Leyland: Stewards Movemeni

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There are dangerous signs that the Ryder Report, having been accepted by the 'leaders' of British Leyland workers, is being accepted without resistance in almost all the BLMC plants. If this is true, it has serious implications for the whole of the labour force.

Because of the confusion being introduced, many workers are accepting the argument - fraudulently put forward by of Ryder is the only way to stop Leyland going into liquidation and to save 160,000 jobs. The people who push this line do so with the full knowledge that it is the declared intention of Ryder to reduce the BLMC labour force to a fraction of its present size. and this with 14 million alread on the dole.

Time is very short. While shopfloor workers and shop stewards are told nothing, the knife is being prepared behind closed doors. For six days in the plush Royal Suite in the Allesley Hotel in Coventry, 32 hand-picked convenors, enjoying the sumptuous trappings of management hospitality, have worked, together with 10 top company executives, to clear the way for the introduction of the Ryder Report proposals through the so-called 'worker participation' schemes, designed to suck shop stewards into doing the job of management.

PUBLICITY The massive publicity suddenly being given to worker participation is an indication of the importance the employers attach to it as a means of separating the shop steward from his traditional job of defending and improving the wages and conditions of his members by making him a part of management.

AUEW continued from page 7 working class against this type of reactionary class legislation.

Reformist union leaders argue that we must accept a wage cut now in order to break the inflationary spiral and protect the Labour government in order to defend its wages against the Tory government pay laws. To accept the social contract on wage cutting only strengthened the Tories as was shown in the Woolwich byeelection. Labour was defeated by working class abstentions brought about by distlusionment through the actions of the Labour government.

In my view, the correct policy of opposition to the social contract pass by the National Conference together with the call for the defence of jobs is not enough. We have to have a programme to put forward in this Every employer will use the threat of unemployment in the same way as the government. Every time workers fight to defend their living standards the employer will use the threat of redundancies and bankruptcy to defeat them.

I stand for substantial wage increases to re-establish and improve the standarr of living. I consider that every wage should rise automatically point by point with a cost of living index compiled by elected committees of trade unionists and workers wives. This is the only answer workers can have to inflation which stems from capitalism and can only be solved by ending that system.

PUBLIC LIVERPOOL Vednesday 24th Septemb 7.30 pm AUEW Hall, 48 Mount Pleasant Liverpool 3• Under Ryder the steward finds himself on a committee, the terms of reference of which are "more efficient production" , with the management delegation having the unchallengeable right to make the final decision. If anyone doubts what kind of decisions managemen will be making, they need only look at the current proposals put forward by Leyland's £50,000 per year top management to get rid of 30,000 jobs in the Cars Division.

There are wider implications to the Ryder proposals than simply forcing speed-up and redundancy into the individual Leyland plants. Taking shape is a root and branch attack on the shop stewards movement, aimed at ending the independence and power achieved by the movement over the last 20 years. The employers know that the shop stewards movement has been largely responsible for the improvement in wages and conditions won in the past. This has convinced them that the strength of the stewards must be destroyed if the full effects of their plans are to be introduced.

The unpublished sections of the Ryder Report containing detailed plant by plant proposals for manning cuts almost certainly include selective closures as part of a ration alisation plan which could not be carried through whilst the shop stewards movement remains strong.

The damage already been done to shop floor strength can be seen in the way the Ryder Report has been 'accepted'. This important decision was taken by a dubious meeting of convenors called together not by the Combine Committee as in the past, but by management in consultation with the nationàl officials By management instigation, staff representatives were included, allowing them for the first time to take part in trade union policy making.

This decision fundamentally changed the principle of trade union decision making in the combine. It allowed Leyland to achieve a posiTo the threat of redundancy I advocate a policy of work sharing, as decided by elected trade union committees, on full pay. In the event of closures we must call for and support occupations. Strikes under these conditions are not the answer.

