[and Action Committee brought together opted and then…]

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and Action Committee brought together opted and then to help develop the strike. rill be working to draw out the lessons of the and organise to prevent repetitions. ict: Loyland Action Committee, 194 Edwardes had been the pioneer for British industry.

It would strengthen the government in their ability to introduce Tebbit's anti-union laws and other measures against the working class.

If on the other hand, BL workers were victorious it could even have brought down the government and put an end to the Thatcher regime.

In the event the open and cynical betrayal by top trade union leaders of the militant three-day strike produced conuitions under which only Mimi af thora nascihilities some us nest prosuu. were realised.

The scll out was certainly The Leyl militants claim adr Now it w betrayal Conta Dawlish

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But inevitably as the deadline approached, and it became clearer to them that what was posed was a major political confrontation with the government which could well bring it down, the manoeuvres began.

And the manoeuvres were not just within BL. As with the steel strike last year, moves were being made to isolate the strike once it began in order to stop it spreading to other sections of workers and thus becoming generalised strike against the government, which could quickly go outside the control of the leaders.

The NUM negotiations postponed further talks and Joe Gormley's attitude was summed up in the Telegraph of October 20.

"Mr Gormley, NUM president, said: "Why should we always be in the forefront? Why should it be seen to be so urgent that we are always leading things?"

He admitted that the British Leyland pay conflict was "one reason" why the next meeting on the miners' pay claim was not scheduled before November 11." :

Accountable *. Nor was there so much as a word from Arthur Scargill against this move. Five days before the strike deadline the JNC were called for last ditch talks with BL.

The danger bells were quickly ringing. They had talked about the possible consolidation of some of the bonus into the basic ratea complete departure, without authority, from the strike resolution and the £20 claim.

Although the meeting ended in deadlock, dangerous seeds had been sown.

"The need for a democratic and accountable JNC was once again painfully apparent.

". After the deadlock, Edwardes appealed to Michael Foot as leader of the opposition. This resulted in a three hour meeting in Commons Committee Koom betwiden Edwardes. toot and rado industry mumister ey Architect Foot claimed in the Daily Star the following week that the deal which was eventually accepted -had been worked out by him at that The Foot meeting led to a new initiative by ACAS, a supposedly independent"

body which is headed by Pat Lowry, until recently BL's Director of Personnel.

Lowry presided over my victimisation in 1974. He also devised the existing pay system in BL and has been the architect of repeated wage cuts over the last ten years which led to this year's • militant strike decision.

21. 1. Lowry made the move which was key to the eventual sell-out-the 'involvement of the General Secretaries of the eleven unions in BL.

They were called to a meeting in Congress House at which Len Murray was invited to attend as an "observer"

The JC were called to Congress House as well but were put into a separate room and ignored. Even the existing undemocratic and unrepresentative JNC which Lowry himself had created and relied upon in the past, was pushed to one side.

At first the General Secretaries told the JNC they would not be negotiating. Any negotiating, they said, would be done by the JNC. But 13 hours later, they emerged with a document which they said could not be altered and which, with the exception of Alex Kitson of the TGWU, they were recommending for acceptance.

Edwardes had got what he had always wanted-direct negotiations with the General Secretaries over the heads of the JNC. It is something which has far reaching implications for future negotiating procedures in BL.

It is something which has always been implicit in the Measured Day Work (MDW) system of payment. Those of us who fought against MDW in the late 60s and early 70s argued that it would quickly lead to carporate bargaining and that corporate bargaining would quickly put the power to negotiate into the hands of people increasingly remote from the shop floor.

First it would • remove the shop stewards from the process and then the convenors. It would ultimately place all power in the hands of the General Secretaries.

We even argued at that time that ultimately MDW would put the power in the hands of the TUC, which is as remote from the shop floor as it is possible to get and still be a part of the trade union movement.

At their meeting with Edwardes the General Secretaries reached agreement less than one: hour before the strike was due to -start, Murity (the erver") along. Boyd and Chapple wanted to call off the strike and put the deal to fresh mass meetings the following day (Sunday).

The majority decided it was too late to call off the strike and called a convenors' meeting for Monday and fresh mass meetings for Tuesday.

