Michelin bosses seek speed-up

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French Michelin workers: joint action needed Michelin is planning to cut 1300 from the 4500 workforce at its Stoke factory. Arthur: Bough spoke to a TGWU branch com-. mittee member at the factory.

Throughout the UK a total of 4,000 job losses are planned, not taking into consideration 1,000 jobs already gone due to early retirement.

They are made up as follows: 2,300 - Belfast factory closing; 1,300 from Stoke; 400 from the rest of the UK. . The 1300 from Stoke are divided equally between staff and hourly paid. It is feared that there will be compulsory redundancies for staff. 250 hourly paid are to go by the end of January, and another 400 by early retirement and natural wastage.

Due to the closeness of the announcement to Christmas there has been no official TGWU policy yet adopted. But it is the feeling of the officers of the branch and the full time officer that the real reason for the announcement on the hourly paids is to disguise the true situation on the company's intentions to completely alter the working practices and patterns of shift working.

From statements made to the press, however, it would appear that the situation is being accepted by the full time officers of the AUEW and EETPU.

There is no joint works committee. However, there is constant liaison between the shop stewards of the hourly paid and I expect that there will be discussions between the factories after the holidays.

It would appear that tion, but a rationalisation of work. This could lead to conflict as it is against the policy of the TGWU.

At the present time there is no compulsory redundancy. However, if the required numbers are not forthcoming by January 31, then compulsory redundancy will be introduced.

Don't you think voluntary redundancies amount to selling jobs which could go to future generations, and that therefore no matter how good the deal workers have no right to accept?

I fully agree.

Michelin is a French There has been some spec ulation that these cutbacks are to enable work to be transferred back to French plants. Doesn't this illustrate what is wrong with the call for import controls? If it is right to protect British jobs by protecting British irms, you can" blame the French for doing the same.

Personally I consider that import controls can help the worker for a period of time. In the case of Michelin, France was chosen as the factory to remain open due to very poor unionism and efficiency at the particular plant.

Wouldn't it be useful to contact the unions in the French factories to get them to black the transfer of work?

Contact will be made through the national officer. From 1970 to 1978 there were good international relations between France, Italy, Germany and the UK. Problems arose in 1979 which led to a breakdown in communications.

However, a world Michelin conference was held in Geneva in 1982 with delégates from Stoke attending. Shortly after the redundancies • were announced, leaders of the Labour-controlled city council went on record in the local news: paper and radio saying what a responsible firm Michelin was.

Our response is to severely condemn the leaders of the council for such actions. We intend to send the necessary motions to the various constituencies and to the City Party.

The downturn in tyre demand is obviously related to the drop in demand for cars, which is part of the slump affecting the entire : capitalist world. Does Labour's Programme in your opinion provide any solutions to the problem?

Though the majority of production goes to the car industry, this is not the problem. Demand there has held up. The problem is the fall off in truck demand. Fodens and ERF, both of which were reasonably close to Stoke, have cut back massively. Of course, the fall-off in truck demand is part of the recession.

I agree that just nationalisation is not the answer -look what's happening in the mines - but I think the commitment to reducing unemployment will help by increasing demand. Aiso, the proposal to establish a National Transport Agency and give more support to local public transport could increase demand for truck and bus tyres.

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there is going to be no reduction in total produc-