6 820 NOW! What happened last through this same movie time round?

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There was a huge majorin at Longhridge to reject the 3.8 per WITH THE chips down once again for an all-out strike over wages, BL workers can be excused for feeling that they have been Last year and the year sast year all wilt yea. before that they voted bi heavy majorities to reject BL management's derisory 6.8 per cent and 5 per cent pay offers.

On both occasions the manipulation of union officials and the collapse of cringing convenors brought a last-minute sell out.

In the autumn of 1979 the first ever corporationwide pay review (after the end of plant-by-plant bargaining) saw Edwardes pressing including the package of measures closure of 13 plants, the imposition of 92 page document effectively abolishing a long list of hard-won trade union agreements.

Linked to this 'plan' came the offer of a 5 per cent wage increase.

Edwardes put his closures plan to the leaders of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions (Confed), offering them what Confed secretary Alex Ferry described as "a look over the precivice"

The Confed bureaucrats were scared witless. It never occurred to them to defy Edwardes' threats of closure, or question his claims that the firm was 'losing' money hand over fist. For them it was quite natural to preserve the bility' of BL and if necessary to sacrifice their own members' jobs and living standards to do 30.

With the exception of the T&GWU, they all accepted Longbridge convenor Jack Adams the Coward chapaigned caa dau uet actively in support of Edwardes' call for a 'yes' vote in a postal ballot of the workforce.

Betrayal

TGWU leaflets calling for a 'no' vote were not distributed until after the ballot - which produced an JOHN HARRIS unsurprising seven-to-one vote to back the plan. The pay review meantime remained unresolved.

The BL Combine Committee, taking its cue from the TGWU's stand, met shortly after the ballot _and produced a pamphlet opposing the plan.

Combine chairman Derek Robinson - Stalinist convenor of the giant longbridge plant, and the man who had led a standing ovation for Edwardes in ate vote by AUEW members - which he privately 'assessed' : and declared against strike action.

TGWU leaders sat on their hands - only offering to support workers who on their own initiative came out on April 8.

In the event some 19,000 Midlands workers, mainly in Rover and Jaguar, defied Edwardes' ultimatum until the rug was pulled from under them by the Clamour Moss Evans was invited by Edwardes for his own personal 'look over the Doris later to energed nOmE. total surrender.

The strike was knifed -and Edwardes was handed a major victory on a plate.

But BL workers were not deterred from resistance. In November of last year mass meetings throughout the remaining plants were called on to vote on Edwardes' 6.8 per cent offer for the 1980-1 review.

By 40,000 to 20,000, they threw it out, and demanded action. So great was the clamour for action that it even penetrated into a meeting of 300 convenors who. met the following Monday, and - after eight hours - grudginly took the vote for strike action.

Five days' strike was given.

Challenge

But in, once again, came the General Secretaries. Disregarding the votes on the shopfloor. they went straight into private session with Edwardes. They came out recommending workers to accept the offer.

38% C'A a li in E by John Lister The proposal to accept the 6.8% was then referred to mass meeting. There was strong resistance in many plants - but in some lactories night-wing convenors secured a vote for acceptance.

All finally hinged on the Longbridge vote. Convenor Jack Adams, a Communist Party member, had opposed a strike. He was voted down on this by his own stewards' committee - but still got up to argue against action.

A close vote on a show of hands was hastily declared by Adams 'carried" acceptance of the 6.8%. Once again the BL workforce had been sold down the river by its leaders.

Many of these same leaders are busily at work in the final few days before this year's strike deadline -seeking to duck out of a fight that represents frontal challenge to both Edwardes and the Thatcher government.

The costs of past betrayals for BL workers have been nuge In Iost Jobs, ing standards and workin The politice lesson of these betrayals must now be learned with urgency by BL workers in the coming struggies: and that lesson is that a nedw leadership must be built in every plant, ready and able to press the fight for the interests of the working class. lals Jom BLACKMAN ROBBERY. FRAUD gAllf)

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