Bosses' Echo

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SOCIALIST PRESS * to: Socialist Press, 31, Dartmou MEWS issues issues issues issues I would 1 of £ Name • Address Send After being on strike for nearly a month at Vauxhall's car factory on Merseyside it must have come as something of a delightful surprise to more than one of the 10,000 carworkers to learn in the Liverpool Echo that this year is the 'Diamond Jubilee' of Vauxhall Motors Ltd. (subsidiary of General Motors).

A full page article SurIounded by lots of juicy advertisements from the local Vauxhall gents presented a glowing aci count of the firm, past and present.

Whitewash

A more nauseating sycophantic whitewash of the company's grubby sordid history was not evan to be found in the company's public relations rag, the Mersey Mirror.

There was, however, one priceless piece of information in the midst of all the garbage which must have tickled not a few carworkers.

It was the story of Vauxhall got its name.

The origin, apparently, was with an adventurous Norman mercenary soldier of humble birth, known as "Fulk le Breant" who was for one day.

Barett, deputy Father of the NATSOPA chapel had refused to allow his men to work in dirty conditions with inadequate toilet facilities.:

He had rejected management attempts to make shop floor workers (who make printing inks used by several Fleet Street newsPark Hill, London NW5 1HR made Sheriff of Oxford and Hertford and granted the manor of Luton for his services to King John.

Griffin

After marrying a well to do lady and acquiring a house in London on the south bank which our restless gay dog "sometimes occupied" he took as his emblem the Griffin -a mythical half lion, half eagle.

The site of the house came to be known as "Fulk's Hall" , then this was later altered to "Fawke's Hall" and eventually to "Vauxhall"

The Vauxhall Iron Works Company, formed in 1857, took the Griffin as its own badge and when the company moved its new carmaking operation to Luton in 1905 it was built on the site of "Fulk le Breant's" spoils of war!

Fulk le Breant eventually fell from grace and died a poor exile in his native Normandy sometime after King John's death in 1216.

Brighter future

But before any tears are shed we are informed that Vauxhall Motors, however, can look forward to a much brighter future and the article goes on to catalogue all the company's recent achievements.

TE V papers) take responsibility for cleaning out toilets.

Despite absence of leadership trom lull time NATSOPA officials, management were forced to concede this demand.

The Sunday Times was threatened if printing inks from the firm did not arrive.

This strike shows the possibility of improving MINE+T 5274251 LEGUE AREA .21.10 • £2.20 . £5.50 £10.00 he This must have been heartening news to the 100 over a tonnage allowance and who like the rest of the TGWU membership •at Vauxhall's are having to sit out their summer vacation on the picket line at the gates of the plant.

Mercenary

They must have been equally grateful to the Echo for reminding them of the feudal and mercenary origin of Vauxhall Mótors Ltd.

But the carworkers at Vauxhall's need no such reminder from the likes of the Liverpool Echo: that Vauxhall Motors was and is a band of thieves and robbers living off the spoils of war.

Strikers

The same feudal and mercenary mentality has always pervaded the Vauxhall (not to mention the General Motors') management's thinking and is guiding their every word and deed even now in this dispute, as the striking carworkers will doubtless vouch for.

Fulk le Breant may well have died a poor man in Normandy in 1216, but his fat and wealthy spirit is alive and well and living in Ellesmere Port!

conditions in the many firms linked to the newspaper industry, which would never be tolerated for a moment by the highly organised workers on Fleet Street itself.

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drivers who are presently at the centre of the dispute