'Participating' in the

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and they see that there's ing the closure" was His own questions might meeting after his appalling Pickets at Birds Eye, Kirkby-betrayed by TGWU official ch TGWU, Liverpool.

This pamphlet is an has such a cosy relationship.

unashamed whitewash A vivid example is Eddie of the role of the Roberts, the Militant' combine committee whizz-kid ex-convenor at chairman and leading Ford Halewood who figures prominently in Working for Communist Party member Derek Robinson He is now a full-time along with the official for the TGWU and The demonstrated his right convenors at British wing credentials during the Leyland's Triumph recent struggle against Speke plant. redundancies at the Birds It was produced by the Eye factory in Kirkby, TGWU branch that covered when he ordered the workthe now closed plant and force back after a company written by "disinterested" threat to close the whole armchair liberal and some- plant.

time observer-of-the-class Subservience struggle-from-the-side-lines, Huw Beynon. The same unprincipled, It contains no serious grovelling subservience to analysis of the participation the right wing is evident in set-up in Leyland, of which the Speke pamphlet. Robinson is 100% in favour Eddie Roberts is quoted and which with his aid, first hypocritically clicking his fingered Speke as a low tongue at the Speke closure: productivity plant' and then "Five years ago if you'd helped organise the closure said Standards would be of the plant. closed down without a fight The pamphlet is written no one would have believed as a "nasty employer"-bash- you. It would have been ing essay, but at no point unbelievable. comes grips with the "But it's gone. Two years problem of the traitors time people will be saying within the midst of the "Speke? There used to be a working class itself.

car factory out there once The theme is very much didn't there?" It's gone". the same as Beynon's earlier The same method of publicatior Working for quoting the hypocritical, 'ord-in other words 'spare hand-wringing right wingers a moment for the plight of making banal obituaries for the poor carworker on the the closure is also evident in assembly line'.

another part of the Workers are put up on a pamphlet where Beynon pedestal and "significant" quotes local 'left' MP Eddie quotations are grovellingly Loyden, talking about the received from them. period after the first The attempts of the left announcement of the to fight the reformist closure: leaders in the plants are "In a situation like that, scoffed at and belittled what working class people Any other position want to know is when did would imply a criticism of we last win one?' What are same opportunist our trade, union leaders leaders with whom Beynon. doing?' They look around • PHOTO: Laurence Sparham (IFL)

Eddie Roberts PHOTO: John Sturrock, Report nothing down for them."

well be asked of himself Apart from verbal betrayal. support and futile meetings with hatchet-man Edwardes, Loyden along with fellow local left' MP Eric Heffer, failed to argue for occupa• tion and played a key supporting role in delaying and diverting any potential struggle.

Reputation

Their left reputation aided them in this task and did not in any way compel them to fight within the Labour Party for the removal of Callaghan and the rest of the Labour politiçians who were in favour of the closure.

Nowhere is there any mention of the role of the convenors in the closure.

For TGWU convenor Mick Everett this was not the first closure that he had presided over.

Before Triumph he was convenor at the nearby (now closed) Garston Bottle Works.

Nor is there any mention of the Speke mass meeting where Stalinist AUEW convenor Dave Thomas's hollow bluster about "fightRobinson shouted down by the record of sabotage and A prime example of this was his refusal to lift a finger to fight the victimisation in 1975 of the (then) SWP member Tommy Healey,: AUEW deputy convenor.

Neither of these Speke convenors at any time made a call for occupation.

They completely abdicated from any attempt to lead a struggle against the closure.

They stood by and made no move to end the attempts of Loyden, Heffer and combine committee chairman Derek Robinson to delay and divert the struggle with futile 'talks' and lobbies of Edwardes and Callaghan.

They helped serve up buckets of blood-curdling bluster about what they were going to do on behalf of the members.

The most glaring om'ission, however, is on the role of "participation' in Leyland and in particular of the role of Derek Robinson, Stalinist chairman of the combine committee and fervent advocate of 'participation'.

Beynon's equivocal position on the role of participation' in the closure is revealed in the following amazing statement on page 35:

"Nationally, the Cars Council was not informed of-much less participated in-decisions relating to the closure of Speke"

Beynon apparently views 'participation' as some genuine body for consulting the views of the workforce which the employers have benevolently set up.

This, of course, is how the Leyland management have 'sold' the participation set-up to the stewards and they have obviously managed to 'con' even Beynon.

His criticism of it is merely that they failed to 'consult' the workforce at Speke over the closure!

Gullible

His gullibility is further evidenced in passage relating to Robinson.

"At both the • mass meetings Derek Robinson, the convenor of Longbridge and chairman of the British Leyland shop stewards combine committee spoke and promised the workers the support of their workmates in other plants.

'This support was never tested (you have to fight before you really find out); and partly this was because workers at Speke didn't believe it existed"

•The fact that Robinson had a record of betrayal as long as your arm (see Socialist Press 118) is not mentioned and there is a thinly-veiled attempt to yet again imply. that it is the membership's fault.

In fact Robinson, who sits on the Cars Council, was present at a joint meeting of Leyland convenors and managers at Kenilworth when Edwardes first took over.

Standing ovation

He "participated" in a standing ovation for the Edwardes plan involving 12,000 redundancies.

That plan virtually, gave its seal of approval for the closure of Speke whose alleged low productivity' was singled out in a participation committee report.

It is, therefore, rubbish to say that the Cars Council was not informed about the Speke closure.

The fact of matter: is The Triumph Speke plant.

that the convenors who voted for the Edwardes were and are in league with management.

Robinson in particular, for all his demagogy, was quite prepared to see Speke closed for the sake of the overall 'viability' of Leyland.

His presence at the mass meeting was to ensure that по moves were made towards plant occupation to prevent closure. In this task he succeeded.

It is the failure to put the blame fairly and squarely on the shoulders of the convenors and in particular Robinson that makes this pamphlet such a miserable whitewash.

The Socialist Workers Party, which devoted a front page to Robinson's speech at the first mass meeting without a word of criticism of the failure to decide for occupation, subsequently dropped the issue as the sell-out took shape.

PHOTO: John Sturrock, Report.

Heffer This booklet, does not say what really happened at Speke-it offers only a bureaucrats-eye view of one of the most miserable sell-outs to have taken place in the struggle on jobs over the last few years.

If further Leyland workers are not to follow their Speke brothers and sisters to the growing dole queues, a leadership must be constructed that will draw out these harsh lessons and struggle consciously against the existing combine committee leadership for an end to participation and a fight for wages and working conditions.

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THE RECOO Linos WOGE VIC Lage y da A review of the Anti-Apartheid Movement's booklet Changing Patterns of International

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A review of What Happ ned at Speke? by Huw published by 6/612 Brai