Workers Socialist League

Socialist Press, Trotskyism Today and the Trotskyist International Liaison Committee, 1975–1984

Speed held dn

Socialist Press no. 87, 15 February 1978 · scan p. 11 · about 981 words

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cracy has-after 15 weeks -declared official support for the strike by 2,000 workers at Leyland's plant at Speke, Liverpool.

The strike has halted production of the Triumph TR7 since November 1.

Now the TGWU officials are prepared to pay out backdated strike benefits amounting to £170,000 in order to obtain the leverage to implement a rapid sell-out.

The declaration of official support-which has been consciously withheld in the vain hope that the strike might collapse of its own accordwas synchronised by a management statement on the future of the plant.

Leyland's personnel director Pat Lowry wrote to union officials saying that as a result of the strike:

"it must now be very doubtful if it is worthwhile continuing to operate the plant ... when the TR7 could be built elsewhere at the sort of relaunch quantity Jones-made it official likely to be needed".

This threat will no doubt be the basis of the line put forward by TGWU officials who will now take over the running of the dispute from the Speke stewards.

Sacrifice

The argument that workers must tailor their demands and sacrifice their agreements in order to accomodate to the financial problems or rationalisation plans of management is a never-ending excuse for class collaboration by Leyland not give way on disputes involving manning levels-and the Speke battle has put them to the test.

Any attempt to close the plant or transfer work must be met by occupation and the call for blacking of all work on the TR7 and Dolomite usually done at Speke.

And the strike, now official, must continue until management honour the mutuality agreement.

Interesting to note that the local National Front organiser in the Hammersmith-Shepherds Bush area of West London-one Martin Hill-is an employee at the Metropole Hotel, Paddington.

Just before Christmas last year the workers there struck for higher wages.

During the period of the strike, Hill-who is employed as a security officer-was noted to cross the picket line every day, greeting the strikers with the Nazi stiffarm salute.

Little incidents such as these reveal quite clearly the anti-union core of NF unionisation strike at Garners' Steak Houses in London continues into its third week, other hotel workers are attempting to join the struggle to defend and improve their wages and working conditions.

60 workers at the Cafe Royale in the West Endpart of the giant Trust Houses Forte empire-went on strike last Monday-only to be intimidated and forced back to work by GMWU official Tilston.

Even while 40 kitchen staff were joining the union and agreed to come out, Tilston told a mass meeting:

'The company is big. You've hit them on the nose and it's bleeding. But if you stay out you will show your weakness".

Tilston-the man behind the betrayal of the strike at the Metropole Hotel-offered no advice on how those workers should fight for their rights.

It is obvious that if jobs and wages are to be defended, Tilston's nose must be kept out of workers' struggles. denouncing pickets and defending the scabs' "right to work" have been removed from restaurant windows.

The employer has declared himself willing to refer the matter to ACAS, and is now apparently • prepared to discuss with strikers-a step he previously rejected.

But strikers must insist that no return to work takes place without union recognition.

They must demand TGWU officials implement full-scale blacking of Garner and any firms that continue to deliver goods to these scab restaurants.

Meanwhile many strikers are already in dire financial straits. The TGWU has only just started to pay out £6 a week hardship money-and social security refuses to pay out anything to the strikers.

This is another sign that the strike committee must place no faith in the willingness or ability of the TGWU bureaucracy to carry through this strike to victory.

They must fight for a district levy on TGWU members to finance the strike.

*Strike headquarters for the Garners strikers is at 12-13 Henrietta Str set, London WC2, to which all donations and messages of support should be sent.

TRANSPORT & CENERAL:

GALVERS STAFT OTDIVE Garners' strikers on the march The determination of press room workers at Ford's Halewood plant to resist management speedup plans has now cost the employers production of over 20,000 Ford Escorts in a five week strike.

The company plan includes the following points:

*Men . must work to the speed of the production lines.

*No automatic rest period every hour. Production lines to stop only when the rate for the line is achieved.

*No changing round of jobs every hour. Only one job rotation per shift.

*Working ahead [building up banks to give longer breaks] after the first five hours to be reviewed.

*Line operators leave place of work permission.

*Operators to be sible for quality, and watch for faulty missing parts, etc.

*Hourly counts to be taken on pieces of workdone.

*Failure to meet the line rate to be booked to production inefficiency and recovered before the operator allowed to stop work.

All of these provisions represent a worsening in existing working conditions and a further attempt to step up the exploitation of the Ford workforce.

It is a sign of the inadequacy of union leadership in the Halewood dispute that at one point all the company's demands with the exception of the third point were conceded by negotiators, though now apparently the second and the final points are being contested.

It seems more than likely that TGWU officials will soon seek to take over the dispute -which is proving so costly to Ford management-in a Any attempt to impose such a sell-out must be fought.

HELLO... O'FISHALL? L PHE GOT HUNDREDS OF ANGRY MINERS OUTSIDE OPPOSING MY NEW CONTRACT - WHAT CAN I Do?!!

SCARGILL'S THE MAN.. MAYBE HE'S FREE FOR A WEEK OR TWO?..

HELLO?..

ANYONE THERE!..

HELLO?! not to without respontold to panels,

← Contents of Socialist Press no. 87, 15 February 1978