The following day Duffy who had been in Nairobi all week, cut short his trip and dashed back to London to add his weight for a return to work:

He subsequently described it himself in an article in the News of the World of November 8:

"Last. Saturday I heard the news of the breakjet but it was packed full.

British Airways found one cancellation and squeezed me aboard.

If I had missed the plane I would not have been back in Britain in time to make AlLa that TV appeal on Monday night before the vote was taken."

He was calling for a return to work before he had even got off the plane.

But Duffy's role was no more treacherous than that of Alex Kitson who refused to recommend either way..

Kitson's stance was naturally presented by the media and interpreted by BL workers as tacit acceptance of the deal.

He was in clear breach of the TGWU Executive Committee Which l neate to back an roo members prepared to take action against the 4% limit.

It was even in flat contradiction to an article he had himself written for the TGWU Record, which was published soon after the sellout, saying the union woula back any members prepared to take action against employers like Edwardes.

Monday's convenors' meeting voted overwhelmingly to recommend the rejection of the offer and the continuation of the strike.

It was an important decision which had been urged on by coachloads of strikers from the Cowley Assembly Plant who arrived to lobby the convenors and along with other strikers from Longbridge poured into the meeting hall. They eventually withdrew after appeals from Cowley Assembly Convenor Bob Fryer.

The convenors' decision was important, but in the event it was not enough to counter the effects of the General Secretaries' call for a return to work.

Every national newspaper carried a front page statement by Duffy and many workers were demoralised and felt they could not win if those at the top of the unions were against them.

The meetings voted 25,000 to 19,000 to accept the deal and return to work. Only in places like Cowley where the convenors gave a very strong lead coukt the effects of the seneral Secretamies bermuthier The vote to accep Longbridge was the mos damaging. This was party due to a very weak speech by Jack Adams.

Management appeared to expect to lose the vote. At Cowley they took the desperate step of sending the personnel managers to leaflet the mass meeting outside the gates of the sports field!

There they found themselves standing next to the Spartacists, also handing out leaflets.

In some plants where the vote had not been taken at the time when the Longbridge vote was announced, managers ran around shouting out the result in order to influence the vote.

At Llanelli they announced the result over the works PA just before the vote was taken.

Workers who voted to continue the action should not blame the plants who voted to accept. The key role remains that of the General Secretaries. They stabbed the strike in the back. They must shoulder the responsibility. And that must be shared equally by the Communist Party members present-George Guy of the Sheet Metal Workers and Ben Rubner of FTAT. * Although at some mass meetings very full reports were given, it is still the case that few BL workers know just how dangerous the final settlement actually is.

At most mass meetings it was presented as a very marginal involvement over the original offer and therefore unacceptable.

The fact is that it is infinitely • worse than the original rejected offer.

It is true that the £3.75 guaranteed bonus-which most people get anywayand the £ 1 per week increase on premium rates might be seen as a slight monetary improvement: but that was not the guts of the document.

By far the most dangerous is a completely new element which was brought in. This calls for a new procedure document to be negotiated "with the aid of the TUC if necessary" by January 1.

This is actually presented in the deal as a concession to the unions, as part of the new Teformed' management attitude which we were told would exist after the dispute. Duffy put it this way:

"The BL management is now offering a new era of cooperation. The workers ase being offered a say, not any in deeing with indus ta roblems ut ales in the Pd how be those they make.

BL workers knew how much Edwardes has been "reformed" as a result of the deal when they got back to work and management put the boot in.

But the new procedure models and how best to sell those they make."

Concession!

BL workers knew how much Edwardes has been "reformed" as a result of the deal when they got back to work and management put the boot in.

But the new procedure agreement called for in the deal is not an attitude it is a document. It is not a new document. It is well known.

It is the same document which Edwardes has been trying to pet in for the past year and which many of us feared would be attached as strings to this year's review.

Now we have it presented as a concession!

The document is the result of discussions between BL and national officers in March this year, which produced a revised text from BL's (Pat Lowry's!) original draft.

At the first meeting of this wage round BL tried to introduce a commitment to discuss it after the review: it was rejected by the union.

It has been thrown out by the Combine Committee and by the TGWU Senior Stewards. In the AUEW the convenors were effectively prevented from taking a decision on it.

