[Harry Sloan examines the experience that the Tories…]

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Harry Sloan examines the experience that the Tories

•It's an old trick, but it just might work," was one of the running jokes in the old "Goon Show"

But as the frantic scurryings to and fro by TUC leaders and the ASLEF executive now show, some old tricks can work again and again when employed by a ruthless and determined management against a cynical, gullible and spineless union leadership.

The British Rail Board for instance shamelessiy pinched its tactics, timing and even some of its rhetoric from those adopted by Michael Edwardes in British Leyland.

Obvious So obvious is the repetition, that thousands of workers watching the news coverage of the events in the rail dispute must feel rather as if they have switched on BBC-1 to watch yet another dusty old repeat programme or well-remembered old film.

But the tricks once again worked like a charm on union leaders who have learned nothing and forgotten nothing in the last ten years.

Like Edwardes, Peter Parker and the BR management set out to confront the unions, issuing a string of ultimatums and threats, and keeping the railways open in the hopes of cracking the strike in the first few days of the dispute.

Like Edwardes, they followed this by threats to sack the whole striking ASLEF workforce, shut down the entire rail network and possibly reopen only on a restricted scale.

Like Edwardes they are publicly debating even in the midst of the current confrontation exactly how they can force through further rounds of closures, TO will continue to get up to their old tricks whenever they hear the authoritative whistle of the employers or the Tory government.

The essence of Edwardes' method has been to maintain a momentum of attack, playing off various clements of the union leadership against each other and against the membership and never allowing sufficient leoway for shop floor organisation i regroup and

drew on to defeat ASLEF.

mount coordinated Thus within six months of his arrival - hailed by virtually every one of the BL plant convenors and union • officials as the "saviour" of the corporation - Edwardes had begun his offensive in carnest, shutting down the Speke Assembly Plant and scrapping the "participation" scheme which had fulfilled its funetion of destroying the indeCynical, gullible, and spineless. pendence of the BL shop stewards' movement.

By the autumn of 1979 Edwardes, now working hand in glove with the new Tory government, had drawn up his so-called "survival" plan, involving the closure or part-closure of 13 plants and the loss of 25,000 jobs.

Strings

Hecombined the announcement of this plan with the unveiling of a pay offer of a mere 57 linked to 92-page package of "strings"

To ensure trade union officials were enlisted as his allies in the fight to impose these savage new proposals, Edwardes arranged to meet leaders of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions (Confed). At this meeting he spelled out a stark picture of the choices he was prepared to offer. Either they as union leaders threw in their lot with his plan, on the basis of which he. would request more financial assistance from the government; or the corporation would go bankrupt and close down.

Confed General Secretary Alex Ferry described the meeting as "a look over the precipice" . He and his fellow bureaucrats came away with no doubt where they stood. Without questioning Edwardes' figures or his right to "solve" the problems of BL at the expense of shop floor workers, the Confed unions - with the exception of the TGWU. - decided to cooperate with the plan.

When Edwardes announced he was to ballot: the workforce on the question over the heads of the shop stewards' movement, the Confed printed its own letter for distribution in BL mailings, alongside, Edwardes' own letter and ballot form, urging a 'yes' vote. Confed funds were used to place adverts in all the daily papers endorsing the Edwardes plan.

The question on the ballot was carefully phrased:

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