Finers Tor No Chance: Edwardes

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crunch decision. His so-called 'survival plan' meant the closure, or part-closure, of 13 plants, and the axing of 25,000 jobs.

The CSEU promptly set up an 'emergency committee to oppose the plan. It set out to develop an 'alternative strategy' for BL, and importantly called for resistance to the plan through the blacking of work moved from one plant to another.

The CSEU backed the policy, and called BL workers to a demonstration through London against the plan.

When it marched past Leyland House, an Edwardes aide handed out a statement expressing surprise at the demonstration since the survival plan had already been accepted by the CSEU.

It turned out to be true! The CSEU Executive had already met Edwardes and reversed their opposition.

Edwardes, as usual, seized the advantage. The plan was put to a postal ballot. 100,000 workers were urged in a joint BL/ CSEU statement to vote 25,000 out of their jobs. This and the emphasis on 'survival' produced a 7-to-1 majority in favour.

The CP and therefore the combine committee actually opposed the closure, at least in words. Despite opposing an occupation motion at the combine, Robinson co-authored a pamphlet calling for occupation. Edwardes replied with the sack in what was the most significant victimisation and defeat for the shop stewards' movement in the car industry since Ford in 1962.

Deadline

It put Edwardes in a powerful position over the crucial November 1979 wage review - the deadline for the implementation of parity and the five-grade system, and the first review to be conducted under corporate bargaining.

He produced another bombshell. A general increase of 5% was conditional on acceptance of a 92 page document abolishing all previous conditions and agreements - including the 'Security of Earnings agreement forced in two years earlier.

It involved full mobility and flexibility of labour, and abolished the 80% layoff pay — originally a prime selling point for the MDW system. Instead of the 'staff status' dreamed of by the collaborators, Edwardes proposed a return to casual Longbridge mass meeting BL and the steel strike Negotiations on the package dragged on into the new year, and into the steel strike which began on January 4. In February, the JNC, with BL cooperation, conducted yet another postal baliot of the worktorce, recommending rejection of the offer and calling for authority to call a strike. The vote was two-to-one for strike action.

Surprised by the vote, the JNC refused to implement it. The Leyland Action Committee organised a joint Leyland workers/ steelworkers' lobby of the convenors, calling • for the implementation of the decision to strike alongside the steelworkers. Still they refused.

At the end of March, Edwardes seized the initiative once again. He wrote to the Leyland Cars labour force. The package would be implemented from April 8th. Anyone clocking in on that day would be accepting clocking the package. Anyone not 1101 sacked.

T'he major Midlands plants struck. Although the AUEW were party to the postal ballot which called for strike action, Duffy and Cure promptly conducted a 'sounding' exercise among AUEW members and declared that their members were in reality against striking.

AUEW members were ordered to accept the 5% /92-page package.

The TGWU, however, were no better in practice. Moss Evans interyened, made the strike official, and then, in an astounding about-face, signed an embarrassingly naive document on April 17.

This called for the disbanding and reconstitution of the JNC - not a bad idea in itself. But far more important - and contrary to statements made since - it agreed in writing to accept the 92-page document.

The 'Agreement of Understanding' over Evans' signature actually claims as a 'major concession' from Lowry his commitment to give ten days' notice before changes arising from the 92-page document were implemented. On that basis Evans ordered the TGWU members back to work!

Any longstanding agreement or working practiced could now be terminated by Bl after ten days' notice. To the embarrassment even of the right wing, Evans claimed this as a 'victory' But there was worse. Trapped by BL's viability argument and Evans' lack of any political answer, he commissioned a Parisbased firm of industrial consultin produce report future policy for BL.

clause From that the TGWU produced its own document, ironically with the same title as Ryder: 'BL, the next decade'.

Incredibly, it offered the TGWU's own no-strike clause: "continuity of phys¡cal production" in return for more investment and a 'partnership' - with a Japanese corporation. The fight against the 5 grade system: 1980 Evans' sell-out on the 92 page document did not resolve all Edwardes' probl ems. The 5-grade structure and the grading remained contentious, despite the parity payments.

From April 8, 1980, everyone was slotted into their new grades, mostly to their disadvantage. The result was an immediate series of sectional strikes which threatened to paralyse BL for an extended period.

The General Secretaries and National Officers were soon back for an exercise which, in terms of sheer abrogation of trade union democracy, outclassed even their previous treachery.

Meeting on May 8, they agreed an 'appeals procedure' which effectively smashed opposition to the grading. It provided a three stage. binding procedure which ended with the so-called 'three wise men' set-up: one Bl management, one TUC, and an 'independent' chairman. Their decision was final and binding, with no right to strike once the procedure was exhausted.

