TGWU funds pay for new bosses' report on Leyland (continued)

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It amounts to 40 pages of crass comment about the car industry designed to cover up a very deadly sting in the tail.

Like Euro Finance it calls for a partnership with another company and for more investment into BL.

But whereas Euro Finance call for three years of peace and say that any sharp shock would finish the company, the TGWU actually makes it much more specific.

In the key section they call for government funding of £1,532 million by 1985. In return for this they make the following proposals:

"It would be the height of folly to embark on the committal of resources on this scale unless other measures were taken to ensure at least some guarantee of success.

We see there being five major inter-related areas that have to be envisaged:

1. drastic but selective controls over imports 2. declared movement towards a full scale partnership 3. substantial revitalisation of engineering resources 4. continuity of physical output 5. adequate investment.

All five points have to be taken together as they embrace the short term" objective of establishing the viability of the Cars division and the medium term objective of forming part of a two million unit/annum combine.

Beyond that time scale, 1995-2000, the issues are rather speculative. All the points are now examined in some detail".

The key to it all, of course, is "continuity of physical output". This is as near as you can not to a nostrike clance It is the logic of the Ryder report-that the interests (or survival) of the Company comes first-put down in writing in a document compiled by the major union in the car industry.

This is exactly the argument used time and time again by Terry Duffy.

It was the reason Duffy and the Confed accepted the Edwardes plan in the first place (and collaborated in the sacking of Robinson).

In the words of Alex Ferry (Duffy's man in the leadership of the Confed):

"Michael Edwardes gave us a look over the precipice and we didn't like what we saw"

Exactly the same argument was used by Duffy when he urged: acceptance of the 5% offer and 92 pages of strings.

And it was exactly the argument used by Jack Jones and Hugh Scanlon to force in the Ryder plan and the collaborationist "participation' committees which did so much damage to the shop floor movement in BL.

At that time we had Jones and Scanlon on thé front page of the Leyland Mirror sayingKEEP WORKING!

In BL the Jones/Scanion right wing axis of 1976-78 has now been replaced by the Evans/Duffy axis of 1980.

The logic of reformism is inexorable. Moss Evans seemed Great expe Selling at a logs The matorings issue of Levland Mirror verbally far away from Terry Duffy.

He took different positions on Labour Party reform. He seemed far away from Duffy in the Ford strike and the lorry drivers' strike-both issues where the question of capitalist profitability did not appear to be so clearly posed.

Involved

But once Evans became personally involved in BL things were quickly different.

His spectacular collapse last April during the strike in the Midlands plants over the imposition of the 5% wage offer and 92 pages of strings was the key turning point.

No doubt Edwardes gave Evans a quick look over the same precipice that had given Alex Ferry vertigo six months earlier.

When the chips were down, the lett and the right came together in defence of capitalism.

Evans' problem of course will be getting his document accepted by the managementdespite the inducement of a no-strike clause.

For the government, the additional finance called for will be unacceptable. But this does not make the document any less dangerous.