[at mass meetings. Such a body could elect…]

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at mass meetings.

Such a body could elect a lay negotiating committee on a proportional basis and recallable at all times.

A significant feature of the claim adopted by the unions this year as previously, is the vague and uninspiring demand for an unspecified "substantial increase" This not only commits the union negotiators to nothing and leaves the door wide open to manoeuvre and sellout but also is an unsatisfactory basis for rallying the membership for determined struggle. How can you expect the members to take the review seriously when the leaders haven't even got a reasonable claim with a definite figure?

An across the board demand to compensate for erosion in buying power linked to a cost of living clause determined by the members themselves would be something for the membership to get their teeth into. But who the hell wants to go on strike for a "substantial increase"?

This weakness in the claim reflects not only the bureaucratised bargaining machinery, but also the ideological shortcomings of a substantial layer of the stewards organisation.

Socialists clearly have to deal with these questions by demanding the right to see for themselves . the company's books. Do we accept the management claims at face value or do we demand proof?

If the management refuse this right then they must have something to hide, and the members are entitled to believe that the company is able to pay up.

On the other hand completely free and unfettered access to the books by elected union committees and sympathetic financial advisors would reveal the financial juggling by the multinational firm, the profiteering of suppliers and bankers, the overall company rationalisation plans and the need for a combinewide fightback, the drive for greater exploitation necessary for survival in the capitalist market.

Control Just as a private buyer would need to examine the books before taking over a company, the unions need to examine the firm's books as the condition for then exercising control over management strategy.

Such perspective implicitly lays the basis for the eventual ousting of management ar id the instituting of work ers' • manageraise the demand for work-sharing on tull pay, administered by elected trade union committees.

This demand is particularly clear and unequivocal to all workers both employed and unemployed. We must surely present some perspective for meeting the needs of the three million unemployed. Grenville Hawley The last strike at Ellesmere Port was left isolated by the national officials and right wing and Stalinist convenors at Luton and Dunstable.

The Ellesmere Port workers mounted highly effective mass picket of the Harwich docks where tually called off after a number of exhausting weeks, supposedly because of the threat to the jobs of 20 Silcock and Colling drivers, Who had been laid off by the picket, although this seemed to be a less than satisfactory pretext at the time.

It is still unclear whether it was a retreat in the face of impossible odds, or a climbdown by the leaders.

A few weeks later a mass meeting drew the logical conclusion from this retreat and voted down a stewards' recommendation to continue the strike.

The track workers then had to suffer the humiliating experience of being recalled to work section by section, and a smug lecture from their foreman. Several stewards were sacked, mobility off the section was severely restricted, and the canteen bar was closed as a spiteful reminder of defeat in case the message had not been driven home sufficiently. Needless to say, the working conditions on the tracks deteriorated sharply.

The crucial mistake was, it would seem, to call off the Harwich picket. From that point onwards the strike seemed to lose impetus and collapse even though the show-rooms . were picketed afterwards. A much stronger picket was needed against the police goons. Greater efforts to mobilise the local ACROSS THE five manual grades in BL, the average wage is £94 before deductions. There is a bonus scheme on top of this, but payments vary dramatically, and often seem to be determined by the tactical decisions of the company, rather than productivity.

At Cowley Assembly plant, for instance, the bonus payments droppea from £12 per week to £1.85 with no disputes or noticeable drop in production!

And when the payments at Longbridge recently rose from about £10 a week to a record £18, few workers doubted that it was a deliberate (and temporary) ploy to head off militancy over the wage claim.

Even after a good week's bonus, most BL workers are lucky to take home anything over £85.

As a Longbridge T&G steward told Socialist Organiser, "Our wages are so low now, we can't afford not to fight this year. The only question is, will the officials support us, or at least not stab us in the back again"

After the repeated sell-outs of recent years, BL workers have good reasons out THE proof of the militancy in BL plants is shown by the continuing action at the BL Cowley Body Plant.

The 3,500 TGWU members have been on an overtime ban for the past month. They took this action because of à drop in their bonus and they wanted to fight on this issue separately from the November pay review.

During last week's noliday shutdown the company used contractors to do work of the "heavy gang" in order to overcome the effects of the overtime ban.

As a result, this group stopped work on Monday, and were followed by the rest of the factory who went home for the rest of the day, thus laying off workers in the adjacent Assembly Plant. to distrust their anion leaders and the unrepresentative, unaccountable Joint Negotiating Committee (LCJNC).

In 1979-80, the workforce voted overwhelmingly in a secret ballot to reject the company's insulting offer (5% plus 92 pages of strings), and 20,000 workers in a dozen plants struck despite the AUEW instructions to work as normal and no call for action from the TGWU. Edwardes only succeeded in imposing the deal after Moss Evans reached an 'understanding' that gave BL everything it wanted.

In 1980-81, it was much the same story, with workers voting at mass meetings across the company to reject the 6.8% offer. The convenors gave five days' notice of strike action. Then Edwardes called in Duffy and the other general secretaries to save his bacon.

Longbridge and Cowley then passed resolutions of no confidence in the bureaucratic and unrepresentative LCJNC. But this year, after manoeuvres by T&G automotive industry official Grenville Hawley, that same LCJNC is back in business.

The company has not yet formally replied to this year's £20 wage claim, but BL bosses have made it clear that they intend to offer no more than (and perhaps less than) four per cent.

Such an offer will be met with great hostility in the plants. Thé job now is to make sure that hostility is translated into effective action this year, and not sid sidetracked again by the top officials.