FORD from back page
Socialist Organiser1983 1983-03-24Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 15 →
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SOGAT 82, who print tour million copies of the Radio Times, have been singled out by the boss of Pergamon and British Printing Communication Corporation (BPCC) Group because of their resolute defiance of Maxwell's survival plans which destroyed nearly 2,000 jobs.
Last week the employers refused to pay wages and money owing to the SOGAT 82 chapel: members, thus leading to the withdrawal of cooperation by them.
Maxwell's accusation of wildcat strikes is patently untrue. The SOGAT 82 chapel have had enough of Thatcherite approach to industrial relations and have indicated a willingness to oppose such policies. workforce for the confrontation they are planning immediately afterwards.
All this makes the present dispute a very strategic battle indeed. And it points to the problem that has existed in BL, when such crucial confrontations take place - it is inadequate for one plant to take on what is effectively a corporate policy.
The obvious need is for a united struggle by all Ford workers against the AJ plan and all its forms, aimed at cracking the central strategy of management.
Although the strike has been made official by the TGWU, there are no signs at all of such a policy emerging from the leadership of Ron Todd, the national organiser of the TGWU, and Ford NJNC chief negotiator.
Broke down
He said after the talks broke down on Monday that if other plants came out in support of Halewood "they would be listened to sympathetically" by the unions.
Such an attitude leads to the danger of the Halewood plant being isolated and vulnerable to all the tactics open to corporate management.
It was tie defeat of workers in the main strategic battles which gave BL management the strength to very seriously undermine the shop stewards movement at plant level. .
The Ford combine committee should meet and ensure that the battle is won and that the renewed enthusiasm for higher levels of exploitation given to Ford managers by their Japanese counterparts, is not vented on Ford workers.