Bl Skilled Men Defend Jobs

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On Wednesday the 600 AUEW skilled men in the Leyland Body Plant at Cowley walked out. They are due to meet on Tuesday as we go to press.

The strike is in response to a . company offensive which is aimed at breaking all demarcation lines.

Amongst the skilled men this first of all means merging some skilled departments such as the Press and General Millwrights.

But this is only the first step. It is to be followed by skilled men doing a number of other jobs-such as sweeping.

The same is happening amongst production workers where, on the new Leyland Honda, workers are doing their own inspection and their own sweeping.

The AUEW members are making a stand for all Leyland workers. And, true to form, the AUEW has instructed them back to work.

Immediately the strike started the company was able to issue a letter to all the strikers saying:

"There is no objection from your union full time officials to the amalgamations taking place."

But these amalgamations, and those amongst other workers, are rapidly creating a situation where compulsory redundancies are liable to take place.

The strike of the skilled men is having only a limited effect at the moment.

The danger is that a defeat would not only set back the fight in defence of jobs but also enable union leaders to victimise toolroom leader Roy Fraser-who has just resigned as Oxford District President in disgust at the AUEW leadership's attitude.

The only possibility for victory is the continuation of the strike and the blacking of scab work done by management.

The strike by 600 workers at the Priestmans factory in Hull enters its third week with no sign of the unions involved making the action official.

The strike began on Friday 27 March when the workforce walked out after management had posted up a notice saying there would be a 10% cut in the workforce and that there would be no annual wage increase.

The workers remain solid, and determined that management withdraw any threats of redundancies and open up negotiations on a realistic wage increase, before there is any talk of a return to work.

The developments of the past week have clearly shown how great is the gulf between the strikers and the official leadership.

The strike committee have resisted all the efforts of the bureaucracy to wrest reaction and united strike action of several sections of manual workers, council leaders have signalled their intention to implement Torr cuts by far-reaching am many-sided attacks on the public sector workers.

The strike arose after management responded to a union meeting by taking city engineers off the clock along with 150 other workers.

Frustrated at this latest attack on their ability to discuss their problems workers staged a spontaneous march of protest to the Council House.

This set off other events that culminated in the biggest local authority strike in Coventry since the 1960s.

By Thursday the action had escalated and the workers were joined by the entire City Engineers Depot plus those at Whitley and Windmill Road.

Standstill

Street lighting, cleansing, refuse collection, highways, stores, and mechanics all came to a total standstill. of the strike.

Hysterical

In the District Labour Party meeting on Thursday night councillor Geoff White the chairman of the public works committee sought to prevent a discussion on the strike after making a hysterical statement against the strikers in the local presswhich at once sprang to their defence.

In the eyes of the strikers the hypocrisy of the right wing councillors did not go unnoticed.

After years of cuts, the cause of the elderly, the mentally and physically handicapped, day centres. hospitals appointments and the innocent' was being nobly upheld by these class traitors!

Workers maintained picket lines, contacting the Parks Department and ambulance, fire and bus stewards, and setting up a strike headquarters.

The strike committee was beginning to consolidate ended with a vote to recommend a return to work at the mass meeting the following day.

Union officials having witnessed the strength of local authority workers developing, were relieved to seçure a quick settlement.

The strike committee had discussed taking complete control of policy and had plans for the setting up of an ongoing organisation' arising from the strike in order to defend jobs in the future.

However, the TGWU official, effectively claiming credit for the victory, wound up the mass meeting swiftly in an attempt to defuse the new found unity of the workforce.

Confused

The meeting ended in a confused manner without having discussed a pe spective of developing streigth from the dispute.

The task now remains to regain the organisation of the shop stewards movement and to shape it in the form