Crisis in the Motor

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We are publishing on this page the statement from the Campaign for Democracy in the Labour Movement calling a conference for workers in the car industry to be held on January 20 in Birmingham. While the CDLM itself has a clear programme on which it has campaigned within the motor industry, the Conference organisers stress that they are extending a particular invitation to other groupings on the left within the motor industry to come along without prior comitment to discuss the crucial issues facing carworkers .

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In Fords, even though the workers successfully broke the government's 5% limit, they ended up with a punitive anti-strike clause tied to 5% of their wages, whereby any dispute even of 15 or 30 minutes duration would lose them £4 automatically.

This is under conditions where the Ford management is one of the möst ruthless in the country and, as has been shown by recent attacks at Halewood on workers working up the line, is continuously attacking.

Attacking

This clause is designed to weaken workers' resistance to these attacks, which is why management insist on this clause.

In Leyland the management has set about systematically attacking a labour force which has been the traditional leader in motor industry wages and conditions. Leyland workers have had the strongest shopfloor organisation.

Now the management, with the help of the union leadership, have ended piecework, established plant-wide negotiations and now achieved agreed national level negotiations for the next year.

By then management hope to have established (through the package they have offered) a wage and grading structure to go alongside the already established national conditions agreement.

Speeded-up

To achieve all this; the management are, prepared to pay certain wage increases which have to be raised by speed-up and demanning.

Even then, Leyland workers will have had their standard of living reduced as well as being speeded-up because they are only being offered the 5% in this year's review and have only received the government's norm over the previous three years.

In Chrysler as with Leyland the management have used continuously the threat of closure in order to attack conditions-this has not changed with the takeover by Peugeot.

In Vauxhalls the measly 8% wage increase even had productivity strings tied to part of it. These are now being implemented on the shop floor with the cooperation of many of the stewards.

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So all carworkers are under attack, and many have similar problems. In both Leyland and Chrsyler, for example, "participation" committees have been used to draw senior stewards in towards doing the employers' dirty work K-al de, no steles AUEW members at Vauxhalls for them.

In opposition to these attacks the workers have received nothing but misleadership. Even at Fords the officials recommended the deal with the penalty clause.

But whereas in Fords the nfficiale led a ficht againct VILIVIAO JOu a MBUL AGAMIDI the 5% arguing the profitability of the company, in the rest of the motor industry the officials have gone along with all the employers' plans. They have à dual standard-one for companies who declare a profit and another standard for those who don't.

Forefront

In this the officials have received the support of many of the senior stewards particularly of the rightwing and of the Communist Party. Leading CP member Derek Robinson at BL Longbrage, for example, has been in the forefront of fighting for company-wide bargaining, which is the means the employers are using to weaken shop stewards and strengthen the full-time officials. Leading CP members in Chrysler have also been in the forefront of the employers' plans and whilst inițially talking in favour of nationalisation of Chrysler at the time of the Peugeot takeover, did nothing to fight for this.

There is an urgent need to develop a new leadership in the motor industry that fights for the independent interests of the car workers;

that stops the employers' plans to pit Ford workers against Leyland workers or Datsun workers or any others; that puts forward a programme that does not start from the "profitability" of the firm or its necessity to compete with other car firms, but from the defence of living standards and jobs.

Occupation We must answer the threat of closure by exposing the fraud if it is a bluff designed to pressure workers into accepting company offer and by the counter threat of the occupation of the plant if it is a real threat.

We must say that we will oppose all speed-ups, unemployment-creating schemes, that we wil oppose al redundancies.

The employers will say that they need to economise to compete with other car firms-we must demand the opening of the books of the firm concerned and of its component suppliers as well as the rest of the motor industry: Let us see why they can't maintain jobs and wages. If they prove their case, then the whole motor and component industry should be nationalised without compensation and under workers' management and made part of a planned socialist economy.

These policies, alongside cost-of-living clauses, whereby wages rise automatically with the cost of living as decided by elected committees of workers, to be in every wage deal are essential.

these are' not fought for, then the trap of the Communist Party and Labour lefts' who argue for import controls, making Japanese or other workers PIC PHOTO: John Sturrock, Report Stalinist Robinson redundant, will be fallen into.

We must answer the employers' "viability" argument by challenging the argument that we have a common interest with the employer. This will greatly strengthen the fight against in the Labour Movement Chrysler workers on strike at Tinwood PHOTO: Andrew Wiard, Report Todd speed-up, no-strike clauses and all the other problems now facing car workers and in the course of this the CDLM will be fighting for a new leadership in the motor

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CARWORKERS CONFERENCE

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January 20, 1979 in Birmingham Blackbird Leys, Oxford PHOTO: Laurence Sparham, IFL PHOTO: John Sturrock, Report