British Leyland: the background to Edwardes' run-down (continued)

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iber (right)

The collaboration was shameless. Soon Scanion and Jones were to appear side by side on the front page of BL's house journal Leyland Mirror, under the headline "KEEP WORKING!" They warned of 'the enemy without" (the Tories) and "the enemy within" (the militants).

The Cowley Assembly plant, • high volume, high investment factory with good working conditions, was a prime target for speed-up. In April 1974 management forced stop watch studies pn the tracks. A three week strike ensued.

The strike eventually crumbled under the threat of closure of the plant and the pompany victimised the leader of the strike, deputy convenor Alan Thornett.

A further three week strike by his section restored his shop teward's credentials but not his leputy convenor position.

But Jack Jones then interrened through Region S of the IGWU.

The plant leadership was emoved from office and fresh convenors' elections were held inder conditions of a huge rational press and TV witchiunt and for the first time, onducted through a secret allot of the entire shop floorI policy now central to Tory inti-union strategy. A right wing eadership was elected.

Although management then lad some success in forcing ome speed up at Cowley, the ncreased effort remained insuficient to meet the requirements if BL or the British capitalist Lass.

In 1975 a commission of aquiry into BLMC was set up inder Lord Ryder. It produced i report which resulted in the lational: Enterprise Board cquiring a 95% stake in the ompany.

The Labour leaders proudly roclaimed this as a "rescue" peration in which BL workers fould be grateful for the use of taxpayers' money"

TUC leaders also continually ferret to the Labour governtent's record in "saving" BL. at all this was far from the uth.

Ryder's proposed massive investment programme-designed to create conditions for more speed-up-could not be funded privately. And it was arranged in such a way as to hang a continuing threat over the heads of BL workers.

The cash would only be given in six-monthly tranches, and would be withheld if the required productivity targets were not met and if redundancies were not accepted.

And the money would be made available at commercial rates of interest-thus ensuring a return to the bankers from this "taxpayers' money"

The backbone of the plan was so-called "worker participation". • This was designed to break down the once-strong shop stewards' movement in BL.

Stewards and convenors were to be sucked into joint committees. which considered management problems and on which management had the final say.

Participation was successful in its main objectives. It wreaked havoc in the shop stewards movement, not simply because of the class collaborationist content of the scheme, but because it was enthusiastically supported by Labour 'lefts' such as Wedgewood Benn and by the Communist Party.

These people described participation as a "step towards workers control". In reality it was a shrewd means of controlling the workers.

But still the galloping pace of the crisis in British industry outstripped even the successes scored by BL management in the two years of Ryder.

By 1977 BL's market share had shrivelled from 40% to 25%. It was selling fewer cars than in 1968!

What was increasingly required was not half measures but a wholesale cutback in BL, and its eventual complete rundown.

A change of leadership was essential for the capitalist class.

The abrupt resignation of Sir Richard Dobson as chairman of the British Leyland board, following the public disclosure of racialist remarks made by him at a private dinner party, created the conditions for this change.

Michael Edwardes, a reactionary South African with a savage reputation for sitting out prolonged strikes at his previous firm, Chloride, was appointed as BL chairman and managing director.

• From the start Edwardes was far more than another in a long line of BL chairmen. Far from seeking to expand the Corporation, he was an asset-stripper.

He had the full backing of the Labour government to run down BL, carve it up and hive it off.

And he was at once conscious of the greatest asset he could have in this task-the BL convenors.

Weakened by years of class collaborationist participation, and led by Communist Party members deeply committed to making BL "viable" » the convenors were at once putty in Edwardes' hands.

As an added bonus, they also backed the abolition of plant level bargaining and its replacement by corporate-level negotiations.

Appalling

Their record over the preceding years had been appalling by any standards. Ryder had drawn them into an lad hoc committee of convenors, and had worked through the Cars Council, the highest body in the participation set-up.

In the summer of 1977 they set up the Leyland Cars Joint Negotiating Committee to continue the same collaborationist traditions.

The convenors rapidly earned the reputation of being the world's worst negotiators. Time and again they were outmanoeuvred by management into accepting everything the company wanted-from a new "red book" containing stringent penalty clauses, to bonus schemes designed to throw thousands out of work.

Edwardes could hardly wait to cash in on the legacy. Within weeks of his appointment he had called a joint conference of convenors and plant managers, to take a vote on his first 'Edwardes plan' in January 1978.

"Threatened plants must be occupied to provide a focus for the struggle throughout BL.

*Open the books of BL, its suppliers and bankers!

Open the books of the British car industry!

Unmask the profiteers!

Warn of the dangers to thousands of workers outside BL.

*No redundancies! For work sharing on full pay:

the reduced work available must be divided between the whole workforce, under the control of trade union To this joint assembly -in which plant directors mingled with plant convenors-Edwardes declared that his plan was the only hope of survival for BL.

It amounted to restructuring the corporation into a number of separate limited companies, and cutting productive capacity. This would make individual sections easier to hive off.

Edwardes talked of 20,000 redundancies, but avoided saying how this was to be achieved-though by then he had the participation' report fingering the Triumph TR7 plant at Speke as a low productivity factory ripe for closure, and had almost certainly planned the shutdown of the AEC truck plant in Southall.

' As he finished outlining his plan the effects of years of participation became clear. Convenors and plant directors rose with one accord and gave his job-slashing scheme a prolonged standing ovation.

