No Pay Talks at Lucas,

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Returned to office after five years of Labour betrayals, Litany cuwarues Is not pre- move, senior management in pared just to lead by example CAV met with all of the senior policies to defend jobs, wages and social services Not content with 3,000 redundancies in their Midlands factories, Lucas, the multi-national components company, is extending its attacks on the workforce on to the wages front.

As the crisis deepens it is perhaps reflected most sharply in the motor industry. As all the major motor firms announced cutbacks and redundancies it could only be a matter of time before the suppliers were affected.

In common with other exporters, Lucas blames the strong pound for falling sales ovérseas-but little mention is made of the fact that this is a direct result of the Tory government's high interest rates.

Falling sales in Britain are attributed to the fact that major customers are either on short time working or cutting back on production in some other way.

Stale old This tale of woe inevitably ends up with the stale old charge that British workers are just not productive enough.

The logic of all this for the capitalists of course is to enforce speed-ups, redundancies and wage cuts in an attempt to restore their falling rate of profit.

The redundancies have already begun and last week saw the announcement of wage cuts as Lucas told the unions that they were not prepared to offer more than 10%-12%.

Most workers employed by the company had submitted claims more in line with the rate of inflation, i.e. around 20%30%.

These claims, the bosses maintain, i are "completely unrealistic". , and the offer they have made is a final one that they will not negotiate.

In a move designed to set sections of workers at each other's throats they have said they are prepared to discuss only how the money will be distributed between skilled and unskilled workers.

These tactics are being employed not only in the parent company but also in the subsidiaries as well. The course of events in one of these, Lucas CAV, may serve to illustrate the way they are operating.

Attacks

Lucas CAV is involved primarily in the production of starters and diesel pumps for commercial vehicles. Its main customers are BL, Fords, Vauxhall and Perkins, all of which are mounting attacks on their own workforces.

BL has in fact instructed CAV not to put up its prices or BL will not trade with them any more.

Monal Damnada. i- cond AT IT but is forcing suppliers to increase exploitation of their workers on pain of losing contracts.

The employer has been softening up the workforce with propaganda about the lack of profitability of CAV for a considerable amount of time. trade unionists, both staff and manual, from all of the CAV factories in the country.

In all, about 70 trade unionists met with Bob Lucas, the managing director of CAV and the managers of each of the plants.

After giving a lecture on the depth of the capitalist crisis and why it was all the fault of the working class, management issued their ultimatum.

There would be no negotiations on this year's pay and the employers would offer a package which would be all the company could afford and would be impossible to increase through any bargaining.

Under questioning, Lucas admitted that even if the package were accepted, he could not promise that there would pointed to the need for the unions to form a combine committee so that Lucas can be fought in a united way rather than allowing plants to be played off against each other.

The leaflet pointed to the need for such a combine to fight to open the books of Lucas to expose the profits that are creamed off by banks and finance houses and to see what the state of the company really is.

Should the company really be bankrupt it will show the need for it to be nationalised under workers management with no compensation along with the rest of the motor industry as part of a socialist planned economy.

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the answers in PRESS CAV