Blow to Ryder

Scan page 10

A major blow at the Ryder "participation' system in British Leyland, and in particular at the right wing TGWU leadership in the BLMC Body Plant at Cowley was struck on 6th September, when the monthly AUEW Shop Stewards meeting in the plant voted to pull out of 'participation'.

This takes some 1,000 AUEW members in the plant out of the participation machinery, and is a severe setback for TGWU convenor Bill Roche, who is on the highest body of participation - Leyland's "Cars Council'.

RESIGNED

After the vote the AUEW convenor resigned and a new one was elected - but the decision still stands.

When the union bureaucracy accepted participation for the membership, they argued it was on "a year's trial' • That year is now up, and a campaign must be launched in every Leyland plant for the right of the members to vote this scheme and throw it out.

The lead in pulling out has been given both by the Jaguar workers and now by the body plant AUEW stewards, who join those sections of Leyland that never accepted the introduction of participation in the first place.

Jaguar workers have seen clearly the real meaning of participation, ae the • company announces the removal of the paintshop from Coventry.

in the Cowley Assembly Plant, workers have witnessed the removal of recognition from four shop stewards by the Company.

And now all Leyland workers have seen Jones and Scanlon sum up the class collaborationist essence of participation in their disgraceful 'Keep Working' article in the employers' house joumal, Leyland Mirror.

The best way to answer these attacks is now to withdraw from the reactionary participation scheme and fight to reassert the independence of the trade union movement.