[only prelude to betrayal: but still Robinson will…]

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only prelude to betrayal: but still Robinson will not criticise AUEW leaders e not to stop the sabotage! abotage !

Edwardes Derek Robinson, chairman 'of the British Leyland Combine Shop Stewards Committee, and convenor of the giant Longbridge works, has been set up for a solid lead sell-out.

Within 24 hours of his being sacked last November 32,000 workers were on strike in his defence.

Yer the following day the ALEW's right wing Executive Council met and postponed a decision on official supportpreferring to wait and se whether the unofficial action crumbled under the weight of the immediate press witch-hunt. A week later, and only a few hours after the TGWU had declared their official backing for the strike. the AUEW leaders ordered their members back to work-and ordered an official union inquir.

"Irresponsiblity"

Three months were then allowed to driit by, with repeated postponements of the announcement of the inquiry's findings.

Then, on Wednesday February 6 the inquiry announced that Derek Robinson was unfairly dismissed But the same inquiry also found him guilty of "irrespon sibility" in his capacity as convenor, and of being in breach of union rules on several counts.

Thus while formally calling for a strike in his defence, the AUEW leaders handed Edwardes all the ammunition he needed to finish off Robinson and defeat the action.

Had Duffy and the AUEW leaders really wanted a strike to defend Robinson they would have called it simultaneously with the publication of the inquiry's findings.

As soon as it was known that the demand • was for his reinstatement there was a surge of support on the shop floor in Longbridge.

But the next day things began, not surprisingly, to change rapidly. The Daily Mirror reported Duffy saying that the EC could not compel members to strike: and the anticommunist campaign in the mass media swung into top gear.

Quick to capitalise

• Management were quick to capitalise on the material handed to them by the AUEW based entirely around six quotations from the inquiry report, which, they stress, describes:

"The serious failings and lack of responsibility shown by Mr. D. Robinson in relation to his duties as our ALEn Convenor at Longbridge."

The company letter points out that "Despite these criticisms, the AUEW asks for reinstatement of Mr Meanwhile, mana gementinspired petitions were circulating in Longbridge, and letterssome apparently even on company-headed notepaper! -were sent to the Birmingham West District Committee, which met on Friday night.

Pointing to an "unprecedented management campaign", , the DC decided to call off Monday's strike. Instead, a meeting of Longbridge AUEW stewards has been called for Wednesday 13 February-to be followed by a further meeting of the DC.

Thus at a point when time is a crucial weapon in the hands of the employers, the strike has effectively been postponed for another week-while the press has had full rein to sow disillusion and demoralisation among militants, and to whip up an anticommunist hysteria amongst backward sections of Longbridge workers.

Yet the retreat was apparently proposed by Robinson's fellow Communist Party members on the District Committee: and it was warmly endorsed by the Communist Party's daily paper, the Morning Star, which reported on Saturday that:

"A special meeting of the ALEW West. Birmingham district committee last night refused to be rushed into a Longbridge strike... 77.

This cynical deception is cimnl the latest cumatom nf a suupy due ideol oylupaun vı u consistent cover-up by the Communișt Party, and by Derek Robinson himself, of the role of the AUEW bureaucracy in this Inevitable From the very outset, despite all the evidence to the contrary, Robinson has insisted that official strike action in his support was inevitable.

Time and again he has avoided the slightest criticism of Duffy's handling of the struggle -despite the fact that over 300 AUEW branches passed resolutions attacking Duffy's action, and over 200 passed a censure motion calling for a ballot of the union's membership on the sacking of the entire Executive Squashed Attempts at the Birmingham rally in Robinson's support to mobilise large forces for a mass lobby of the AUEW EC were squashed by the CP chairman, Len Brindle.

Indeed the entire three months since Robinson was sacked has scen not one initiative by the Communist Party to mobilise workers to bring pressure to bear on the AUEW leaders.

Now Robinson is reaping the bitter fruits of his own political misleadership. But of course it is not simply a question of him as an individual.

Robinson's victimisation

profound implications for all BL workers-and for the working class as a whole.

It the Duffy matia succeed in this knife job they will open up convenors and militants to victimisation throughout the labour movement-at , a time when the employers are driven onto the offensive and the Tories are plotting still further legal moves to crack the strength of the unions.

The demand must be raised at every level within the AUIEW for immediate strike action by the entire membership in BL to fight for Robinson's reinstatement. The TGWU is already pledged to give official support.

All-out strike Conditions for such an action could well be dramatically improved by the expected ballot rejection of Edwardes' insulting 5%-with-strings pay offer.

All unions must be forced to call all-out strike action to press the original £24 claim, and to demand Robinson's unconditional reinstatement as a basis for any return to work.

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UM.. TTY THE SHAH!