By Alan Thornett
Socialist Organiser1983 1983-04-28Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 7 →
Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: expect misread words, and now and then a caption or a line from a neighbouring story. For anything you quote, read the scan.
Scan page 7
•The problem was not resolve of the JOIN THE LAC! ‹ ne proovem was not resolve or tne workers, but manoeuvres at the top Join the Leyland Action Committee Contact: 194 Dawlish Rd, Birmingham 29 Moss Evans - 'more determined than Duffy to end the strike?.
From the time Moss Evans arrived for the talks last Thursday at a plush hotel near Gatwick in the same car as Austin Rover chairman Harold Musgrove, they have worked unstintingly.
Variant At that meeting, management repeated a slight variant of their original terms: Audited Plant Status (APS) to be introduced by May 16, 1983 bell to bell running to be introduced by May 30, a four person inquiry into labour relations in the plant.
Out of this meeting came "trade union" proposals which were almost identical to management terms, to be put to a mass Fight management will cooperate in the productivity improvement measures necessary to qualify for APS which include 39-hour working"
That was interpreted by the Sunday papers in the obvious way. The Sunday Express was the most candid, with its headline: "Car Unions Yield Victory for BL". . The first sentence of the lead article read, "An almost total climbdown by union negotiators has paved the way for production to start again this week"
The formula also provides for four-person committee to inContinued
Scan page 8
Buckle over it, accusing him of the workers would "only be asked Formally Moss Evans is pies- This kind Continued quire into the attitude of management, similar to the committee set up out of the so-called 'sweareing responsible by his support for the continuation of the strike in its early stages. to suspend the strike, and not abandon it"
of line was equally skilfully but from the platform recommending either way"
It was of course stressed continually that the platform itself was not recommending either way.
Buckle had been saying that grove management will claim to have cut their teeth and successfully continued Edwardes' hardline management style into the post-Edwardes period in BL. The Tory government will claim it as THE MIRACIE