Back yard of the multi nationals

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Peter MacIntyre reviews "Unemployment and the MultiNationals in Coventry" by Coventry Workshop, available from 40, Binley Road, Coventry.

The fortunes of Coventry are linked firmly to the fortunes of the multinational car When car production boomed after the wat, Coventry boomed. But as the crisis which has engulfed the car markets of the world for the past decade emerged, so the gloss vanished from Coventry's manufacturing In 1972 the wages of manual male workers in the town were £6.70 higher than the national average. By 1974 this gap had shrunk to £3.40 and by 1976 to £1.50.

More dramatically, unemployment in Coventry rose faster than the rest of the country.

Between 1956 (when unemployment was 75% of the national rate) and 1974 (when it reached 95%) the underlying trend of unemployment remained steadily and irresistably upwards.

14 firms The jobs have become gathered in fewer and fewer hands until half the jobs in the town are now controlled by 14 firms, all of them multi-nationals.

The growth of this multinational grip on Coventry and its effect on the unemployment rate and future prospects for the working class in the area have been documented in a duplicated pamphlet produced by a group of former members of the International Socialists (now the Socialist Workers Party), called Coventry Workshop.

The pamphlet-Unemployment and the Multi-nationals in Coventry-contains graphs and statistics to show how the manufacturing industry in the arca has declined and how the town's dependence on the motor industry has resulted in massive lay-offs.

Ali also notes that unemployment--in Coventry as everywhere else-has hit hardest at the most oppressed groups.

Significant cuts

¡= de school leavers ment in the black community is running at about 5% higher than the total rate.

All but two of the multinationals in the area have made significant cuts in the number of jobs, including British Leyland, Chrysler, Courtaulds, Alfred Herbert, Tube Investments and GEC.

Many of the jobs have been switched to countries where the rate of profit is higher and many have been eliminated altogether as the spur of capitalist competition has driven the firms to greater automation.

Memorial

In the motor industry for example, an American industrial robot which can take over many of the production line jobs has an economic wage of just over 50p an hour and can work an average stretch of 400 hours at a time.

In a section on the power of the multinationals, the pamphlet correctly makes the point that the health service is milked by the drug companies.

In the context of the car industry it would be more relevant to point to the enormous profits made by component firms out of 'unprofitable' British Leyland.

The conclusion of the pamphlet is that Coventry has the potential to become 'one of the notoriously depressed areas of Europe, a memorial to a spent phase of capitalism"

Its more likely fate is, however, continued decline in jobs with sudden fluctuations in times of short lived booms.

Populist

In its final paragraph (and first mention of opposition)

Coventry Workshop concludes:

"If the future of Coventry is to be brought within the control of the people who live and work here (instead of being left to boardroom decisions by the fourteen multi-nationals which currently control the local economy) then the very logic of these multi-nationals has to be challenged" pre-war capitalism to the crisis-torn present, not in terms of the international crisis of capitalism, but in terms of the arrival on Coventry's doorstep of the most developed of capitalism's exploiters-the multi-nationals.

«The shedding of jobs does not take place through some kind of natural, inevitable law, like the shedding of leaves in autumn. It is the result of deliberate decisions, by particular firms" • For all the programmatic direction it offers, the pamphlet could make ammunition for any populist who wanted to replace the "bad' capitalists with a foot in many countries by the 'good' capitalists who stay at home.

More importantly the Coventry Workshop make no distinction at all between the drive of capitalism towards speed-up and sackings and its ability to achieve its objectives.

Not optional There is probably not a single left social democrat or member of the Communist Party who would disagree, including those who helped allow the sackings to take place.

There is no description of resistance to the sackings or the means by which they were brought about.

From beginning to end, there is not a single mention either of the betrayals of the union leaders nor of the tasks of a socialist.

These are not optional matters which can be dealt with or ignored after considering the details of the impact of the crisis.

The net effect of a pamphlet which presents the crisis of capitalism solely in terms of multi-nationals and makes no mention of the role of leaders of the working class must be to strengthen the Stalinists and Social Democrats who intend to offer no direction to the desire of the working class to fight.

Nationalists Not does it oppose those nationalists who blame the entire historical crisis of capitalism on the weakening of British imperialism and political events which have nara nutride Rritain

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