Elect Workers' Committees Eni Busness Secrets!

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The claim by the Daily Mail that a massive "slush fund" is being operated by British Leyland management has rocked the company and the government to the foundations.

Quoting from Leyland internal documents and reports, the Mail claims that £11,372,700 was paid out in bribes during 1975-76 and that £25 million is earmarked for bribes in the current year.

Much of the money, they claim, was paid through Swiss bank accounts connected to l a "money lake"

SUITCASES

Still more was collected in notes from BL officials by the recipients in suitcases.

Capitalism has always drawn a thin line between what is "legal" or "illegal" in relation to such things as bribery, corruption and extortion.

The Mail tackles this by detailing standard Leyland methods of evading tax and currency laws in various countries through "offshore" accounts and "over Workers at Leyland's assembly plant at Cowley the top" payments.

The letter implicating Ryder and Varley was a forgery. But that does not discredit the rest of the case - most of which is not denied by Leyland.

They say only that they 'broke no British laws' . The police seem to hold the same view. Their first action was not to inquire into the charges, but to arrest the Leyland executive who forged the one letter.

The Mail of course has raised the matter in order to press forward the Tory attack on the Lib-Lab coalition government, and the present structure of Leyland, which it presents as a (nationalised' industry.

But the majority of the capitalist press follows the same line as the Daily Telegraph which has argued in favour of the slush money being used.

The standard argument used that "everybody is doing it".

€130,000 this they are obviously right. Sir! Eric Miller, for instance, sacked from the board of the Peachey Property Corporation after the inexplicable disappearance of £282,000 admitted that €130,000 of this was given to one man to ease through a property deal in Europe, Such revelations are mushrooming internationally. The Lockheed scandal in America has been followed by others such as Phillips and Du Pont. In Britain last year there was the BP political payments scandal.

The Bank of England clearance for the export of cash for the Leyland deals shows how much they are accepted as the normal state of affairs.

KNOWN

And it is extremely hard to see how Ryder or Varley or any of those running the NEB would not have known about the expenditure of more than £llm a year -especially when the average Leyland profit over the seven Ryder years analysed in the Ryder repor was only £10½ million all told!

One Leyland. spokesmai remarked at the time the Lock heed scandal broke that th detailed financial procedure outlined in the company operating manual "would ensur no lilegal payments could b made"

This clearly suggests that they were made, somebody authority must know.

The only people to whon these transactions are a revelation are the working class-who ge offered no bribes, no suitcases o cash; who instead are rewarded by speed-up and wage cut enforced by these same Leyland managers and executives, jointl with union officials.

This brief insight by worker! into the workings of capitalism Cont'd Back Page, Col 1.