[By means of a carefully orchestrated conspiracy between…]

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By means of a carefully orchestrated conspiracy between the right wing and the Stalinists the Shop Stewards Committee at British Leyland's Cowley Assembly Plant voted by a majority of 128 to 72 to participate in the Ryder Report Joint Management Committees which are designed to force in speed up and break the power of the shop stewards movement.

During the two days of discussion the class nature of so-called workers participation had clearly emerged. Speaker after speaker demonstrated that Ryder is a device for substantially increasing the exploitation of Leyland workers, breaking agreements and taking away the conditions they have won over many years. Prior to the Stalinists' intervention, linked to an organisational carve up of the agenda by the right wing through the chairman, Cy Blake, there was an overwhelming majority against Ryder.

Everyone knew, from the start; the importance of the Cowley decision. The employers and the right wing knew that a decision to reject Ryder from the Cowley Assembly Plant would reverberate throughout the Corporation. The Stalinists knew that such a decision would c hallenge their position in the Cor nbine Committee where leading CP members have been steeped in Ryder from the beginning.

The carve up began from the start of the meeting. Having been forced off an initial position that Ryder was already accepted and no vote at all would be allowed, the chairman confined the next 1½ days discussion to individual clauses, saying that an overall discussion would také place at the end of the meeting, making it impossible for a coherent alternative to be put.

In the final session two motions were submitted: one for acceptance of Ryder and one for rejection. The acceptance motion was put first to the meeting. The result of this was that at the point where an alternative strategy could be put the mover of the acceptance motion had unlimited time to move and reply with everyone else restricted to 3 minutes.

DECISIVE

Under these conditions the Stalinist intervention was decisive. Having not spoken in the previous day and a half, they now moved in as the main supporter of the acceptance motion. It was the intervention from the left' which swung a section of the meeting. The right wing alone could not have done it.

The Stalinists fraudulently argued that Ryder was "the first step towards workers control" and that "we can build on it from within" They claimed that Ryder does not mean agreements will, be broken, that the trade unions can maintain their independence and continuing that it can be thrown out after a years trial.

Because of the way the agenda was set up no reply was possible to these Stalinist positions which have been promoted through such people as Bob Wright - so-called left on the Executive Committee of thr AUEW.

In swinging the vote the Stalinists did an important job for the employers and the Labour government. They did it under conditions where the majority of workers were against Ryder.

On the Princess track workers and shop stewards are resisting a joint ad hoc investigating committee sent in under Ryder and have voted at a mass meeting for an investigation to be carried out by the open the books committee.

This shows that despite the man. oeuvres the struggle on Ryder is only just beginning. As workers come into action against speed up and in defence of jobs and agreements they will have to enter into conflict with all those who have supported participation and now sit with management organising the attacks.

This followed a meetin g of the Party praesidium chaired by Tito earlier in the month and de voted to 'certain aspects of the hostile attempts on the Party and on Yugoslavia' MOTIVE There is certainly one strong present motive for Tito to make his arrests and trials of those accused of pro-Moscow activity public - the fact that the Yugoslav CP is now in the leadership of a minority of European CPs who are opposed to Brezhney's plans for a joint conference to set out a common political line. At the same time the Yugoslav leadership are cultivating much closer relations with China than in the past.