Chrysler: Fight Back Now

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The Select Committee of the House of Commons looking into public spending in Chrysler International held a public hearing at the Stoke plant in Coventry on 12th February.

In the course of the hearing both management and union leaders had to answer the questions of the MPs on the running of the plant.

The management. for their part, were greatly embarassed when they were asked about the document Chrysler Crisis - The Workers Answer produced by shop stewards at the Whitley plant.

Only one of the four representatives had read the document and he had failed to pass it on to his colleagues.

This document raises numerous questions about the running of the plant since the Chrysler takeover. For example, in seven years Chrysler invested only £802,000 in the Stoke plant which also lost 509,963 hours out of a total of 3,843,100 through break-down of the archaic machinery.

LIMITED

As a result of these questions it emerged • that the power and influence of the managers at plant level is so severely amited that they weren't even' consulted in the negotiations for the rescue plan!

There were also several searching questions on the value given to machinery when moved from plant to plant within the company, to which the answers were confused.

The answers given by the trade unionists present on the other hand were clear and unambiguous. Not one of them could see the problem in anything other than capitalist terms. The cause of the present problem was in their eyes simply "lack of investment" on the part of Chrysler International. There were repeated references to the "change" that came over the company when Rootes was taken over.

The company changed from being a "family business" • where apparently "you knew where you stood" to the large corporation now in crisis.

Small wonder with these bankrupt conceptions these "leaders" had been unable to challenge a single move on the part of Chrysler and the Labour The union leaders went to great pains to emphasise that "given the money" they would make the company viable again - in other words re-establish the flow of profits to Chrysler shareholders.

This when, on their own admittance, they don't know the full details of the rescue' plan and have yet to be consulted!

"FUTURE"

They repeatedly assured the committee that they would do everything in their power to maintain industrial relations and work to give the governmentbacked private company a future.

This can mean only one thing. that trade unionists like TGWU convenor Eddie McClusky (a member of the Communist Party) and AUEW convenor Duncan Simpson will lead the attack on the workers at the Stoke plant.

This was made most clear in the discussion around the decision of Chrysler to buy 300,000 engines from Volkswagon - engines that could be made at Stoke.

McClusky said that if they got the money from Parliament they could make the engines as cheaply as Germany, opening the door for lay-offs, speed-up and every form of attack on the workforce to increae productivity and make it pay for the crisis.

What else can this mean, except that these trade unionists will collaborate with the management to streamline production in an attempt to keep the Stoke plant open. 'Left' reformists like local MP. Audrey Wise (who sat in on the hearing) must also take the blame for the savage attacks now taking place against the workers at NOTHING For all the fine words and speeches the lefts' have done nothing to defend jobs.

Within the plant itself, the night shift is being given only two nights To Be Published Mid March work every other week, while the day shift is forced to spend most of the time sweeping the floors and keeping the machines clean.

The "Job Centre" set up inside the plant is offering workers jobs that pay from £14 to £30 a week! This, when as everyone knows in June, the next round of redundancies will be compulsory.

It is within this context that the fight to defend jobs in Chrysler must be seen.

As the recent successful strike at Linwood shows, management will not respect existing agreements but it is far more concerned to prevent the real strength of the shop floot from rejecting the rescue" plan.

Audrey The fight to defend jobs can only be successfully carried through under a leadership that fights around a programme similar to that which has been highlighted in the recent witch-hunt of trade unionists at British Leyland, Cowley.

It must demand that the books of Chrysler International be opened to an elected trade union committee. Only such a committee would be able to show the extent of the run-down of Chrysler in Britain, and expose how profits made at plants within Britain have been channelled into subsidiaries of Chrysler in Switzerland, It would then draw up a real plan for Chrysler that would include nationalisation and a programme of state contracts to ensure no reduction in the workforce, while plans are agreed for an integrated nationalised car industry.