Speke: Confed leaders move in for

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KODINSOn 3,000 jobs hang in the balance after last week's decision by union officials to concede to the closure of British Leyland's Triumph plant at Speke and seek improved redundancy payments.

Workers at the plant, who only two weeks ago voted to reject voluntary redundancy were headed off from adopting a clear policy of occupation to prevent the closure. mobilising immediately to They now face the task stop officials auctioning off their jobs to Leyland management.

After weeks of deliberately fostering confusion and demoralisation among the workforce had failed to prepare the ground for a peaceful sell-out, union bureaucrats at the mass meeting adopted the alternative strategy of tub-thumping 'left' speeches completely devoid of any policy capable of directing an all-out fight.

Crocodile tears

The Leyland combine stewards committee chairman, Stalinist Derek Robinson, wept crocodile tears from the platform, proclaiming that "not a nut, not a bolt" would leave the plant if sackings took place.

But he steered well clear of any call to occupy the plant and summon active support from Leyland nationally and the Liverpool lahnur movement Robinson stayed shrewdly silent about his own role as chief advocate of the 'workers participation' set-up, whose report on productivity in Leyland 'fingered' Speke as one of the least productive plants.

Nor did he dwell on his enthusiastic support for the Edwardes rationalisation plan that threatens jobs not only in Speke but throughout the combine, including Robinson's own plant in Longbridge.

Diverted

But by talking 'left he succeeded in diverting Speke workers away from an all-out struggle to break the reactionary participation system and the K Now the damage must be repaired at once. The Confed decision does not reflect the views of the membership.

Nor, apparently was it unanimous. TGWU delegates argued in favour of supporting the mass meeting decision to reject both redundancy terms and the principle of closure.

These representatives must now be forced to lead the struggle in the plant to defeat the sell-out plan. Speke stewards must immediately convene a mass meeting to explicitly reject all redundancies and adopt a policy of closure.

A trade union committee must immediately be elected to force Leyland to open their books and reveal their long term plans for cuts in manning levels and sackings.

Such an investigation would reveal that no section will be immune from attack, and expose the huge profits being made by the privately owned component firms out of workers in the supposedly "nationalised" British Leyland, and spearhead the fight for a policy of work sharing on full pay and nationalisation of the private