locked-out its 4,300 employees when the print unions refused to accept big job cuts in the shape of new technology, management has no» settled without a plus sign to its balance sheet.
It has bought out a few jobs, but at the price of large wage rises which will now ricochet around Fleet Street. It has obtained guarantees of continuous production, which may well be worthless.
And the crucial issues - the direct input of copy by journalists, and manning levels in the machine room So the ruling class at breakfast have got back Bernard Levin (and thei welcome), while the craft unions have proved they can hold out againsi American-style confrontations, and Lord Thomson's antics have helped the labour movement on its way to a mass daily paper (at least we think so).
The Leyland Action Committee will be concentrating its attention on the main plants faced with closure. But it also needs a broader perspective of developing a BL-wide fight for the replacement of the present leadership. For this a BL bulletin is needed which goes into all the main plants on a regular basis. It needs to develop a programme around the nationalisation of the car and components industry, for opening the books, against redundancies and the independence the shopfloor organisations and the strengthening The far left has considerably increased its strength over the past few years in BL and has established itself in most of the major plants. It is time to turn that strength towards a fight for - remain unresolved.
Socialist Challenge 25 October 1979 Page 11
UNDERREVIEW arts women?
like.
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British Oxygen s exemplary claim...
Workers* control is the a answer to the