Bring All Leyland Out

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not only Edwardes' 92 pages of mended strike action, TGWU strings but also the miserable officials sat back and watched 5% pay offer and the package of Terry Duffy and the AUEW closures and redundancies that Executive conduct their fraudstill threaten thousands of BL ulent "straw poll" and exploit jobs. craft divisions as a pretext for Yet once again, as so many instructing their members to times before in the long saga of take no action. any serious fight on the issue.

The Longbridge convenor, Communist Party member Jack Adams, for instance, has consistently opposed moves for strike action against Edwardes" insulting offer-pointing to the successful victimisation of Derek Robinson as evidence that it would be "foolhardy" to strike now.

In the Cowley Body Plant, the right wing leadership suffered a rebuff last weekend as a resolution calling on Evans to call all-out strike action throughout BL cars was passed overwhelmingly by the 5/60 Branch.

Mass meetings

But this did not stop these same leaders from intervening the very next day to stop sectional strike action, arguing that 55% of the plant must support a strike before it can be called.

But such leaders have no intention of calling mass meetings to allow the members to express their views. They know full well that even where mass meetings have previously voted against strike action, the solid resistance that has emerged in the last week from workers in Jaguar, Rover and Sherpa van plants have created completely new conditions for a fight.

Given a clear official call for action there would be a solid response throughout BL cars. And in Rovers, AUEW semi-skilled workers are already following the lead of their TGWU brothers and sisters.

Closures

The situation offers a better than ever chance to challenge the struggle to defend jobs and living standards in BL, the crucial factor is the reluctance of union leaders to fight-even now, when the very existence of trade unionism in BL plants is at stake.

*First TGWU convenors and officials brushed aside the ballot vote which even Edwardes admitted amounted to a vote for strike action against the package-and hung fire for weeks, leaving the steel workers to fight on alone.

*Then, as negotiators rejected the package and recom*In the wake of the AUEW sabotage TGWU officia again refused to give any lead leaving the decision on action up to stewards in each plant.

*As mass meetings, denied any perspective of a united struggle, voted against action, TGWU official Grenville Hawley was so confident that no strike would take place that he went off on holiday-as did BL boss Edwardes.

*The fly in Hawley's ointment was the stubborn determination of workers in Jaguar, who set the pace in defving Edwardes April 8 ultimatum.

Their stand was followed by strikes in Rover (Solihull, Acocks Green, Tysley) in the Sherpa plant (Common Lane) and the threatened Castle Bromwich plant-which has now cut off supplies of bodies for the Mini at Longbridge. seizing the opportunity to mount a company-wide fight and-strings package.

They are demanding:

*Mass meetings in every plant not yet out to vote again on strike action in the light of the official strikes already underway in the Midlands.

*Pickets to man the gates of plants still working to leaflet with an appeal for support and halt vital component supplies.

*A link-up of strike committees throughout BL to offer a firm alternative to the TGWU * An unambiguous strike call from Evans to all 47,000 TGWU members in BL cars. To press this case the LAC will be lobbying this week's meeting of the union's Finance and General Purposes Committee.

*No to the 5%! Press the full £24/35 hour week claim!

*No to the strings! Defend hard-won trade union rights!

*No to the closures! Defend all jobs! Occupy threatened plants!

This struggle is a vital one for every BL carworker. And once again it underlines the necessity of constructing a principled revolutionary leadership in the BL unions if workers' independent interests are to be defended.

Hawley (left)