Toolmakers sound deathknell for Social Contract

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in democracy and the imposition age controls was violently demonbd last week with the decision of AUEW Executive Council to supBritish Leyland management and Labour Cabinet in their decision ade union leaders that the viability of nd is the primary objective and Do and Jones's "Keep Working" front spread in the Company newspaper, ind Mirror, last Autumn. supporting the sackings Scanlon knew normity of his action. Of the 3,000 to iked 63 were shop stewards, and many branch officers and on District ComEs. For example, 50% of the Oxford ct Committee were involved in the : and would have been sacked it they ot returned to work POWERFUL BLOW canion also knew that his humiliating ion at the hands of 3,000 toolmakers firmingham Town Hall the previous ry was a powerful blow for the indelent action of the working class and ist those collaborating with managei and government. e knew that the almost unanimous vote ist him had exposed the enormous imess of the trade union bureaucracy. i had revealed the reality-that their rent strength was the strength of gement and of government and that i faced with a determined section of : members they were exposed and swept ne side. canlon knew the implications of this lopment and the effect it would have on NOT the rest of the working class who would say -if the toolmakers can do it why should we be pushed around? The writing was on the Wal. walte knew that since the Labour govern.

ment rests completely on the TUC bureaucracy, and in particular Jones and Scanion, that this development called into question the ability of the Labour government to rule.

It was this pressure, to save the Labour government, which led Scanlon to support the sackings in a desperate bid to get the toolmakers back to work and retrieve some credibility for the battered leadership of the AUEW UP CARDS He gambled and lost. Within hours, strike action developing into national proportions swept the AUEW in support of the toolmen.

Next day skilled workers in a number of plants arrived at work and went straight back home. Other sections were organising. In the Oxford District, for example, Diacot power station AUEW members decided not only to strike but to picket the car plants. Harwell Atomic Research AUEW skilled men, who last year tore up their union cards because they claimed the District Committee was too militant decided for action.

In Bradford a special District Committee meeting was called to organise a strike of all skilled men in the Bradford area. The Birmingham East District Committee condemned the BC action.

SUPPORTING ACTION

Other sections taking supporting action were toolmakers at Ford, Chrysler Rolls Royce and AC Delco, while AUEW bi anches began to move who, in the pa: t, had objected to taking any kind of action. PHOTO: John Sturrock, Report extraorio:

Roy Fraser There is little doubt that the rejection of Scanlon and the strikes in support of the toolmakers compounded the political crisis of the Labour government and became a major factor in the decision of Thatcher to press a vote of no confidence in the government.

Until now the Tories have been content to allow the Wilson/Callaghan Labour leadership to attack the working class on their behalf. But having seen the ability of the Labour government to rule destroyed, they are faced with the necessity of doing the job themselves-difficult as that will be.

That the toolroom strike precipitated a major governmental crisis came as surprise to the WSL. I spoke in 13 public meetings, during the toolroom strike, support of WSL policy.

In each meeting I stressed that the toolmakers had thrown the Labour government and the trade union bureaucracy into deep 2323 The toolroom workers have left the Social!

leadership humiliated and discredited in thi working class.

In this article ALAN THORNETT, a can Secretary and BLMC shop steward at Cowley and the key role of a leadership that refused Writing in a personal capacity, he traces th attacks on workers by trade union bureaucrati Labour government alike-wage controls.

political crisis and that the strike represented a direct threat to the continuation of the Social Contract and the survival of the Labour government.

In all but two of those meetings that assessment was challenged by members of the IMG who would only concede that the strike represented, along with other struggles "the beginnings of a fight back" . The task now, they said, was to "organise the fight back" through the April 3 National Conference, the April 19 one day strike and so on.

The reality was that a section of workers were on strike who had the power to close down a section of the engineering industry covering two million workers. They had a right wing leadership determined to avoid the political issues of the strike and the inevitable confrontation with the government over the Social Contract.

The immediate task therefore, was to tackle the leadership problems, the political development, defence and extension *of that strike.

This may not have fitted into the IMG's schema but it was central to the struggle to break Phase Il of the Social Contract. If the toolroom strike had been defeated wage control would have been strengthened.

Tackling the development of the strike meant developing a struggle within the strike committee to begin to explain the political issues involved to the mass of toolmakers in preparation for the struggles ahead.

