Est Stewards Demand "open We Books" Ryder Leads Bosses Attack

Scan page 1

The recommendations of the Ryder inquiry in no way constitute nationalisation. They are a straight forward battle plan against British Leyland workers- backed by the authority of government and entirel in the interest of the employers. The finance is provided through a majority state shareholding with handouts of 3p per share above market price to the shareholders. These funds are to be used as a lever to force Leyland workers to accept rationalisation, speed-up and unemployment. Any pretension to an: form of nationalisation is exposed by the recommer ation in the report that Leyland remain within the Engineering Employers Federation - an organisation of private employers set up to fight workers in the engineering industry.

Socialist Press, in our April 3rd edition, predicted that the report would become "the spearhead of attack against Brtish Leyland workers" • This assessment has proven to he completely correct. These findings, introduced into Parliament by Wilson, welcomed by Benn and accepted by the Tories, combine blackmail, witch-hunting and class-collaboration into a plan to drive up the rate of exploitation in the Leyland plants and provide a blueprint for other sections of industry. The management changes are simply the critiscism of one capitalist by another for not effectively fighting his labour force.

STAGES The report spells out in cleat terms how the fight is now to carried through. The E200m equity capital and 1500m longterm loan capital, to be made available over the period up to 1978, will be advanced in stages. Each new stage will only be advanced if speed-up, flexibility and unempioyment have been peacefully accepted by workers during the previous stage. To quote the report: "We have recommended that the capital expenditure programme and the injection of government finance should be staged and that each new stage should depend on evidence of a contribution both by BL's workers and its management to a reduction in industri disputes and increased efficiency This section was re-emphasised strongly by Wilson when he accRYDER epted the report on behalf of the government, he backed this with the threat that "one million jobs are at stake" if British Leyland goes into liquidation.

The implications of the referce to industrial disputes is unstakeable. It means that if workers resist any management offensive - speed-up, reorganisation, attacks on agreements or the victimisation of militant workers they will be promptly bi nance and the dote. Therav report endorses Leyland's introduction of Measured Day Work and advocates that further steps are taken towards corporate bargaining - which would put wage negotiations entirely in the hands of the officials and tie the combine to the weakest sections.

Harry Urwin, Assistant General Secretary of the T&GWU, was a member of the Inquiry team, together with a merchant banke the former chief executive of Ford Europe and a city account ant. The fact that the report was the unanimous view of this team indicates the kind of support wilch workers can expect when they come into conflict with its recommendations. Urwin's position means that the report is T&G policy in all but letter. Whe dockers came into conflict with the Jones-Aldington report, a similar blueprint for the speed-ur and run-down of the docks labou force, they were instructed back to work by Jones and the T&G Executive and two of the leaders are understood to be pending disciplinary measures for not recommending a return to work.

CONVENORS The report however sees class-collaboration going much deeper than even Urwin's key appointment. Its plans for the use of the reformist layers in the trade uniors especially convenors, are made brutally clear. It says "We have therefore proposed a new structure of joint management/union councils, committees and conferences in which BL shop stewards and particularly senior shop stew ards will have a major role' Ryder then defines this "major role" as "the need to provide a forum in which representatives of BL's workers can contribute effectively to improving efficienc Later in the report this is made even clearer. When saying that the number of disputes must be reduced and productivity improved it goes on to say that the joint councils are "to seek the action required to do this".

Such proposals however did not originate with Ryder. The door was opened for him by the collaboration already mooted by the "leaders" of the BL shop stewards movement - Robinson of Austin on behalf of the Stalinists and McGarry of Standard Triumph tor the right-wing. In their document sent to Ryder the emphasis all through was on "co-operation" and "efficiency". Nowhere did it spell out in unambiguous terms the basic principles of the defence of jobs, wages, conditions and agreements. Nowhere did it proose the organisation of resistence to Ryder. They simply made abstract statements about nationalisation with no intention of creating the conditions to fight for it.

In view or this it was no surprise that the report was welcomed in broad terms by both these gentlemen, followed by Len Murray for the TUC, Bob Wright for the AUt and Moss Evans for the T&G.

Contrast this collaboration with the fight being put up from sections of workers and stewards within Leyland to force the company to open their books. This is being fought for as a part of the fight for the defence of jobs through the demand for work sharing on full pay. The most important development is the resolution from Cowley which was carried unanimously at the meeting of stewards from the motor industry held in Digbeth on April 23rd which said: "This meeting demands that the employers in the motor industry and ancillary trades open all theit books to the works committees in each factory in order that the true position can be known by those workers whose lives are affected by short-time and redundancy".

SPEED UP

The fight for policy is crucial. Ryder proposes not only the usc of unemployment as a big stick, but a substantial reduction in jo now. The report says: "The improvement of productivity will mean a gradual reduction in the number of workers required to produce a given number of vehicles". This is the creation of unemployment by speed-up, bu there is already widespread shor time working and voluntary red undancy with the car market continued back page, cols 4&5 PAPER OF THE ALIST LEAGUE NO 7 * Ist MAY 1975 * 10p