[The Tuners, atter a month on strke, suspended…]

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The Tuners, atter a month on strke, suspended action on Monday on instruction of the AUEW exec utive, pending an 'independent en• quiry. This apparently ordinary diepute contains far-reaching poltical and industrial implications.

The capitalisi press have recog nised this. The City Comment article in the Daily Telegraph of Friday Jan 31st spells it out:

"British Leyland is the tesi case for the Government in its dealings with the private sector of in austry; for the Trades Unions which may make or break a company responsible for a vast number of jobs."

TEST CASE

In other words if BL is the test case then the Tuner's strike is one of the battle grounds on whicl this is being fought.

This brings into new perspective the position of the IMG for whom the Tuner' 's strike is also proving something of a test case, with their attacks on the tuners as a minority who are prejudicing the 'unity' of the majority by their action.

The tuners first lodged their claim as far back as January 1973 and at the end of the procedure decided not to take any strike action despite support from the AUEW District Coma mittee.

They reopened the claim in September 1974 and on December 18th served fourteen da! -trike notice on Leyland.

WILSON On the first day of the strike Leyland closed the plant, this was calculated to whip up hysteria. The same day Wilson speaKing at Huyton said that the government would not financially support firms where workers went on strike. The next day the Oxford Mail headlined 'WELCOME FOR WILSON STRIKE WARNING"

developed during the victimisatin strupgle of lost April were pete into pla • Ares ot lettes from the Comping went out end the so-called wives Action Group began to agitate. The only difference was that instead or an individual being Vatimised it was now a whole ection Next the trade union bureaucrats were brought in, and they obtained a retum to work for more negotianons The negoriations ended in deadlock and the mechanies struck pan - and this despite a decision of the TWU Automotive Committee (who had 77 members involved) to call for the claim to be dropped This time BL did not close the plant but announced that they would run with scab labour on the Tuners' jobs- and achieved 50% c: more production on this Seas - 1i.e fast time for many yoars that the Cowley plant had rus on sca: leboar, The bads of ibis of course was net lost the witch hunt but the mataleriod! Parcoes by the W. bereaucre: v last April. psons ow spany condoned ick 1692"

is toe now, was the rights of mitories and the right to strike. The tuners were involved in a legitinate achon. But the details of the Tuners case now became dwar fed by the defence of principle an‹ the fact that a defeat for the Tune would be a defeat for the whole factory and the trade union movement.

The AUEW Executive were now on the spot. After ducking the issue at the first meeting (hoping it would go away - with a little help) they then made it official, showing that even sections of the AUEW bureaucracy could begin to see the importance of this struggle. The fact that they

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WSL: FIRST PUBLIC

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