[The first meeting of the new Motor and…]
Socialist Press1975 1975-06-12Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 8 →
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The first meeting of the new Motor and Ancillary Workers ittee was held in Birmingham on June 9th.
The committee had been set up following a meeting of stewards from the whole industry convened by the Leyland Stewards Committee.
Only 45 delegates turned up and the organisers proposed that the meeting be abandoned as «unrepresentative". . Leading stewards, including IS supporters from Tractors and Transmissions, failed to show up.
The decision to abandon the meeting was wrong. It should have gone ahead and fought to become established.
The decision was a blow to the struggles in the motor industry. With such a committee it would have been possible to fight for a programme to unite the whole industry in opposition to the bureaucracy who keep each plant isolated. Only a week before this a meeting of BLMC convenors voted to accept the Ryder report. The implications of such a decision go far beyond the motor industry.
The committee elected to meet Ryder were unanimous in recommending acceptance. They included leading Stalinists such as Robinson from Austin's at Longbridge and right-wingers such as McGarry from Standard Triumph.
The only reservation they could find was on the details of the "worker participation" section. They are seeing Ryder again about this and will call a further meeting.
In contrast to this a principled position has been taken at Chrysler's Linwood plant where a meeting of shop stewards has rejected the same deal which was accepted at Stoke and are instead demandin €15.00 per week with no strings.
This challenges the attempts of Chrysler to implement the deal on a corporate basis and is therefore a crucial demand.
At Ford's Dagenham plant the door hangers' strike goes on and