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*Since this article was com- cies noork sharing on full pay! UP @Mirror No 46 wuss September 15th 1976 Every month's quality month in the Mirror Think of (1120,000 people in the Group Whether or not the document becomes formally accepted, the "declaration of intent" spells out the attitude of the TGWU leadership.

It says clearly that the problems of the management are more important than even the most basic trade union principles.

The point will not be lost on Edwardes or the government.

Secondly the document is immediately damaging to the struggle for the wage review. It provokes discussion about the viability of the Company at just the point when all attention should be turned towards the negotiations due to begin for the November wage review.

But the document is not the only problem the workers facealthough it is the most far-reaching.

When the bargaining structure in BL is taken into account it can be seen that BL workers are in a very difficult position indeed.

The fact is that since corporate bargaining was introduced 18 months ago BL workers have had no means of expressing their collective view except through a highly bureaucratised Joint Negotiating Committee-which had no powers to call strike action even if its decisions could have been influenced by the shop floor.

Last April even this body was virtually disbanded after it supported the strike in the Midlands plant.

Not influenced A committee comprised of national officials who could not be influenced in any way by the shopfloor was set up, with powers to override the JNC.

It quickly used these powers to sign a highly controversial procedural agreement over the heads of the BL workforce which effectively crushed any opposition to the new five grade structure forced in by management.

Whilst TGWU officials and leading convenors have been OPENI Demonstration drawing up the document and giving away the right to strike, nothing has been done to reconstitute the JNC in order to clear the way for wage negotiations to begin.

They have completely ignored the campaign waged in some plants for a democratic representative JNC to be set up based on a representative conference of BL workers.

In the Cowley Assembly Plant workers signed a mass petition on these lines and copies were sent to every level of the TGWU inside and outside of BL-but no response has been forthcoming.

Edwardes meanwhile has been far from complacent. He has called for the JNC to be permanently replaced by a committee comprised solely of national officials, and has sent proposals on these lines to the general secretaries of the unions concerned.

He has also made the major tactical move of withdrawing BL from the Engineering Employers Federation from 1 August 1980.

The implications of this are farreaching for BL workers.

From 1 August all agreements negotiated with the Federation covering minimum rates, premium payments, holidays and hours of work will cease to exist.

Yet not a word has reached the shop floor from the unions.

They have been too busy pleted more information has become available on the reconstitution' of the JNC. It appears that the Confed has met and considered two proposals-one from the TGWU calling for proportional representation, and one from Michael Edwardes, calling for more national officers and fewer convenors.

The JNC met last Friday but nothing was resolved. No further moves towards reconstitution' will now take place until August 27. Meanwhile there is no JNC and therefore no means of negotiating wages. against the Edu ›ardes plan trying to solve ine company s profitability problems at the expense of their members.

It is obvious that another major attack on BL workers is in the offing.

Edwardes will use the crisis in the industry and his withdrawal from the Federation to launch another vicious package against BL workers in reply to the review.

The Combine Committee has not met since Derek Robinson was sacked. Its first meeting since that time is scheduled for Wednesday of this week.

It is crucial that the committee takes the decision to reject all capitalist "solutions" to the problems of BL workers.

It must tackle the question of democratic representation of BL workers on a reconstituted JNC. The Cowley Assembly Plant has placed this on the agenda and it is crucial it is supported.

There is no reformist answer to this attack. The problems of crisis on a world scale.

Workers are not the cause of this crisis. They have no influence over it and no responsibility towards it.

Their only answer can be to defend their independent interests against the interests of capitalism.

That means not selling the right to strike but exercising it.

It means using the strength of the trade union movement to stop the closures and redundancies now.

*Work sharing on full pay! *Open the books of BLand its suppliers and distributors to an elected committee of rank and file trade unionists!

*For a nationalised, integrated, automotive and components industry.

*For a democratic, fully representative, negotiating committee elected at a delegate conterence.

*For a wage claim to restablish the standard of living of BL workers and a sliding scale of wages to protect the new rates against inflation.

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BL are the problems of capital- ism which is in acute economic