The manager chairing the meeting then went to put Edwardes' plan to a vote.

When Bob Fryer, the newly re elected convenor of the Cowley Assembly Plant objected to a joint vote being taken-particularly when it involved thousands of redundancies-he was howled down on all sides and ridiculed as a 'lunatic' by Longbridge convenor Derek Robinson and Canley convenor Eddie McGarry.

Fryer's election has brought an important new element into the struggle for leadership in BL.

He had been reelected a month earlier when the previous left-wing leadership; removed in 1974, was returned to office (including Alan Thornett who was re-elected deputy convenor).

Fryer was quickly elected onto the LCJNC and became an important force.

No longer could the committee be sworn to secrecy as in the past and now management's voice was challenged for the first time.

The LJNC successfully moved for the winding up of The closure of the Speke plant was a key test for Edwardes in implementing his He knew that if he could get away with a closure in Liverpool, a militant and high unemployment area, he would stand a good chance elsewhere.

Prominent among those who made that closure possible were McGarry and Robinson who had so vocally attacked Fryer in January.

committees, without loss of pay.

*Defeat Edwardes and his Tory backers! For a massive campaign for a 'no' vote in Edwardes' ballot!

Mobilise mass action alongside BL workers in the fight to bring down the Tory asset-strippers!

*For the nationalisation without compensation of the engineering industry and the banks, under workers' management. For a socialist plan of production for the need of the many, not the profits of the few!

Robinson conducted Speke mass meetings at which any talk of occupation was carefully avoided and no action was taken: and McGarry knifed the struggle further by agreeing to accept that the work from the doomed Speke plant should be transferred to Canley.

Six weeks ago, Edwardes announced his latest package of closures and redundanciesincluding the closure of Canley. He did so with the experience of Speke firmly under his belt.

But his talk of a further 25,000 lost jobs received a different initial response from BL convenors, and particularly from the CP.

The Combine Committee in emergency. session voted to oppose the plan, announcing that in this stand they had the full support of the TGWU and the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions.

But the Confed was soon to change its tune. Even while leaflets convening a protest demonstration weIe being distributed and a Confed "emergency committee" was meeting. Confed leaders were in close talks with Edwardes.

"Amber light"

Two days before the demonstration, Edwardes, flanked by Confed General Secretary Alex Ferry and President Ken Baker, appeared on television to announce that he now had the "amber light" to proceed with the closures.

But the union bureaucracy held back on a formal statement. On the dèmonstration Confed speakers declared that anyone who thought the Confed has accepted the plan was "mis interpreting the situation"

Edwardes however put out a statement declaring himself puzzled as to why the march had been called, since he had agreement with the Confed!

Four days later at the convenors' conference confusion was ended. While the TGWU secretary of the "emergency committee" stated that the committee still opposed the plan, Alex Ferry urged covenors to accept it, and declared that he was not prepared to fight the plan "over the dead bodies of our members".

When Ferry put the proposal to the vote he was overwhelmingly defeated. But, undeterred, the Confed has proceeded to give "strong support" to the plan to sack thousands of their members. •dwardes ordered. a When ordered a company-run ballot to be organised and a massive press campaign swung into action behind Edwardes, the Confed Executive used thousands of pounds of Eddie McGarry ES *Kick out the Labour traitors! Drive out Edwardos' Confed collaborators, and the Labour leaders whose policies have paved the way for the Edwardes plan. Demand that those who claim to oppose the sackings stand up and lead a fight for a socialist alternative through. out the labour movement, or stand exposed.

*Build principled, revolutiónary leadership among BL workers!

Ken Baker trade union money to place advertisements in the Mirror and the Sun urging; a 'yes' vote.

The spectacle of major trade unions, not turning a blind eye as they are in many cases to the cuts in the public services, not simply acquiescing as they are shipbuilding-but actively fighting for mass redundancies and plant closures, and using the full resources of the unions to do so, must be unprecedented.

Nothing could spell out the bankruptcy of reformist politics more clearly. Nothing could demonstrate in sharper relief the impossibility of opposing management attacks once you accept the capitalist argument that the company must at all costs be made "viable".

It is doubtful if BL could ever be viable in capitalist terms.

For every BL worker there are four workers in the private component industry.

The component suppliers are quite capable of ensuring that BL never makes a profit-at least not a profit that will ever show up in the balance sheet of The answer lies not in the scramble for capitalist viability' over the bodies of thousands of redundant workers, nor in lining up with the weakest sections of British capitalism, the Tribune group and the Communist Party in clamouring for import controls to keep out "foreign" competitors.

Existing jobs must be defended through independent action by the working class-factory occupations demanding a policy of work-sharing on full pay be implemented under the control of trade union committees.

The only long term defence of jobs in BL and in the car industry in general lies in the struggle for the nationalisation of the entire car and component industry and the banks, without compensation to the present exploiters and under workers' management. Car manufacture must be integrated into a planned, socialist economy.

Only in this way can the potential benefits of expanding and improving the productive forces be achieved by the working class.

Such a perspective is not simply a pipe dream. The working class has the power achieve it, provided a leadership is built that is prepared to mobilise massive action in defence of jobs, working conditions and living standards.

Such action must begin now with the decision to occupy threatened plants as a centrepiece of the mass struggles that are necessary to bring down the job-slashing Tory government and spearhead the fight for a government responsive not to the needs of capital but to the interests of the working class.

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SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesaay 7 November, 1979