If the employers say that redundancies are inevitable or that they cannot pay then we must say open the books. If it is shown that they can't provide us with jobs and a decent standard of living, then this proves the case for nationalisation without compensation and under the management of committees of elected trade unionists (not appointed bureaucrats).

We must demand once nationalisatio has taken place that state contracts are provided to keep the factories open.

The logic of the National Conference decision for the nationalisation of BLMC must be rejection of the capitalist Ryder plan and a fight for the prog" ramme I am putting forward. This policy should be fought for throughout all industry. This will give us the materi base to end capitalism and establish socialism. For this we will need a new leadership and I put myself forward for election because I believe I can make a contribution towards the building of such a leadership.

I have been a member of our union for 11 years and for most of that time I have been an active trade unionist. I have been a shop steward in a highly organised factory for 7 years and from time to time I have held Coding positio within the organisation. Also I am a delegate to the Trades Council at Nuneaton where I live and I attend all meetings called by our union.

During my life as a shop steward I have supported every lobby and demonstration called by the TUC aad every action called by the AUEW especially during the campaign against the Industrial Relations Court.

At the same time however I have beer critical of our union. For instance, locally I believe that the fight ta protec the Coventry Tool Room rate was let down by the area leadership. This was a glaring example of why we need a leadership that has the kind of programme I am proposing and above all the will to fight for that programme. I ask you brothers to give me the chance to do just that." tion where a large section of the meeting were foremen and superintendants. As if this were not enough, the decision also meant that another large group at the meeting were the representatives of the industrial engineers - work study men employed by Leyland to speed up the tracks. At the :. meeting itself both foremen and work study men spoke from the rostrum arguing the case. No one need ask what they said or how they voted, they make their position clear every day on the tracks - if an industrial engineer was opt osed to speed up he would put himself out of a job.

COMMITTEE The effects of this new type of meeting on the BMC combine committee could be seen at its meeting on Saturday, 6th September - the first time the committee had met since the Ryder proposals were announced. The chairman, Derek Robinson, Austin convenor and a Stalinist, refused to accept a motion rejecting Ryder, ruling that the decision had already been taken. For 30 years the combine committee, developing as the combine grew, has been the traditional organisation which has confronted struggles as they have come up and i which a fight for leadership has taker place. Robinson's ruling meant that for the first time this committee, wh has reflected the strength of the shop stewards movement throughout this period, was unable to play any role whatsoever in a major issue facing workers in the Corporation.

Now, with the shop floor movemen under the heaviest attack since the introduction of Measured Day Work (which was also aimed at the shop stewards movement and has had an effect) 'worker participation' is being imposed from above by the trade union leaders without a single vote at factory level. Instructions are being As we go to press, members of the Blast Furnacemen's union are going on strike all over the country - at Scunth+ orpe, Cleveland and East Moors, Cardiff.

The strike is in support of 500 workers at Llan wern steel works who are refusing to work on a new furnace which will produce twice as much with half the labour. and for which there is no agreemen MARCH The Workers Socialist League is going on the demonstration calle in solidarity with the Portuguese working class by the Portuguese solidarity committee in London on Saturday September 20th. The WSL delegation will march behind the central demand that the Portuguese working class break from the Armed Forces Movement. The demonstration will start from Charing X Embankment at 2.30pm PUBLIC MEETING LEEDS Sunday 5th October 7.30 pm Leeds Trades Council Ciub Leeds 7 *Ryder and Unemployment sent out to form what amount to speed up and redundancy committees and anyone who raises a voice of opposition is stamped on by the trade union leaders. Those who advocate participation in management will not allow any participation at all within the trade unions. In the Cowley Assembly plant for example, an overwhelming majority of the T&GWU shop stewards voted to hold a shop stewards meeting to discuss the Ryder Report. Because the officials thought that the meeting might vote against Ryder, they banned it. Each shop steward was served with a written instruction (delivered by management) not to attend the meeting, signed by the district official and clearly implying that action would be taken against any steward who turned up.

