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LAC leads the £20 the boare FULL-TIME officials are trying to take over the BL workers' wage claim, without forming a democratically-elected negotiating committee. BILL PETERS reports.

MILITANCY remains high in BL following the opening shots in BL's 1981/2 wage review which is due for settlement by November 1.

The Princess/Rover build line in the Cowley Body Plant walked out last Friday when management circulated a letter threatening disciplinary action against anyone stopping the track for iob cuts BL IS planning yet more job cuts - this time at Longbridge.

The bosses say 500 engine builders' jobs must go from the Power and Train area - but the real total is likely to be nearer 1,000.

Production of the three engines made at Longbridge has already been cut back by 20% due to falling demand for cars, with "E" series engine production virtually stopped since Maxi production ended at Cowley a few weeks ago.

The company plan to achieve the cut-back through voluntary redundancy and "natural wastage" a method that they have used repeatedly at Longbridge in recent years, reducing the hourly paid workforce from 18,000 down to 13,500 with minimal resistance and sometimes even with the collaboration of the plant leadership. This time the CP-dominated works committee are at least going • through the , motions of opposing the cuts. But instead of attempting to mobilise the memberany reason other than safety. On Monday morning they walked out again.

On Tuesday a mass meeting in the Body Plant imposed an overtime ban throughout the plant in protest against a drop in the bonus which will severely cut production.

In the Assembly Plant groups of workers struck when management circulated a virulently racist instruction to the guards on the gate.

The strikes are a reflection of the militancy of the working class as a whole reflected in the response of BR workers to the original ship to fight to defend jobs around the demand for work-sharing on full pay, the Longbridge leadership instead meekly requesting a meeting with management to "discuss" the cuts, and bleating about BL's plan to use Volkswagen gearboxes in the new LC10 model - which has nothing to do with these cutbacks!

Longbridge workers, though demoralised by recent events like the collapse of resistance to the Rover SD1 closure, are increasingly unwilling to let jobs go, and increasingly aware that with each cutback, the work load for those who remain increases.

To defend jobs we must fight for a policy of work-sharing on full pay, restoration of "mutuality" in determining manning levels and work loads, and make sure that the demand for a 35 hour week (part of the Combine Committee's recommended claim for the annual review) is made a priority this year.

JIM DENHAM strike call by the NUR and ASLEF and the response of civil servants before they were sold out.

But in BL three years of drastic wage cuts and ruthless management has created a level of militancy well in advance of the general level which potentially puts BL workers in the forefront of this year's wage round.

Unfortunately the high level of militancy in itself will not necessarily lead to an all-out strike against the governmeni.

Although the Combine Committee and now the AUEW convenors have FOR THE 1981-2 wage review in BL the Leyland Action Committee took the initiative in pushing for a £20 across the board claim, against the proposals from some convenors for modifications to the bonus scheme to be included in the claim, 1981-2 Annual Review: accepted the £20 across the board claim there is still no joint negotiating committee existing in BL to negotiate it.

In the absence of an elected joint negotiating committee, national officials of the eleven unions met last Monday - and ignored the C'ombine Committee decision, proposing instead a "substantial increase' claim.

Despite a call by a mass meeting two weeks ago in Cowley for the immediate constitution of a democratic and accountable committee, the national officers are moving towards constituting themselves into a de facto ads or for a smaller claim "to save jobs"

The LAC proposals (based on the resolution from Cowley Assembly)

were outlined in a fourpage broadsheet distributed in most Midland: : plants, and won the day at t he BL ComNo.1 August 1981 Across bine Committee.

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Leyland ACTION