Longbridge stays out

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Saturday November 14, ar them in Tanzania, and made Ellison's Tenement, near them pay £900 to join the town centre: and radway ship in Algeria.

33272022 GEOFF WILLIAMS by a TGWU shop steward, LONGBRIDGE workers are showing that although they have been sold out by a gutless frightened leadership over the pay claim, they are still prepared to fight Edwardes in defence of their rights. 1800 workers have gone on strike to stop the management cutting back on their relaxation allowance (RA).

Only a year after they were slashed by nearly a third, management are trying to impose a cut of 25 per cent in breaks allowed to workers during a shift. DOCKERS, seamen, and the International Transport Federation jointly blacked the ship Mistita in Swansea dock last week after union officials were called in to inspect the vessel and found it to be in a disgusting state.

There were no lights, no toilet facilities, and the whole ship was falling apart with rust. The blacking forced the Greek owners to have immediate repairs done before the • Ship would be allowed to sail.

The crew of four Tanzanians were owed a total of £9,000 in back pay, which they have now received. The owners had recruited Up until last week we were allowed 12% RA or 51 minutes per shift (not including lunch breaks). Management now say we can only have 9%, which works out at three 12-minute breaks a day.

The justification for this is a clause in the 1979 agreement to introduce a 39 hour week which states that the unions will ensure that there is no loss of production due to the shorter working week.

At a meeting with management last Thursday 5th the unions' JNC pointed out that according to management's own figures there has already been a 35% increase in productivity per worker! Management rejected this and stated that they would shorten the work week by one hour, reduce the total RA time by 55 minutes, and cut manpower in indirect areas by three per cent.

On Monday morning management informed stewards at Longbridge that cuts in the RA would start at 2pm. Workers voted to strike immediately management tried to implement cuts in time or manning levels.

Management backed down and • decided to try its luck with the night shift. But 1000 workers on the CAB1 night shift voted to strike without waiting around to hear the management spiel.

The Tuesday day shift in CABI also walked out. The works committee have now called for a mass meeting of strikers on Thursday, and in the meantime management have asked strikers to return to work while conditions are negotiated. This has been rejected by the men and women in the dispute.

Next week: feature on BL. forces has been that at the Body Plant in Cowley.

Most of the leadership of the major union, the TGWU (which represents ¾ of the workforce) are JPs and councillors and the chairman of the branch is a worker-priest.

Yet this plant produced the most determined of the picketing, with about ⅓ of the entire workforce, i.e. about 1500 on the picket line on the Monday.

Arrests

The pickets were so determined that until 10.30 on that day most of the staff couldn't get in. The same was the case on the second day and the picketing carried on until the mass meeting held on Wednesday. Even most of the maintenance shift was turned around on Tuesday evening despite the fact that it had been agreed nationally that they go in.

This militant picketing was directly against the wishes of the leadership who agreed to let staff but the wages were held down.

Over the last 10 years the value of the wages has been so reduced that many workers are now earning the same actual wage that they were earning under piecework. At the same time the company has spent those 10 years trying to drive the work-rate back up towards piecework levels.

So in many ways, the general polic; in Levland is even stronger in the Body plant.

Add to this the fact that because of the diverse types of car bodies produced - ranging from the Rolls Royce, Range Rover to the Ital, the bonus scheme has been particularly bad because it is worked out at a plant level.

Any particular model could be working at 100% but get little or no bonus because of a dispute that affects another model. This happened when the Acclaim dispute in the Assembly Plant affected that body production and the