And worse was to come. The General Secretaries then imposed the appeals procedure on BL workers without the slightest consultation. The individual plants were notified of it by management.

They then ordered all grading strikes to cease, and all disputed grades into the appeals machinery. Thousands of claims were placed on appeals committees at various levels. Virtually none were settled, and eventually the committees disbanded and the heat inevitably went out of the issue.

In the Cowley Assembly Plant, of 90 claims submitted none were conceded, and the committee was disbanded arbitrarily by the company.

The next massive sellout was at the second corporate wage review in November 1980, when 6.8 per cent was offered. This time pressure from Cowley replaced the secret ballot principle with votes at a simultaneous series mass meetings, producing a big majority for strike action. The result: panic in the JNC.

They reopened negotiations on paltry bonus guarantees, and then reversed their recommendation, appealed for acceptance, and recalled the mass meetings.

Everything hung on a controversial decision by Jack Adams to declare the accepadge in the face for claims by the militants that had • gone strongly Bitter resentment and frustration at the JNC's capitulation produced a mass demonstration against management inside Longbridge which was labelled a 'riot' by the media. A month later, four stewards and five members were victimised and sacked as 'leaders of an unruly mob' Strikes in their defence were ended with the institution of a joint inquishe which ended with unions actually agreeing to the sacking • of the four stewards and two mem!:. i the form of joint It anathar maint move by BL, giving management the right of summary dismissal in the event what the company considered gross industrial miscondurt' It ends all previously established full-time convenor and deputy convenor positions, and makes the grievance procedure part of the individual contract of employment -a disguised no-strike clause. It calls for a new JNC, appointed by the union executives and consisting almost entirely of full-time officials.

The November 1981 review Last November's wage review will be well remembered as a major political test case for Thatcher's four per cent policy. Edwardes offered 3.8 per cent and for the first time the JNC called for strike action from November Ist.

Mass meetings gave the call a massive ten-to-one backing, despite a threat from Edwardes to close down the whole corporation and sack the entire labour force if the strike went ahead.

Each union made it official in advance, but Machiavelli would have been proud of the manoeuvres which began once Duffy and Kitson (acting in Evans' absence) realised that they were heading for an all-out confrontation which could bring down the government.

Everyone from Michael Foot to Len Murray, plus the general secretaries of all the unions in BL, combined on the eve of the strike to sell it out.

They actually recommended a deal which was worse than the original offer - since the 3.8% remained unchanged -but it included a commitment to negotiations on the March draft of Edwardes' new procedure document, dragged in for the first time.

The sell-out had far-reaching implications for BL's negotiating: machinery. Even the grossly undemocratic JNC, resurrected for the review, and still not reconstituted despite Evans' 1980 agreement, was cynically overridden by the General Secr etaries, who effectively became the negotiating committee. This was someAlthough BL are still balking at attempting to force RA cuts into Cowley, two major sell-outs in two months was a tragedy for BL workers. Each came at exactly the point when management were under extreme pressure and Edwardes could have been broken.

He survived at BL workers' expense, by the efforts of the trade union leaders and the Longbridge Works Committee.

Instead of the 'new management approach' promised to Duffy and Kitson as part of the wage review sell out, the assault on shop floor workers sharply increased. Victimisations, harassment and pressure became constant factors on the production line.

Edwardes began implementing in advance many of the clauses in the new procedure document.

Edwardes' objectives became more clear. Having used the convenors through 'participation' to end plant-level bargaining he was now marginalising their role and that of the JNC. Full-time deputy convenor facilities have been withdrawn in most plants, and management have made it clear that this will soon apply to convenors. Moves are already being made to reduce the number of shop stewards in the sections.

It represents in a very real way the drive to completely smash the shop stewards' movement, and in this Edwardes still gets the total support of the top union leaders.

Any doubt about this can be dispelled by the current edition of the AUEW Journal, where John Boyd commits himself totally to Edwardes and his strategy in the following astounding terms:

"A new procedure agreement must be fully exploited now, and a new relation. ship forged between shop stewards of the nation's assete (the Board] and the trade union stewards, under the guidance and control of their union executives. If for any ideo. logical reason individual representatives from either do not wish to participate, then they must be cast aside"

Despite such breathtaking treachery, Bu workers remain militant and prepared to fight. Where strikes break out, management can be pushed back.

The task is to build a new leadership within the BL unions capable of fighting the betrayals at top level.

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Thursday February, 1982 Page