[Cards had recommended rejection could not be a…]

Scan page 14

Cards had recommended rejection could not be a better example of of the national officials' formula the need to set up the fight for because it "did not take away the democracy and accountability threat: of compulsory redun- throughout the entire labour dancy" . And the very union full- movement and the need to timers who are "pledged to fight elect full-timers who will lead compulsory redundancy" had just struggles rather than betray them. McLean, expressed it, a mass meeting of the 1,300 shop floor workers at the BL Albion plant in Glasgow voted last Monday (May 23) to end their 2 week. old strike against the threat of compulsory redundancies.

The strike had begun after management had threatened to implement compulsory redundancies if 146 volunteers had not come forward by the start of the plant's summer holidays (midJuly).

The strike opposed the compulsory job losses, but not the idea of 'voluntary redundancies'.

Support for the strike was solid. There was no attempt at Bloom St, Manchester scabbing, but only a small number of the strikers had been involved in picketing. And while support for the strike came from throughout the BL combine, the strike leadership was slow to build up outside support, only asking for financial and moral backing.

• Management's reaction to the strike was in the Michael Edwardes' tradition. Ron Hancock, Chief of BL Vehicles, issued letter to all strikers demanding that the union hold a mass meeting and that a return to work take place by May 23 at the latest.

"If you do not," his letter continued, "then Albion will have retired itself out of Leyland's long term plans, with dire consequences, and Albion will be closed - permanently "

Terror

A leaflet issued by the Albion shop stewards' committee to counter Hancock's letter described the letters as "designed to strike terror into the home of every Albion worker and his family; designed to send a mob of frightened men along South Street and into confrontation with their fellow workers, out of that would come, they hope, a return to work on their terms."

BL management also announced the lay off of 3,000 workers at the Leyland (Lancashire and Bathgate (Lothian) plants, unless the dispute was finished by May From one side, management applied pressure to break the strike. From the other side, the pressure came from the AUEW full-timers.

On May 18 (the same day as workers at the occupied Timex plant in Dundee voted to accept the peace formula negotiated over their heads by AUEW full-timers and management) AUEW full-timers met with BL management and drew up an agreement to end the dispute at Albion. Shop stewards from Albion rightly refused to attend this meeting.

The main points in this agreement were: * immediate return to work; *transfer of workers from one section of the plant to another where workers had taken voluntary redundancy; *if management still had not achieved its 146 voluntary redundancies by 2 weeks before the deadline, the national and local union officials would meet management to find a solution.

With the threat of union national officials calling a mass meeting over their heads the Albion shop stewards called a mass meeting for Monday May 23. Both the works committee and the stewards committee had voted unanimously to reject the proposals to end the strike, and recommended rejection to tho mass mecting.

Pressure

liven so, the meeting, voted to end the strike, although the maJority was only about 50. "1 can understand the pre isure on workers to vote thai wily" commented Jim Mcl.can ulter the meeting, "the continuous pressure applied by management over the past 2 weeks, the threat of closure, and also the financial hardship, caused by the strike."

But an equal, if not much more crucial, factor in influencing the vote must have been the manifest opposition to the strike by the strikers' own union leaders. Even before a deal had been stitched up with management AUEW full-timers like Tom Cougan hao been attacking the strike as irresponsible.

• However, perhaps because he was speaking to the bourgeois press, Jim McLean was loathe to criticise the union full-timers. He claimed that he was "not disLONDON Save South London Hospital Campaign meets every Thursda at Balham Food & B Co-op, High Street, Balham at 8.00 p.m. appointed" at the mass meeting's outcome on the grounds that "we still don't accept compulsory redundancy, and national officials have pledged to fight compulsory redundancy in line with AUEW policy".

Threat

And yet at the same time McLean stated that the shop. stewundermined a strike against By collaborating with BL management to break the strike the union full-timers have effectively given them the green light to implement further cutbacks in the workforce throughout the BL combine, and have inevitably made anyfightback against them that much harder to mount.

The role played by union full-timers in sabotaging this strike

Scan page 15

Socialist Organiser 33 May

----- pull-quotes -----

SAVE SOUTH HOSPITAL! AVESAVECAVE shop stewards' convenor, Jim

Labour Campaign for Gay Rights, c/o 61A

Right to choose women doctors HOSPITAL - SOUTH LONDANT