Officials Rig Leyland Sell-out Vote

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Pm brews officials ha s led to the latest decision to put the company's package of proposals to a ballot of members.

The package includes a 5% increase on basic rates backdated to November 1-not the 17% suggested in the Tory press.

Also included is the loss of 7,000 jobs through voluntary redundancy in addition to 5,000 being shed through "natural wastage"

The remaining workforce will be expected to do the additional work thus created as well as their own.

Bench marks

The third main point is the acceptance in principle of job evaluation and of a highly contentious grading structure which places a basic 60 "bench mark" jobs into five pay grades.

If all these elements are accepted, and every plant slots its workforce into the 60 "bench marks", then, and only then, will "parity" payments be paid.

And management are also withholding until that time the payment of nationally-agreed increases in premium rates for overtime and night shifts.

This appalling deal was manoeuvred to the point of a ballot through a Leyland Cars National Joint Negotiating Committee meeting last Tuesday.

In the vote at that meeting 12 convenors representing semi-skilled workers (the majority of the workforce) opposed the Full time Six convenors from skilled sections voted in favour. But so did six full-time union officials -who do not even work in British Leyland!

And this bogus 12-12 "tied vote" was resolved by TGWU national secretary Grenville Hawley, who, as chairman, used his "casting vote" in favour of the deal!

This decision was then hastily put to the vote at a meeting of convenors last Thursday. The meeting was weighted heavily in favour of skilled sections (groups of as little as two or three skilled men in each plant get one "vote", just the same as representatives thousands of semi-skilled workers).

Skilled sections benefit most from Leyland's pay plan.

Not surprisingly, therefore, this convenors' meeting approved the proposal to put the deal to a ballot with a recommendation to accept.

Significantly the first speaker to defend the deal in the convenors' meeting was Communist Party member Peter Nicholas. The Longbridge votealso dominated by the Communist Party-was also thrown behind the company plan.

The decision by convenors to go for a ballot amounts to a decision to flout the outcome of the last ballot, which specifically agreed that plant level bargaining would continue this year.

National Fighting this betrayal, the ad-hoc committee 'Leyland Stewards for the 1978 Review' has produced a national leaflet explaining the way the recommendation for a "yes" vote came about.

The leaflet • explains the meaning of the company plan, calls for a 'no' vote in the ballot and calls for preparations to fight the onslaught on jobs and conditions that will flow the 'parity' deal.

Though the company, union leaders and the press have now orchestrated their campaign for a 'yes' vote, the enforcement of such a vote still poses problems.

Productivity; increases are already being resisted in some plants even before the 'parity' speed-up gets under way.

Triumph stewards at Speke are resisting plans for 800 redundancies, and at Cowley, where 1,300 jobs are scheduled for the axe, TGWU convenor Bob Fryer has promised to support any section fighting to defend manning levels.

Even Longbridge workers, denied any leadership, are likely to resist efforts to cut the workforce by 1,300 and add the extra work onto their existing jobs.

The grading structure, too, is likely to prove a source of angry resistance.

AL duction workers are to take place on Tuesday to oppose the grading structure's attempt to split production workers into two grades.

The resolution to. be put states that the Body Plant will only allow one production worker's job to be evaluated and that:

"In view of the accepted CONTRACT within this plant, and no demarcation batween jobs, all Production Workers must be in ONE GRADE, and that should be the top grade."

The 'Stewards for the 1978 Review' leaflet cites the example of the Body Plant and calls on other sections to fight the effects of the ballot should the company plan be carried.