Vauxhall set for pay fight

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The strike over tonnage allowances by 100 drivers at Vauxhall, Ellesmere Port, ended after a sell-out by national officer Eric Bone and the plant leadership in the person of. convenor John Farrel.

After five weeks of 24-hour picketing right the way through the shutdown and after 3,000 TGWU members had voted to support them a fortnight before the holidays, these two traitors negotiated a shabby compromise of a back-room deal in which the drivers will receive a sop "meals allowance" worth "up to" £6 a week, and subject to all kinds of bureaucratic redtape (e.g. receipts on headed note bills! How many transport cafes have headed note bills?)

How a demand for a tonnage allowance came to be changed to a meals allowance overnight is still a mystery.

Hard case

It reveals another side to Convenor John Farrel who has a reputation as a hard case.

Apart from the abysmal leadership, the strike faced a number of difficulties.

*The relatively high stock levels of Chevettes.

*The timing of the strike, engineered by the company a fortnight before the holidays.

*The fact that only the drivers stood to gain directly from the strike (although 3,000 TGWU members came out in support a fortnight before the holidays).

*The notoriously bad relations between the TGWU and AUEW at Ellesmere Port and also between Ellesmere Port and the two southern plants at Luton and Dunstable-a result of lack of political leadership in these areas, and bureaucratic wranglings.

The Company has now gone on the offensive against the rest of membership, the AUEW who failed to support the drivers.

As soon as work restarted everyone was moved off their old job and put on another job.

This caused endless aruguments and an unusual amount of stoppages for rectification work.

It is clear that the company is trying to railroad through a cut in manning levels, particularly in the hard-trim area, the most labour intensive part of the factory.

Final finish

In the final finish (garage), a well-organised high manning level area, management stopped long established working practices.

With pay negotiations next month it is clear that the company has engineered this dispute to soften up the TGWU.

This is even more apparent when one considers the long battle over "relativities" going on since last year when the fitters were smashed in their strike for higher differentials.

Track workers

The Company evidently wants to appease the fitters at the expense of the track workers who have been most consistently represented by the TGWU, hence the need to knock the TGWU into line.

It also explains the stopping of all overtime by the Company.

It is to be hoped that this last move by the company will at least make the membership aware of the low level of the basic rate and more determined to fight to defend living standards.