Leyland Strike Callfails

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palliage or the man aborted Fret was pusSed off the At a meeting in Coventry of Leyland Senior Stewards on Monday the decision was taken not to call a full Leyland strike but to "negotiate further" on parity payments.

The convenors were meeting to consider the rejection, by a two to one majority, of their call for strike action to force management to implement in full the terms of the pay parity and corporate bargaining package accepted by ballot yote in December, The no strike majority does not in any way represent support for management policy.

What it does represent is the complete confusion created by Derek Robinson, Communist Party convenor of the Longbridge complex.

Acceptance

It was his support for the package, as convenor of the biggest factory and chairman of the Combine Shop Stewards Committee which secured its acceptance..

He sold the package to the Longbridge workers whilst the shop stewards in plants such as Cowley and Jaguar were explaining that the package contained so many "ifs" and 'buts' that the parity payments promised in it would. never be paid.

In Cowley, stewards had conducted a long campaign against the end result of the package-corporate bargaining-which they believe will put BL workers in a longterm wages straightjacket.

Therefore when the strike call came, workers in factories where the package had been presented as a good thing found themselves in a very different position to workers in factories where the full implications of the package had been spelled out.

Many militant workers who had rejected the package felt they were being asked to go on strike for something they didn't want.

Stewards in the Cowley Assembly Plant approached the problem with a policy which called for support for the strike recommendation coupled with a policy of UNION DUES calling for the management package itself to be aborted and individual plant claims resubmitted to the mánagement.

They argued that despite the contradictions of the situation it was necessary to strike against the management's manipulation of the package agreement.

Premium rates

In the. agreement, management made not only stage 1 of parity pay-for Cowley workers about £2.50 a week backdated to November 1 last year, but also the national agreement on premium rates (which increase the base rate used for the calculation of night shift overtime pay from 90p per hour to £1.50) conditional on productivity criteria.

But when the company decided to disqualify payment they did so on the basis of the previously completely unknown criteria of 6.16 cars per employee per year.

This figure was never negotiated with the unions or even seen by them prior to the announcement that the payment was being withheld.

Faced with this, the convenors on the Leyland Cars Joint Negotiating Committee and the combine committee called for strike action in two weeks time giving the management and the media the chance to move in with threats of closure, which they quickly did.

On top of this the right wing leadership of the Cowley Body Plant opposed the strike and called for normal working on the "principle" that they opposed corporate bargaining.

Militancy

The Longbridge stewards were correct to call for immediate action.

Theirs was the first mass t meeting and was held when militancy was at its highest * and before the media had 8 made its mark.

But by the time the Cowley Assembly Plant held its mass meeting last Thurs- g day the mood for strike action had begun to recede.

When the vote was evensplit the chairman called AT THE During this meeting TGWU Senior Steward Bob AUEW member.

As we go to press, right wing attempts to get a return at Longbridge have failed and a mass meeting is expected later in the week.

Whatever the result the company has received a setback in that they have been forced to come out with their real position, that they are demanding speed-up to pay for what they want. PHOTO: John Sturrock, Report Leyland mass meeting

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Serall ..YOUR MAN

'Fryer was pushed off the platform by a "moderate"