Car crisis: a programme for BL workers

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ting a new el que el finn crisis point for the nt Mannann the otticials One of the most dramatic aspects of the current world slump has been the collapse of vehicle sales.

From small cars through to heavy trucks, sales have plunged by anything : from 25 to 60%: two of the three major US car monopolies are deep in the red with losses totalling well over $2 billion predicted for this financial year.

The plunge in sales has produced a crisis of overproduction for the major manufacturers: and as stocks of unsold cars have grown uncontrollably, a spate of layoffs, closures and cutbacks have been imposed on a world scale.

In the USA, domestic car production is down to 5.5 million this year-3.8 million below the 1978 figure. 300,000 car workers are laid off, along with a further 500,000 in component firms and related businesses.

In Italy, Fiat is facing an unsold stock of 60,000 cars with losses on car production last year of $120 million: lay offs have been prevented so far only by militant union resistance.

sackings In West Germany 12,000 car workers have lost their jobs in Ford and Opel, while tens of thousands more are on short time working in the other firms.

In Britain, too, every major car manufacturer is operating short time, lay offs or redundancies as sales have slumped by over 38% this year.

And things are getting worse as the recession continues to deepen.

In such • conditions competition between car giants becomes cut throat. There are signs of a price war as manufacturers scramble to launch new models to corner an increased share of a declining market.

Ford, for instance, have launched their new world car' (the Escort replacement), the Erica, at a US price that means an estimated $200 per car loss in a bid to recapture lost sales.

And Ford's $4 billion investment programme includes the establishment of automation far in advance of its European rivals -with 500 assembly robots operating in Europe in the next three years.

General Motors, too, is embarked on a vast multi-billion international investment programme involving the closure of "obsolete" plants in Australia and West Germany and the building of new plants with government aid in Austria, Spain and Northern Ireland.

Overshadowing these massive investment programmes is the growth of Japanese car exports.

By 1984 Japanese car exports to the USA are expected to equal Ford's entire US production!

Strikes

Throughout Europe, too, cal manufacturers are bleating long and loud about import penetration-and, of course, blaming workers for low productivity and strikes as supposedly the cause of their economic crisis.

In Britain, Ford has emerged seen both Talbot and Vauxhall claiming to make a loss.

BL, after returning only marginal profits. has now returned a £155 million loss for the first half of this year, indicacorporation.

But recent months have seen a rapid deterioration in the UK. Both Talbot and Vauxhall are on short time.

The slump, coupled with closures in heavy manufacturing industry such as steel, have also resulted in the lay up of tens of thousands of lorries in the areas affected.

Worst slump This has created by far the worst slump in the history of the heavy vehicle industry. Fodens have gone into liquidation, while some BL heavy vehicle plants are operating only one day a week.

In cars, BL plants are operating at only a fraction of capacity with many plants on short time working. Further cuts are taking place at Jaguar, Range Rover, the Rover SD1 Saloon where output is now a mere 20% of the target announced when the model was launched four years ago.

The Cowley Assembly Plant which has a capacity of nearly 10,000 cars a week, is also cutting production down to 1,900 a week-a mere 20% of capacity.

These BL cuts come despite the near completion of the factory closures under the Edwardes plan. Canley is now closed, Castle Bromwich is closed and MG closes next month.

The best indication of the slump is the new mini Metro, which was to be the "saviour of BL" . Before it is even in the showrooms its production target has been halved to 3,500 per week!

• Similarly the new Morris Ital has been cut back after only 3 months on the market.

Under these conditions can BL survive? It is hard to see how.

Certainly the near future is likely to produce at the very least a further "Edwardes Plan"

foreshadowing the complete break-up of the company.

Bleak

Under these conaitons how can BL workers defend their jobs?

face of it things look impossibly bleak. The employers are getting away with murder.

Factories throughout industry are closing daily.

But it must be understood that the biggest single reason for the success of the employers in closing plants without resistance from the workforce is that the strength of the trade union movement has never been used to stop one!

In steel, for example, not a finger is being lifted to stop the closures. Redundancy pay was negotiated at Port . Talbot against the official policy of the unions.

At Consett the unions •reluctantly recommended"

acceptance of the closure-even while stirring speeches were being made against the closure at the TUC!

The Confed actually backed the Edwardes plan. When BL balloted the workforce the Confed enclosed a letter urging a "yes" vote.

