Pay strike halts engineering plants

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Cowley Assemblv Plant convenor Bob Fryer with pickets on the gates and the rest of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Union leadership's lack of work for the overtime ban and the three on-day strikes in support of the Confed pay claim, the first of the strikes was an almost total success.

Duffy, who lost the vote on the AUEW National Committee when he tried to get the unions' claim lowered, now claims the success so far as his.

Full claim

"In excess of 60 firms have now agreed to meet the claim in full. I am gratified to know also that already thousands of members will be on a 39 hour week from next week."

He went on to say that an all-out strike could not be ruled out, but it looks as though the Confed is looking at calling only selective strikes.

The claim is for an £80 minimum wage for skilled men with increases for others as well as a 35 hour week and two extra days holiday.

The unions have indicated that they would accept a 39 hour week as a step to achieving 35 hours by 1982.

The strike action is the first called by the Confed since 1968 . and • together with the overtime ban means a huge decrease in production in many plants.

The employers are claiming that there is very little support for the action.

The reality is different. Where the strike call has not been supported this has been only because of a lack. of leadership from officials and convenors who have held workers back for the last four years and now won't even fight for an Lunary official strike.

Wherever a lead has been given workers have once again shown their strength -repeating again the lessons of the winter's pay strikes.

Blacked

In Rolls Royce in Coventry, shop stewards have issued letters to subcontractors saying that their goods will be blacked it they don't strike.

In Leyland all the major factories at Longbridge, Cowley, Rovers, Llanelli, Drews Lane and Castle Bromwich were out.

PHOTO: John Sturrock, Report The opposed grounds But in Oxford the employers, the press and the right wing put on a big effort to break the strike.

The most important component of this was the right wing leadership in BL's Body Plant.

Roy Fraser led the AUEW stewards in opposing the strike, on the grounds that the TGWU leadership had condoned scabbing on the skilled men's strike.

Opposed TGWU leadership the strike on the that «The Confed Body Plant convenor Roche: opposed strike call. has never done anything for us". They would not even call a stewards' meeting.

The right wing's campaign was backed up by the local press, whose campaign resulted in some small stoppages in the Assembly Plant against the Confed's call.

One of these stoppages was reported three days running in the Daily Telegraph as a sign of the lack of support for the strike.

In the last of these reports it was given greater prominence than the fact thất the 18,000 Longbridge workers were coming out.

Shop stewards at the Rover Solihull plant have voted to meet the threat of 1,400 redundancies with a policy of work sharing on full pay.

The shop stewards' committee at the plant voted unanimously to recommend this policy to a mass meeting of the plant workforce later this week.

The decision was in response to an announcement by BL that they are to cut production of the SD1 (the 3.5 litre) Rover Saloon car by one third on September 3 this year.

The strong response from the Kover stewards comes as BL faces the dual problems of the effect of rising , oil prices on the sales of big cars and the effects of the rising. pound on the export trade.

Management want to offset their losses by driving up the exploitation of Rover workers- through linking the programme cuts to speed-up.

They are proposing that the 30% production cuts are coupled with a 40% cut in 9C the workforce.

BL have given no hope of saving most of the 1,400 jobs involved, although a few workers will be redeployed on the Range Rover and 300 will be given the chance to switch to the Standard Trimph plant in Coventry.

Management are certain to resist the seewards' committee's work sharing policy which stewards say could be implemented either by reducing track speeds or leaving manning levels as they are or by working four days for five days pay.

This correct policy must be linked to the fight to force BL management to open their books and details of their future plans for speed-up and rationalisation to an elected committee of Rover stewards.

The figures discovered in such an investigation would strengthen the fight by revealing the further attacks that are in the offing and the massive profits being extracted from BL workers by privately-owned component firms and BL's bankers and dealers.