The real record of the Communist Party at Cowley

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ALAN THORNETT reviews, Politics of the Production Line-an Autobiography of an Oxford Carworker, by Arthur Exell, published by the "History Workshop Journal', price £1.45.

The author of this review started work in the Cowley Assembly Plant in May 1959. In September of the same year I joined the Communist Party. I began to be active in the trade union movement and became a shop steward.

Soon afterwards I was discussing with the TGWU branch secretary Tony Bradley. Since anti-communism was much stronger in those days 1 decided to tell him that I intended to become much more active in the branch and that I was a member of the Communist His reaction took me completely by surprise. He said he had no political prejudice against the Communist Party, but in the vast majority of strikes which had taken place in the factory, the best known CP member in the plant, Arthur Exell, came into work.

I found this view to be expressed • even more strongly by the Works Convenor Bob Fryer who organised and led the paint shop where Arthur Exell worked.

He said that in successive strikes in the 1950s (and this certainly proved to be the case in the 1960s) they had never been able to get Arthur Exell out.

Today, The Polities of the Production Line-Autobiography of an Oxford Car Worker, published by the History Workshop and written by Arthur Exell is being presented by the Communist Party as an authoritative account of the CP's principled history in the Oxford car plants.

This makes it important that the book is reviewed and the record put straight.

Unfortunately much of the book is of little relevance except to those who wish to cultivate romantic notions about factory life or enjoy earthy accounts of life on the production line.

This will no doubt make it standard reading for the inhabitants of Ruskin College and students of the WEA. But there is a more serious side.

Arthur Exell started

work at the Radiators plant in North Oxford-supplying components for assembly at Cowley-in November 1929 after coming from South Wales on the hunger marches.

He joined the CP in 1934.

He gives interesting accounts of the work of the CP both in the Radiators factory and in the town.

He describes the victimisation of CP members for attempting to become shop stewards and a rent strike organise on the Florence Park estate (with the help of students from the collegesnotably two young students by the names of Dick Crossman and Patrick Gordon Walker). Arthur Exell and several CP -organisers were evicted as a result of the strike.

Painfully slow Exell's account shows who took their lead from William Morris, the leading employer in Oxford and fanatically anti-union.

Union recognition in the Radiators plant was therefore painfully slow. By 1934 Churchill and Attlar 10 1c.

nure an All 1940.

there were only four union members in the plant-all members of the CP.

In most cases CP membership came first, since joining the union could well mean the sack. Active Labour Party members did not join the union at that time.

The outbreak of war brought changes. The plant was turned over to war production and workers from traditionally unionised areas were moved in.

The Essential Works Order which meant that workers could not leave their job also meant that employers could not sack them. It became easier to Another factor however was more significant-that was CP policy towards the war (although Exell appears to be confused about the exact period).

From his account the Oxford CP-well to the right of national policy-appears to have given full support for the war effort right from 1939, which had dramatic effects in the factories.

When Churchill's government brought in a system of Joint Works Production Committees (JWPC's) to help the war effort the CP were completely behind it.

The Committees were class collaboration bodies similar to the more recent exercises. in "Workers' Participation", , but with far more power.

In Radiators, ArthurExell became the Secretary of the JWPC and set about making the factory more efficient.

From his account he settled enthusiastically into his new role. "Absenteeism was terrible" he explains:

"One of the things we promised was that we would see to it that people came to work"

But this could only be done effectively, he says, if the workers were in a union:

"If they weren't in the union we had no control over them."

The anti-union ur supported continuation o ment was quick to catch on.

After all, they had a fortune to make out of war contracts. Suddenly they wanted everyone into the union.

Excell explains: "That • was when Mr Donol, the works manager, sent for me and said look, I'll give you full permission, you've got all the time you like, get ever woman into the union. Go and talk to them and get them in."

The result was 100% trade unionism-but at what a price! The JWPC was literally the policeman of the plant with Arthur Exell holding the truncheon. He explains how it worked:

"This one certain girl did lose a lot of time. So we had her in front of our committee, and our committee was the trade unionists in the factory and the management. We had to talk to her and told her of the necessity of doing the work properly or else she would have to take the punishment which the government the Churchill government! AT] had authorised us to give.