Both the trade union leaders and the management are desperate to get Ryder implemented. Trade unior leaders do this because they accept the management line of making the company viable, and they are prepared to make the working class pay for the crisis of the capitalist system over which they have no control. Ryder is being supported from many directions. Those who argue that participation is a step forward for car workers, or as Derek Robinson put it at the combine committee meeting, "it is limited workers' control" ', should explain why Chrysler paid out a £100 lump sum bonus to every worker, employed for the acceptance of an identical scheme.

The situation is urgent. If action is not taken to stop them, the committees will soon be in operation. This will mean that future attacks on jobs and conditions will not come, as in the past, from management, but fron these committees, with the stewards who are supposed to be leading the them a protect surent endant on who for the rest of the week are imposing discipline on their members. This is class collaboration with a vengeance.

For all these reasons it is crucial Fred Knapp union official on payment.

The management is offering an average £74 per week with approx. imately f6 bonus and the union is claiming a further £7.

At the heart of the dispute is the government's decision to cut subsidies to nationalised industries and in that way create the necessity for closures, redundancies and speed up.

Having gone into action they threaten to upset the plans of the Labour government and its servants in the TUC. So they are receiving all the pressure of the capitalist press (they are claiming £120 per week in Daily Telegraph stories) ACAS steps in, the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation leadership asked them to go back, and Len Murray steps in.

Backing up these moves the British Steel Corporation says it will import steel to break the strike. that shop stewards' committees refuse to participate in Ryder, maintain their independence and prepare to lead their members in defence of their jobs and conditions when Leyland workers hit back at the compar against speed up and redundancy -as they undoubtedly will. Shop stew ards should not get involved in any way. Once a body of stewards elects a representative on to the participation committee this gives it credibility and strength which will be used against the shop stewards movement itself.

SACRIFICE The trade union leaders advance the unprincipled position that wor kers should sacrifice their jobs and conditions to save the company. What they should be saying is that their members have a right to a job and it Leyland is unable to guarantee that right then the books of the company should be opened and the case established for the full national. isation under workers' management and not state shareholding with the big stick for the shop floor. This would create the conditions for a nationalised car industry to demand that the Labour Government provid state contracts to keep the factories in production with work sharing on full pay where plants were still working below capacity.

Ryder stands in the way of all this and worker participation is intended to destroy jobs and long established working conditions. We say that it is a matter of principle for every shop steward to be separated from these committees in every way. The position of Arthur Harper, for exam ple, convenor of Tractors and Trans missions and a much-lauded ex-IS . member who has sat right through the ad hoc committee meetings at the Allesley hotel, helping to organise the whole thing, must be condemned. Shop stewards must fight for the independence of the trade union movement and the shop stew. ards movement and for a leadership which will use the strength of the working class, through the unions, to defend the wages and living standards of the working class against the attacks of the employers and the Labour Government which is acting on behalf of the employers.

nUPE In the latest issue of their union paper, issued just befo the TUC Conference, NUPE the public employees union declare that they "could not support the government white paper".

Yet speaking on the radio on Sunday September 14th, Alan Fisher, the general secretary of that union, said that unions would withdraw their support for the £6 pay curb policy if the economy is not reflated by the Spring.

So he follows a whole stream of trade union leaders who accep the 'majority' vote of the bureaucrats at Blackpool and refuse to fight to defend their members against the attacks of the Labour The Workers Socialist League calls on its members and support, in all unions to reject the 'majori vote and fight to break the £6 state pay laws in both national claims and in supporting their members who come into conflict with this legislation.

The diversion of fighting for the full £6 which the government says is not an entitlement but a maximum is a policy of accepting a wage cut. The only policy to fight for is a substantial wage increase and a sliding scale of wages clause in every agreement.

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management and trade union leaders alike - that acceptance