As a result, Derek Robinson was sacked and Edwardes won a major victory.

Is it any wonder with such leaders that there are few fights against closures at the present time?

When workers make a stand, refuse to give them backing to win.

It closures are to be challenged there is only one answer -a programme to defend the jobs, direct action to implement the programme and the mobilisation of the full strength of the trade union movement behind that action.

But a programme and action of this kind is a directly political It requires a leadership that refuses to accept the "right" of the employer to make profits at the expense of the exploitation and redundancy of his workforce.

Overthrow In other words it requires a leadership that is prepared to fight for the overthrow of the anarchic and crisis-ridden capitalist system of production.

But the existing trade union leadership seek only to achieve reforms within the capitalist system.

They recognise that their own at salaries, expense accounts and influential positions depend upon their ability to balance between the strength of the working class and the strenoth of the employers. If the employers were defeated, the union bureaucracy itself could also be swept away.

No reforms This is why the union leaders time and again emerge as opposed to any direct challenge to the system itself: and even when the capitalists make it clear there are no reforms on offer, the union bureaucrats divert workers with illusions that if they make concessions on hard-won conditions and living standards, it will open the dooI.

The Stalinists of the Communist Party who dominate the shop stewards in BL are no different. Their policy of "peaceful coexistence" with capitalism lands them. up in peaceful coexistence with Edwardes! They have an appalling record.

They accepted both the Measured Day Work system and the Ryder Report. Derek Robinson, as senior "participation" representative pledged "total cooperation" at the inception of the Metro project.

The Stalinists supported the witch-hunt of Trotskyists. They helped to introduce the new five 3r.: grade structure and advocated corporate-level bargaining. They even refused to challenge Duffy when Robinson himself was sacked in a major move designed to discipline the trade union movement.

Now Jack Adams, the successor to Derek Robinson has circulated a bulletin around the Longbridge plant calling for full cooperation with the mini Metro project-only days atter he was dsciplined by management for attending a meeting of the BL Combine Committee!

• Between the Communist Party convenors and right wing union officials a division of labour has been established in which through both the official and unofficial bodies of the unions they combine to block any independent struggle and to force through the only policy they can offer-on which they both agree: the reactionary call for import controls.

Apparent logic

Many workers see more import controls as a way to save British industry and British jobs.

The policy appears to have a logic: imported cars for example have doubled their penetration into the British market in the past ten years.

Imports are going up. Woul it therefore not be "sensible" tr cut imports and protect thi British car industry?

Afterall didn't "Japanes competition" destroy thi motorcycle industry?

It is this kind of apparen logic, coupled with an over whelming desire not to get int‹ a confrontation with the moto employers which has led. majo unions like the IGWU to bas everything around the demanı on the Tories for impor The TGWU Executiv Council launched their Sav British Industry Campaign la: spring which adopted. a te point charter on impor They have adopted a TGW 'alternative plan' in which the offer a no-strike clause in retur for import controls and moi investment.

The question is woul import controls save jobs even Margaret Thatcher and Keil Joseph could be persuaded 1 implement them?

Thatcher and Joseph 1 course look at things from di point of view of capitalism: a whole and know the imper

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SOCIALIST PRESS, Hednesda: September 17 1980 suppliers, distributors and banks.

*For a new leadership in BL -build the Leyland 1 .ction Committee.

*Strengthen the shop stewards movement-rebuild the combine *For grated under wr committee.

a nationalised, inteautomotive industry irkers' management. manning levels must be defended and workers who go VR replaced on their jobs.

Work sharing on full pay, when management cut production.

BL workers have fallen far behind in the wages league. In 1973 for example, the national average wage was £40 a week. A track worker in BL was on £50. Now a BL track worker is on €88 and the national average wage is £122.

This year the 20% claim must be won in full. One of its weaknesses is that it has no cost of living clause to cancel out the effects of inflation.

Future claims must contain such a clause. Since the working class are not responsible for inflation and have no influence over it they must have agreements adequate to protect them against it.

But neither jobs nor wages are going to be defended unless there is a struggle for leadership.

The official leaders are moving rapidly to the right-as shown at the recent TUC Congress. Now they are not just calling for import controls but even supporting Callaghan's

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as the most profitable car manu- facturer, while the past year has