The punishment first of all would be suspension, but the chance of imprisonment was in the document. I don't remember any case where they were, but it was there for us to use our judgement on it."

Exell retains a reactionary, patronising attitude to women. But this is worse. These were women being conscripted into industry for the first time and required to work under the most appalling conditions-which Exell himself describes.

Threaten workers

But even using the union apparatus to threaten workers with prison did not satisfy the appetite of the Radiators CP branch in their support of the imperialist factory group then made another outstanding offer to the management. We were prepared to form a shock brigade, which meant that the management could call on anyone of us to do any National Government!

job in the factory, in any place at any time.

We had big coloured posters put up in the factory stating the facts and our names. The scheme was used but unfortunately the management used it to give us the jobs that others wouldn't do. But we proved our case."

Presumably the case was proven that the CP. was totally servile to the management. But even that was not enough for Arthur Exell!

While visiting his parents in Liverpoo! Exell attended a meeting addressed by Stafford Cripps. He explained, the activities of the JWPC and Cripps was very impressed.

He awarded the Radiators plant an additional contract.

Unfortunately management considered it was more than the factory could cope with and turned the contract down.

But Arthur Exell was not prepared to settle for this. A meeting of the JWPC was called and they sorted the problem out:

"The trouble was caused by a bottleneck. Men lost hours of their time through waiting at the test for leaks to be repaired and so I suggested that a second set of testing tanks be installed much nearer to the main section.

I am pleased to say that management acknowledged my suggestion and must have told Cripps, for 1 received a letter from him thanking me for my endeavours."

In 1941 came the German invasion of the Soviet Union. If recruitment to the CP had been slow up to that point there was now a dramatic change.

Membership of the Radiators CP branch rose almost over night from 4 to 50. By the end of the war they had 150.

Management gave регmission for a a CP CP branch library of over 500 books to be kept-a ›propriately enough in the foreman's office!

of war Exell comments: "They couldn't grumble at us, because we worked, really produced, which is what a foreman likes."

He goes on: "The library was fantastic, we didn't know how to cope with it. 200-300 people borrowed books ... They were in series: the Little Lenin library and the Little Stalin library."

They sold hundreds of copies of Soviet Weekly in the canteen and 2-300 Daily Workers a day in the factory.

It seems that not all the party members were able to accept this relationship with the management, but dissidents got little sympathy from the party.

Exell recalls Pat Millswho was still in the Oxford CP in my day-arriving at the Rads.

«The most remarkable fellow in our branch was Pat Mills. He was a character on his own ... he was drafted into Radiators. And he was always laughing at everything: he said well, that's one thing, they can't sack me now -I'm under the Essential Works Order'. They sacked him within a couple of days! Yes he was sacked. I think they said he was being awkward. Maybe he was (original emphasis] trying to be very awkward there-you know, it's very silly to be awkward: you go there to do a job. If you can get away with trying to push the party line, all right. But if you were trying to put over propaganda and it was detrimental to the production that wasn't a good thing."!!

Hu mit chi had little impression on the As soon as the war was over, all this collaboration hard-nosed motor bosses. No sooner had the victory celebrations died down and the Essential Works Order been lifted than they began the wholesale sacking of the militants at the Rads and including the convenorapparently without resistance.

Exell explains: "This meant the firms came back into their own, and the first thing they did was to remove all the trade union militants within their power ... I wasn't touched just then because I had long service having started in the 20s, so I at once took the convenor's job."

Two years later in the January of 1947,. management moved again.

"Things went on improving until the fuel crisis. The country was still staggering from the aftermath of the war, no coal stocks, and transport still in chaos, and then this terrific snowstorm: 22 January 1941, that was the day everything closed down right the way throughout Oxford, including the factory. On 23 January a car arrived at the house driven by the chauffeur from Radiators asking me to go to the factory for an interview with the general manager.

I went there as convenor and insisted that the chairman of the Stewards Committee should also be there, as I never believed in interviews on your own.

So Billy Brooks was sent for-a very sincere Salvation Army man. We sat and listened to what was going to happen.

We couldn't argue but we wanted to know about the restarting of the place, and how we would be informed.

