BL strike heads anti-Tory fight FORDS, MINERS, FIGHT NOW nd the not unique. The fall in living ON PAY! conference-November 15-See page 11

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"Enough is enough!" was the mood of tens of thousands of British Leyland carworkers, who last week raised their hands for strike action in mass meetings throughout the corporation. Michaeir adwardesje insulting "final offer" of 6.8% plainly amazed the Tory press and mass media-and caught the management unawares.

Facing inflation now running at 16% a year, BL workers were painfully aware that their pay increases over the last three years have totalled less than 18%, while productivity has been driven up in repeated management attacks on their working conditions.

Hard-won agreements have been torn up by management; combine committee chairman Derek Robinson has been victimised; and tens of thousands of jobs have been axed-while union leaders have done everything in their power to avoid a fight.

Different But this time even BL convenors and union officials have had to recognise a very different mood on the shop floor. Enough is enough! The popular demand for mass meetings to decide on the offer left the right wing advocates of secret ballots isolated-and the mass meeting votes vindicated all those who had argued that BL workers are ready and willing to fight.

By 40,000 to 20,000 they threw out the 6.8% offer and gave convenors an inescapable mandate for all-out action.

Swept aside have been the now routine press propaganda threatening closure and chaos if a strike is called; the warnings of lings of ment. dire consequences Metro production is halted; and the company's attempts to use short time working as an additional pressure to force home the 6.8% deali Key

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B 11 - RADA rage SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 5 November 1980