CONFUSION SEWN

The essential prerequisite for this was a clear and accurate assessment of the strike itself.

was necessary to refute the confusion sewn by the media about "differentials" and establish that the motivating force of the strike was the Social Contract and the fall in the standąrd of living and that the strike reflected the mood of the whole working class.

SEPARATE RIGHTS

There is a dangerous element in the toolmakers' claim-they are demanding separate negotiating rights on a corporation-wide basis. This falls in line with management policy and could be used by management as à lever to impose the corporate principle on all grades of workers in Leyland.

The corporate principle would centralise wage bargaining in the hands of the national officials and hamstring Leyland workers in any effort to re-establish previous wage levels.

This danger must be strongly pointed out and the policy opposed within the toolmakers' committee. It could not however influence our attitude towards the toolroom strike itself. With the strike ranged against the Social Cöntract and giving the possibility of striking a blow against wage control for the whole working class, the dangers of corporate bargaining in British Leyland become secondary.

The crucial task, and one taken up by the Workers Socialist League, was to call for full support for the toolmakers' struggle and pose an alternative policy to the wage-cutting Social Contract-the sliding scale of wages. Recognition of the real nature of the strike as a struggle against the Social Contract coupled with a fight to have wages linked to inflation so that workers' incomes are compensated on a point for point basis for increases in the cost of living were the - fee tlin rityantino

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I SOCIALIST PRESS, Friday 23 Mar, 1377 Page 5 und deathknell Contract Toolroom workers going into the Birmingham meeting before voting to return to work. contract hanging by a thread, and the TUC ir efforts to hold back struggles of the lidate in the TGWU election for General , points the political lessons of the strike, o face the real implications of the struggle. • connection between the anti-democratic and the central platform of the TUC and In fact, historically, the toolmakers' struggle has developed in step with the rising hostility of the working class to wage control.

Socialist Press made the following point in a lead article last April dealing with the strikes of toolmakers at Triumph, Rover, Tractor and Transmissions and SU Carburettors which had lasted four weeks. (They had been instructed back to work by the AUEW Executive and Tractors and SU had rejected the instruction).

"But the strength within the working class-the same strength which defeated the Tory government and removed them from office; the same strength that defeated the Industrial Relations Court; the same strength that forced through last year's railwaymen's pay claim; that strength has not been confronted or defeated by the employers. It emerges still in the continuing pay strike at BL's Tractors and Transmissions plant, in the SU strike, and in the surprise decision of the Coventry • AUEW District Committee to reject the Executive instruction.

LETTERS PASSED The issue remained very much active whilst letters were passed between the committee, the management and the union. On December 6, a successful one day token strike was called throughout British Leyland as a shot across the bows of the management.

On February 18 1977 the call went out for an indefinite strike demanding recognition of the Toolroom Committee as a negotiating body, a demand which the toolmakers saw as leading quickly to cash on the nail. The strike received the solid support of 3,000 of the 4,500 toolmakers within Leyland-not 50% as claimed by the management. The main plants not supporting were Llanelly and Swindon.

The massive backing given to the Toolroom Committee from the start of the strike again reflected the working class. It was the rejection of the official leadership and the searching for an alternative leadership which could lead a fight on wages.

From the first day the strike met the bitterest hostility from the entire official leadership of the trade union movement.

INSTRUCTED BACK

The strikers were promptly called upon instructed back to work by every group of bureaucrats who could be got together: the Executive Council of the TGWU; a unanimous vote of the 21 unions in the Confed; meetings of BL conveners from both the AUEW and the TG#L: a special Sunday meeting NEB and the Hose :: = =I he toolmakers :: :11 The Is 50:: 3023=50 if the Corley Bai: Put 105 == =: ection, Cowley Lie::: Pre: I agor apartment. were 255%: == I=÷"

"teners boss the toolmakers piss.

Then they refused I as 2E: =÷ Distic Setter: 2i 2=rE other D2z00r *ax= * zie ≥ 100 103: = Davies, Re Hugh Scanion yourselves rom tnese gates we wil bring Lue ...

TGWU members out to move you"

At the Castle Bromwich Body Plant when Cowley drivers refused to cross the picket they were told by TGWU conveners that Cowley transport "would be blacked throughout theMidlands area"

The second thing to emerge was a list of suggestions from the NEB to Varley designed to deal with the strike: close down the whole combine until workers agree not to strike; close one plant as an example; sell off the volume car section.

