Court points pistol at unions

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'Lefts' collapsel Socialist Youth League members from London and Oxford marched on the demonstration against SUS organised last The -British Leyland's skilled workforce, begun in the teeth of opposition from the employer, the press, union leaders and Labour ministers, is a blow at the election plans of the capitalist class.

They, like their servants in the Labour leadership, wanted voting to take place with strikes -which are open evidence of the class issues invoived-tucked neatly out of the way.

Instead, 4,000 craftsmen could halt production in Britain's major car firm, while 4,000 workers at the Perkins engine plant also engage in militant action on their wage demands.

"National interest"

The more workers fight in this way for their independent class interests, the more the myth cultivated by both Callaghan and Thatcher of some common "national interest". is exposed-and the more the election emerges in its real context, as a debate between Tory and Labour leaders on how best to further attack workers' living standards and drive up profitability.

It means that every Labour candidate can be put on the spot by workers and called upon to declare where they stand on these struggles to defend living standards, and on socialist policies in opposition tu Callaghan's platform of permanent wage controls.

But the Leyland strike also has major implications in relation to BL chairman Edwardes' plan of linking up with the Japanese firm, Honda, as a desperate answer to the crisis of the British motor Tamed Honda clearly want to be assured that the Leyland workforce has been tamed, shopfloor organisation weakened, and levels of exploitation driven up.

This requires the forcing home of company-wide bargain"ing on pay and conditions, placing them in the hands of national union officials.

To ensure that adjusting wages to a common level is self-financing, Leyland, with the full backing of union officials and convenors has for three years been dangling "parity" as a carrot while pressing for productivity increases and cuts in the workforce.

Meanwhile as the value ot wages on the shop floor has plunged under wage control, militancy has risen.

This has driven Roy Fraser's toolroom committee-which led a four-week strike two years ago -into a tight corner.

Having tried every let-out, and now strengthened by an alliance with other skilled workers, the new Leyland Craft Committee has found itself still denied negotiations with management.

Management, for its part, has eased some of the productivity criteria to the "parity" payments, , but refuses to deal separately with the craftsmen or to pay the money until a contentious five-grade national pay structure is agreed.

Several other sections particularly production workers and fork-lift drivers at Cowleyare so hostile to this grading structure that they have said AUEW leader Duffythreatens Fraser with discipline under rule. PHOTO: Andrew Wiard, Report Callaghan they wil strike if it is introduced.

But pressed by their members to fight for more money, the Craft Committee has now defied a monumental and vicious witch-hunt-much of it centred on Edwardes description of Fraser as a 'wrecker'-and called the strike, supported by about half of BL's craftsmen.

The strength of the strike is the craftsmen's willingness to fight for wages, their refusal to link pay to increased productivity, and their determination to negotiate for themselves and not leave talks in the hands of officials.

But their weaknesses are also real. They fail to answer Leyland threats to close down sections of the firm.

And their failure to name a specific pay demand has left the way open for the employer to use their strike to force the new grading structure on the rest of the workforce.

Certainly the scale of scabbing on the strike by managers, technicians and engineers on its first day. together with the threats to sack skilled men at Llanelli and a lock-out at BMC Service in Cowley suggest a determined company bid to stand firm Upen the books We say that the threat to close factories must be answered by the demand that BL open their books to elected committees of trade unionists to expose the profits being made off their backs by private suppliers and the banks.

If the motor industry under capitalism cannot maintain its workforce, the answer is that the whole industry should be nationalised, without compensation under workers' management.

This, not Labour's talk of NEB investment, is the only perspective to save jobs and move to a pianned socialist Picketing Meanwhile the Craft Committee must sharpen up the strike by reversing its "no picketing" decision, and by naming a clear figure for their wage claim.

The key question remains the building of a revolutionary leadership in British Leyland and the labour movement as a whole.

The Court of Appeal last week unleashed a further attack on trade union rights when it upheld an interim injunction against the National Graphical Association and ordered the union to pay £80,000 costs.

The injunction bars the NGA from pursuing its national campaign of blacking advertisements from firms whose adverts continue to appear in the anti-union Nottingham Evening Post.

The NGA and SLADE are fighting for union recognition at the Post, while the NUJ is fighting for the reinstatement of 28 journalists who were summarily sacked by management for taking part in the journalists' pay strike (see page 11), Weapon The Court of Appeal judgement is a major weapon in the hands of T. Bailey Forman, the management at the Post. But it has much wider and even more serious implications for the labour movement as a whole.

Three points stand out in the judgement delivered by Lord Denning, Master of the Rolls:

*The fight for union recognition at Nottingham was not in his view, 'a trade dispute, and therefore the union was not entitled to immunity for its actions.

This of course raises the question of whether any solidarity action in support of union recognition struggles cannot be ruled illegal.

*He went on to proclaim that: "It would be contrary to LEASIL Saturdav by the LPYS. principle that a union should seek to outflank ACAS and seek to obtain recognition by industrial strength."

This astounding declaration would, if accepted by the trade union movement, effectively close the door to unionisation in whole areas of industry.

No powers ACAS, of course, not only diverts from action to enforce union recognition, but, as the Grunwick case proved beyond doubt, has no powers whatever to make an employer concede.

Denning's attempt to suggest that involvement of ACAS is a legal precondition to taking industrial action to force recognition is thus a major attack on the independence of the trade unions.

*He went on to describe the gaggle of press barons and anti-union employers that had brought the action as an "innocent third party" to a dispute, which he felt could be seen as not really about recognition but simply an attempt by the NGA to damage T. Bailey Forman for "what it regarded as anti-union activities"

In reality the press, owned and controlled almost exclusively by the capitalist class, is a major weapon for them in attacking the freedom and strength of the trade unions.

Tools of Far from the NGA "pointing a pistol at the head of innocent parties" , the courts, as tools of the capitalist class, have over the past 15 months established a Betrayals ided on SE Asia ... Page 8 Lord Denning succession of precedents which threaten basic union rights.

Courts have stripped the UPW of the right to blackmail to South Africa or mail to Grunwicks; the NUJ has been denied the legal right to black Press Association copy in support of NUJ members on strike there; and TGWU lorry driver Reg Fall was even barred from picketing fellow lorry drivers outside United Biscuits in January's haulage strike.

The NGA is ideally placed to fight this latest attack. Its power as a union is enormous-and print workers have long been part of the backbone of the labour movement.

Handed over

But sooner than shut down the Fleet Street presses and fight, calling on the labour movement for support, and Labour leaders to defend the unions, the NGA bureaucracy are tamely handing over £80,000 and basic union rights to the bosses' ocurts.

Nothing could point more clearly to the bankruptcy of the present leadership of the trade unions and the necessity for the construction of a revolutionary leadership, if even the most elementary rights are to be defended.

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on Labour NUT Conferences .Page10