They talked quite freely and it sounded common sense-little did I know that they were going to use the great upheaval to get rid of me.

Anyway said the men would sent for, first peace-time cars starting with the boilermen, electricians, and maintenance men, and then start building up production and we all would return as time went on.

So back to the dole, where I was able to tell most of the men from Radiators What was planned. A fortnight went by and there was no change in the weather but Cowley had sent for a lot of their men.

Soon the maintenance men were sent for, and then I found they were recalling men from my own department with less service than I had.

I kept chasing the management and there was lots of correspondence and lots of excuses, saying that I would be sent for as soon as they could fit me in.

Distice coming to tho, and reporting to them.

I was told to be patient, but that wasn't my idea of a trade union-the convenor being outside and all the men inside. I said, 'Look, it's about time you had an interview with the management of Radiators, because I think they've got no intention of having me back!' And they used to poohpooh the idea, the union people did. But it was true. They never intended having me back. When we had the final, the real, meeting with the management and Longworth, who was the division. al organiser, they said, Well, we have come to the conclusion, Mr Longworth, that he is a communist agitator, and we don't want that sort of thing in the factory, and that's when Longworth, said, 'And I don't blame you either'. So that was it. That was the final blow. Out I went."

Having been sacked after years of collaboration with the management, Exell even

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mmunist Party at Cowlej Blackleg rides towards his fellows after breaking through Cowley pickets in 1956 posed in his ifence! "I remember there was a ruple of party members ho did get around, you low, and try to organise a rike. But I couldn't see a ake doing any good when e union was against me." ¡ Arthur Exell's account of - war period is very interling for what it shows of • long history of class laboration of the Oxford but it shows an incredle ignorance on Exell's part I the official CP line or of at was going on in the irid as a whole.

He never attempts to deal political terms with the And none of the major irld events-like the Iscow Trials or the 1939 per-Stalin pact feature in description of the pre• period. At the end ot ! war the CP's initial supM for Churchill's national rernment goes by without mention.

During the war it is all ¿ long story of "keep your ¡e to the grindstone. Yet Exell must have bwn that elsewhere in the intry workers were king for wages and conions and that the CP was ring to fight against itant resistance in order persuade workers to back imperialist war effort:

Continuity Surprisingly in May 1947 hur Exell got a start in Fris Motors. William iris, now Lord Nuffield, y owned the Radiators nt and management used ! to grant him continuity service from when he rted at Rads.

This, he explains, gave more redundancy hey when he finally took intary redundancy in P'KISS. Thursda!

He justifies selling his job by saying "I am always appreciative of anything the working class can get from their employers. " Principles we can assume, don't come into it.

To say that his account of the 28 years in the Morris plant is highly selective would give it credibilty it doesn't deserve.

He actually managed to reduce those 28 years to four pages of his 76 page book and unbelievably doesn't even mention Bob Fryer who has been the TGWU convenor and dominant personality of the plant since 1959 (with a break from June 1974 to December 1979).

Distortion

Exell even fails to mention the major AUEW convenors outside his CP/ Broad Left "everyday tale of country folk"

To achieve this distortion he concentrates almost exclusively on the period of the 1950s-where he was at least active in the shop stewards' movement although he managed to separate this from any kind of militant role within the plant.

He was active. on-or at least attended meetings of -the early AUEW-dominated Joint Shop Stewards Committee (the AUEW were by far the majority union at that time) and was a right wing body which had failed to organise the still largely non-union plant.

Under pressure from the Midlands CP branches Exell was also active in the early combine committee set up throughout the Nuffield factories and later broadened to other car combines.

He still attended when l began to go to the meetings the early 1960s.

In 1956 (he wrongly dates it as 1953) he took part in an official strike against selective redundancy which was led by stewards from the minority TGWU.

The TGWU, under the local leadership • of people like Bob Fryer and Tony Bradley were fighting to bring a new, more militant, brand of trade unionism into the plant.

Management responder v sacking the -wo con venor Frank Horsman. The AUEW opposed the strike but Exell claims to have supported it as an individual.

The strike was a catalyst for the development of the TGWU, who were soon to become the majority union.