These suggestions were entirely ridiculous. The combine was already closed down, all the plants are integrated and the termination of volume car production would collapse the economy of the Midlands and is politically impossible for a Labour government.

All Varley could do was to make the standard threat to cut off finance. The result was that the strike hardened and the political crisis of the government deepened while Callaghan placed the ball in. Scanlon's Scanion, having at first retused, now agreed that a meeting could take • place between the AUEW Executive and representatives nominated by District Committees -"which could include toolmakers" . This was seen by the government, the employers and the trade union bureaucrats as the move which could end the strike.

RIGGED MEETING

Scanlon rigged the meeting from the start. The toolmakers' stewards arrived to find that there were 11 of them and 12 others. When the vote was put for a return to work and for Scanlon to meet the 3,000 toolmakers at a single mass meeting it was carried with a majority of toolmakers voting against.

On returning to their districts the minority of toolmaker stewards who had voted with Scanlon were heavily attacked by their members and when the full 63 stewards met the next day they voted unanimously to recommend rejection of Scanlon's terms at the mass meeting due to be held the following day, (Friday).

The media was shocked. The strike was still on!

Scanlon's manoeuvres turned what would have been a hostile meeting into a near riot. Only appeals from the strike leaders secured Scanlon a hearing at all. When the vote was taken there were only 11 prepared to back " 5iI: = 3I2 Tie vote also placed the ball tact in the ==s a the management azi the governSe Do dier a engthy meting with the = sorcerer ST imITO _JEDLA aOR ZLET Promptly, and correctly, Roy Fraser, on behalf of the strike committee said:

"We do not think there will be any breaking of our ranks... We are now running into a type of industrial relations attitude of the 1930ș. This will affect every worker in this country if Leyland management succeeds in this type of coercion"

The strike committee voted to recommend the continuation of the strike and to call for support from other skilled men both inside and outside British Leyland if the sackings were carried out.

FLOWING IN The following day, Wednesday March 16, a full meeting of the 63 toolroom shop stewards was held. Already support was flowing in from other skilled sections. But there was a change in the meeting. Derek Robinson, leading Communist Party member, AUEW convener at Longbridge, chairman of the Cars Council and a toolroom steward was at the meeting.

There were three positions voiced at the meeting: (1) acceptance of the strike committee recommendation; (2) to make a fresh offer to management and the AUEW-to ecommend a return to work on condition ist 3 itree sided meeting took place DeTer =z=agement. the ALEN Executive Esi ise icolzarers' -as the tool-akers" F2 227202 Rocinson's position of an insaara == to work on current managemes: :2.as. = other words mplete stein I: = 25 ES ROLE FACE KISS I ERIE I0 10:51 БЕ:: THE IC-0:24:

705 BITE Lie TOO MINNES SLAM SCAMIR AUEW Executive compromised with the toolmakers. The Executive dropped their opposition to the unofficial committee nominating its representatives and the management dropped their opposition to discussing the toolmakers' pay grievances in isolation.

The deal was a sell-out. The concessions made by management were worth very little. The meeting was held without top management or national union officials in attendance and described as "low key"

But the toolmakers went back far from defeated. They were not intimidated, and had gone back believing that important gains had been made. They followed the committee in which they had so much confidence.

LAST CARD It was a sell-out because their leaders took them back at the point where all was possible. Fifteen of Leyland Cars' 18 models were at a standstill. The last card had been played by the management, the government and the bureaucrats. The working class was coming forward to defend them against the sack. The demands could have been won in full.

The leadership retreated when the reality which they had avoided from the start was inescapable-a political struggle to bring 22mt ite Social Contract.

I: > ga: abute to the strength of the i s is lapite the sellout the THe S sit i erranent and mill 37 Tom: i re of the Sa 177IT "I FEEI E00r=19 = = LS Ti THIS SL ZI: I L*D BETE

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oo men in focus The importance of the tootroom workers strike can be seen by the vigour with which it was attacked and defended. On these pages we analyse how the other left groups saw the isue and how the Stalinists and the capitalist press reacted. We Include some comments from foolmen interviewed by Socialist Press and a brief age 6 SOCIA. IST PRES Friday Marci

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ick the 3,000 striking toolmakers. me of participation, the aco logical