It is a very dangerous document indeed. It arose after the rejection of a previous BL document termed the Relationship Agreement, which contained among other things a legally binding no-striké clause.

The March document achieves the same objective in a slightly more subtle way. Its most dangerous provisions are these:

*A Joint works committee in every plant which would be the final level of plant procedure.

*Á new discipline procedure which gives the management the right to the summary dismissal of any worker who they consider has been guilty of gross industrial misconduct.

*It ends all full time facilities for convenors and senior stewards and requires them to go back onto their jobs and be released "as required" (Full time positions are crucial to the I MOM CRE pheis for cobe ly appomted by the Execu. tive of the eleven unions and almost entirely composed of full time officials. No-one inside BL would have any say as to who negotiated for them.

*Most dangerous of all is the fact that it requires the new disputes procedure to become a part of each individual's contract employment. This woul mean workers would be regarded as having sacked themselves It they were in breach of procedure.

It is a no-strike clause under another name. If it is introduced it will be a very major setback for BL workers.

Fighting it however again means taking isssue within our own unions since it is actually a logical extension of the "keep working" statement of Jack Jones and much more recent policy of the TGWU.

It is important to be aware of this if the new procedure is to be stopped. -Early this year the TGWU commissioned EuroFinance, a Paris based firm of industrial consultants to produce a report on the problems and the future of BL.

One of its conclusions was that BL was not getting enough cooperation from the TGWU to keep production going.

Out of this report the TGWU commissioned its own document on the future of BL, ironically entitled "BL: the next decade" which is the same title as the Ryder Report in 1976.

The guts of the document is the section "The need for action" which says the following:

"There are five major actions which, when taken together, we see as being necessary conditions for BL's long term expansion.

*Drastic but • selective controls over imports.

*Declared movement towards a full scale partnership.

*Substantial revitalisation of engineering resources.

*Continuity of physical output.

*Adequate facility and model investment."

"Continuity of physical output" is quite simply a no-strike clause. That document was submitted to Michael Edwardes as a proposal. It is not clear whether he has formally replied. It would any case be unacceptabla to Edwades because ta call for the expansion of BE, which te hardły his policy Gullible But Edwardes is bound to take advantage of proposed ban on strikes.

The TGWU report illustrates exactly the kind of leadership problems BL workers face. New leaders are needed -not only in BL but in each of the individual unions as well.

Not only new leaders but also new policies. The problem with our leaders is not that they are the most gullible bunch ever to negotiate for a large section of workers (although you could make a good case for that), it is their politics.

They all fell for participation, whether they were members of the Communist Party or the Labour Party.

The only ones in the stewards' movement who fought participation throughout were the Trotskyists and a tew principled individuals.

It is the same issues involved now. The vast majority of our leaders are reformists, in other words they accept capitalism and want to reform it, and want to reform some of the excesses out of it.

It leads them to také into account the problems of capitalism and its economic crisis and to take into. account BL and its profitability.

They are incapable of starting from the principles for which the trade union movement was built-to defend the interests of the working class.

The only people who can do that are those who see the necessity to end capitalism and establish socialism. They can start clearly from the interests of the working class and defend them at every stage. We should not be accepting what BL says when they claim they are bankrupt. Where has the money gone? What about the £100 million a year interest charges? Open the books! Fight for workers' control!

Default

Those in BL who became involved in the strike for the first time and saw clearly the betrayal of their leaders must now think about these issues. It is no good getting involved once a year on a wage review. There has to be a fight for domocracy in the antons and a sent in union selectons, FO * with the relit polluy ta Dorogrammo We have to get a demos cratic negotiating structure in BL. The Leyland Action Committee which has fought most consistently on these lines for a long period of time must be built and strengthened. We have to ensure that the new procedure document does not get through by default in six weeks time.

We have a responsibility to see that every BL worker is fully informed about it. The Combine Committee must meet and organise & fight against it. Every branch and shop stewards' committee must mobilise against it.

Above all we must use the ferment in the class at the present time to build a new leadership and ensure that sell-outs such as the one we have just witnessed are not possible in the future.

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Socialist Organiser, Thursday 19 November 1981 Page 10

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through on the radio. The only plane back was a jumbo

U LUKE FOR IQUKERS