BRITISH LEYLAND management last week issued a summary dismissal to Derek Robinson, senior convenor at BL's Longbridge plant. This is not a decision that was made lightmindedly.
Derek Robinson, have dubbed "Red Robbo', is certainly the most powerful shop steward in BL, and arguably the most powerful shop steward in British industry.
is the Longbridge, the second largest factory in the country, with 18,000 workers following him. He is recognised as unofficial lay leader of the whole of BL. through his position on the British Leyland Shop Stewards Combine Committee — an unofficial body of all BL shop stewards and of which chairperson:
The ostensible reason for Edwardes' move in sacking him was the production of the whom the popular press the Upper similar elected leader OI pamphlet is manner.
Jude Woodward British Layland Combine Committee pamphlet 'The Edwardes' Plan and Your Job', with its somewhat belated calls for militant action to defend jobs. The offending paragraphs are on page 13 entitled can you do?' management no doubt were the references to Clyde Shipbuilders with calls 'Work-ins and occupations.. prevent closure.
But Robinson himself has indicated that the was not ine real sacking, and he is right. The decision to sack him was clearly not a spontaneous reaction to the appearance of the pamphlet; Robinson is far too big a fish to take on in such an ad hoc The decision to sack him must have been taken at the highest management level Edwardes himself — and almost certainly with government Robinson's 'upset for don't get away with it.
reason for the on it.
assessment backing. The remstatement will determine the future of the unions in BL for the next period but represents the first fierce blow in the Tories' attacks on the trade unions.
That is why it is not just the task of BL workers to ensure that Edwardes and the Tories There is now tremendous pressure on both the main unions involved in BL to make the walk-outs and shut-downs official.
Edwardes would prefer it if they didn't -he may even have had high hopes that Terry Duffy, the right-wing president of the AUEW, would refuse. But Edwardes is not depending organisation in BL. He is hoping to turn his 7 to PICKETS at Pressed Steel Fisher plant Castle Bromwich, Birmingham the over only shopfloor union organisation.
organisation won't resist speed up mobility at plant impossible to impose.
assault on manufacturing industry.
out, all out -the stakes are very high indeed. strike 1 ballot victory on the 'survival plan into a victory in an all-out confrontation with the That's what he needs to impose the rest of his plans on the BL worklorce, the 'yes' vote in the ballot does not mean that shopfloor union and joh leve and make them If Robinson goes, then no shop steward in ine land would Teer sare. r would open up a the shopiloor across The BL workforce appears to be rising to the challenge, but they will need all the suppor they can get. It's time to reassert a fundamental principle of the trade union movement — one because in this particular game