What kind of alternative for BL?

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nrani sanin attor Arlams' from class collaboration

LEYLAND Vehicles: the Workers' Alternative, pub- PHOTO: JOHN HARRIS lished by the Joint Works Committee of Leyland Vehicles (LV), Leyland, Lancs, was planned and written during the recent four week LV strike and published shortly after the return to work. It was compiled with the assistance of the Manchester Engineering Research Group (MERG).

It is an extensive 44page pamphlet which contains à lot of very useful information about the heavy vehicle industry.

It exposes BL policy which is to run down LV through the liquidation of its productive base and outsourcing the manufacture of major units and by preparing for further closures and hiving off.

It contains, however, many weaknesses which generally reflect the crisis of perspective which prevailed • at leadership level throughout the strike itself. For example there is not a word about the central problem of the strike, which was the involvement of the rest of BL in the struggle.

Repeats Instead it repeats the well established line of the strike committee of "seeking the support of the whole labour movement" . During the strike, the strike committee and the convenor, Mick Coyne, a Communist Party member, actually resisted moves from within the Combine Committee to call a conference of all BL shop stewards in order to discuss support for the 12,000 strikers.

It highlights a weakness which recurs throughout the pamphlet which is to see things in the parochial terms of Leyland Vehicles in isolation and not BLas a whole. In reality the only way to win the strike was to crack the myth of Edwardes' invincibility and defeat his overall strategy and thus defeat the corporate plak of which the cutbacks part. It is difficult to do that from one division.

The pamphlet is certainly right to devote a lot of space to the Ryder Report, (commissioned by Tony Benn on behalf of the Labour government at the end of 1974), which still lies at the root of many of the problems facing BL workers today.

The conclusions it draws, however, seeing LV in isolation, have the same weakness.

Although there are two slightly contradictory chapters on Ryder, (obviously written by different authors), the general conclusion drawn is that the Ryder Report was an inadequate plan which was only half implemented!

Dismisses It accuses Ryder of failing to establish a proper nationalised industry out of the report and dismisses the so-called 'worker participation' as a 'farce" It goes on to credit Ryder with . 'exposing the inadequacies of private ownership' and accuses management ment progra propos partic faciliti (The pation the in munis phlet now : decide wrong ticipal did. speak meeti it 'hi go in conce But weak pointi was BL partic just 1 facili of th ment durin [1975 in his cies in LV UI steward strung. of failing to impl the full investme imme for LV sed by Ryder larly new found es. e attack on parti directly refle fluence of the Co t Party on the pa since the CP ha switched policy a ed that they we ; to back Ryder F tion in the way tr Derek Robinsi ing at a recent puk ng in Oxford said t. ad been a mistake ¡to 'participation' ived by Ryder".) t Ryder was not jus plan with a few g s and a few bad! a major attack workers. Likew cipation was far fi a 'farce"'. It actu lated the dismant] e trade union me , which took pl ig the 3 years of Ry i-7] and gave Ed he power base to fe s closure program atest phase being osed 4,500 reduns in LV.

Ider Ryder the tr n movement at s ard level was 1g. After the adop e Report by Parlian icicts ive ind ere 'arley on, alic hat : to as st a ood ! It on ise, rom ally ling ovelace rder warprce me, the danrade shop lamstion nent LEYLAND VEHICLES:

HE WORKERS ALTERI oyne with the Alternative Plan 35.1 1040%

ceased again after Adams'

weak role in the BL Cars wage review and his fear of being victimised for it.

Stewards from Leyland, Lancs, have not attended even these sparse meetings. Repeated calls from the Leyland Action Committee supporters for a more active combine beginning with a conference of shop stewards to discuss the offensive against the shop stewards' movement have been ignored or manveuvred against.

Instead we have had a succession of "alternative plans for BL" - most of which are well documented in the pamphlet. They all present things in capitalist terms by calling for import controls or by suggesting ways in which the business can be run and organised more successfully.

The last strike committee bulletin, for example, said of the meeting with BL management "We agreed that the intention of all people concerned with BL was to return to profitability as soon as pos sible."

Illusion

Or like the recent Alternative Plan for Vehicles creates the illusion that it is possible to convince Michael Edwardes to see reason and adopt a different, more constructive course.

In concept they are no different to the Ryder plan.

Quite correctly they say "keep the industry going"

rather than shut it down, "increase investment" and "preserve the manufacturing base" which like reflation, is what the CP argue all the time.

But they, like Ryder, ignore the reality of capitalism which is the world economic crisis, particularly severe in Britain.

The investment programme proposed by Ryder was based on crassest market forecasts for trucks.

It says the following:

"Partly as a result of the tendency to replace such vehicles more frequently because of more stringent vehicle legislation and the cost and scarcity of qualified maintenance statt, total UK demand for heavy vehicles seems likely to be about 30% higher than last year (1974) by 1980 and there should be some further growth between 1980 and 1985." (Ryder Report, page 2, para. 8).

The Ryder team based all their decisions for LV on that estimation. Before the period covered was half way through they were faced not with gradual expansion over ten years -but the complete collapse of the heavy vehicle market.

Alternative

The working class needs an alternative road which is based on a very different yardstick - their own independent interests as class. They need a fighting policy to defend jobs and a programme based on the development of workers' control in the plants. Above all they need to develop a new leadership both at national level in the unions and within BL which break from class collaborationism And begin to fight on these lines.

Not a mention of an alternative appears in the pamphlet, of course. In fact it is far worse. The whole pamphlet goes out of its way to avoid any criticism of the trade union leaders at all. Yet the majority of workers at LV are in the AUEW, and the AUEW Executive Council subsequently played a key part in breaking the strike by instructing the District Officer to read out a letter from Edwardes to the mass meeting just before the vote was taken - which threatened the complete wind-up of LV.

This kind of attitude comes out of the politics of the Communist Party and their relationship with the right wing who controlled the strike committee behind the scenes throughout the strike.

In fact the pamphiet goes to astounding lengths to cover up the role of Duffy and Co. in BL.

For example, it completely covers up the role of the trade union leaders in the ballot on the 1979 "survival plan" which resulted in an 8-1 majority in favour of closing • 13 plants and losing 25,000 jobs. All it says is the following:

''The success of the management's propaganda campaign was reflected in the overwhelming support of 86% given to the Edwardes plan in the referendum of the workforce."

It completely covers up the fact that the key role in this was played by the CSEU [and particularly by the AUEW] who wrote to every BL worker urging them to accept the plan!

The pamphlet even covers up the role of Duffy in Derek Robinson's sacking, which came out of the survival plan ballot! It says.

•'There were strikes at a number of • BL plants, notably Longbridge and Coventry. But other parts of the Combine, including LV, did not think the time was right for a major confrontation. The strike and support for Derek Robinson was finally dissipated despite a lengthy inquiry by his own union.

You wouldn't think from this that 32,000 were out in support of Robinson and were ordered back by Duffy! Nor was support "dissipated despite lengthy inquiry by his own union" • The fact is that the inquiry was used to end the strike and then found him guilty of breach of rule - thus ensuring that no further strike action would take place.

CP members would agree in private that all this is true, but when it comes to putting it in an important pamphlet like this in the middle of a struggle and when workers are about to he sold out by the same traitors, everything must be covered up. The rost relationship of the CP with the top trade union leaders must prevail. Such a method effertively ensures that the continual betrayals thai occur with such monoconous regularity will continue unchallenged.