Significantly, Arthur Exell never mentions a strike he ever led, which is not surprising, since as far as l have been able to establish he never led anything in Cowley.

Immediately after the 1956 strike a meeting was called to begin a unionisation drive in the plant.

It was spearheaded by the paintshop where Bob Fryer was the TGWU shop steward. Exell was an AUEW steward in the same shop.

A series of strikes dramatically improved pay-and 100% trade union membership was achieved along with the first £20 wage packet.

Arthur Exell was one of the few in the paint shop who consistently refused to support those strikes. He played no role in the struggle to unionise the rest of the plant (which was organised late by motor industry standards), which proceeded under very bitter conditions, up to its final achievement in 1966.

This culminated in the period of the infamous "Cowley Noose Trial" -used by the Tories as the basis of their 1966 election paign.

The successful unionisation struggle resulted in a very militant period in the plant during the second half of the 1960s. There were over 1,000 strikes in the plant between 1965 and 1970.

Arthur Exell was not involved in a single one of them. During that whole turbulent period he was an irrelevance on the plant, rarely attending stewards meetings even in his own section.

But perhaps the clearest indication of what Arthur Exell really saw as the "politics of the production line" is contained in the penultimate paragraph of his book.

I was gratified, when 1 left, he says: "to see a fine, strong trade union movement had been left behind me.

He is speaking of 1975. This was one year after the back of a very militant shop floor movement had been broken in the events following my victimisation as Deputy Convenor of the TGWU and the strike resulting from it in April/May 1974.

Although I was successfully defended, Jack Jones, then General Secretary of the TGWU moved in and removed Bob Fryer from office.

"Clean-up"

Reg Parsons became the convenor and the ultra right were put in control.

Jack Jones was acting in line with the commitment the TGWU. had made with the Labour government to "clean up" the union and control the militant plants. BL placed massive financial resources at the disposal of local management to back the move..

For 3½ years they pursued their openly proclaimed policy of "smashing Trotskyism" and driving those who had organised the plant and built the union out of the union and out of the To achieve this they systematically smashed up everything which had been built:

They broke up the giant 5/55 TGWU branch of which I was chairman and the JSSC of which I was chairman.

Victimisation

They organised the victimisation of militantsdriving many of them to despair and then to redundancy.

Throughout this. period right wing were selecting Bob Fryer: his fight recenes no CP members for appointed full time trade union positions in the plant knowing that they could be relied upon to uncompromisingly fight the militants and support the management.

Voted out

Although : Parsons was voted out in 1977 and the old leadership re-elected, damage was done to the structure of the shopfloor movement which has still by no means been repaired.

Arthur Exell reflects the CP in that period. CP members were the most loyal supporters of the right wing in every single move they made.

When I was sentenced by the TGWU to expulsion from the union and thereby faced the prospect of being sacked from the plant as a non-unionist, and Bob Fryer sentenced to be mentio banned from all office for life, the CP were the only stewards to vote against a motion from the TGWU stewards committee to resist these victimisations to the full.

Arthur Exell's book is not so much an "autobiography of an Oxford carworker" as a cover up of the CP in Cowley.

Ironically the publishing of Exell's book coincides with the ending of the role of the CP in the Cowley Assembly Plant-at least for the forseeable future.

All five of their active members have now followed Exell's lead and taken voluntary redundancy.

Veteran

Ron Jones, Exell's fellow veteran in the paint shop went 2 years ago. Two more left the factory for the greener pastures of Ruskin College. And the remaining two-Mick soanes and lony Gallagher-both very leading CP members in the areawent VR last week.

Ironically enough, Gallagher had until that time been prominent on the committee organising the Peoples March for Jobs!

Those of us whom Arthur Exell did not have time te mention (or maybe he could not bring himself to pronounce our names) are still there. And unlike Exell and his lk, it we can survive a few problems (like the current management offensive; the collapse of the car markets; the rundown of BL and periodic attacks from trade union bureaucrats) we will be there for a long time yet.

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SOCTALIST PRESS; Thursday IT June 198.1. .:Rage 8

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how hard it was to organise a union against employers

war effort. Exell explains: •The Communist Party