Recall the international combine committee

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The newspapers have reported Pat Fox, the TGWU convenor at the Talbot Ryton plant, as demanding that work be shifted from Poissy to Ryton. Has he been quoted correctly?

Not quite. A feasibility study was done a year ago for the Peugeot 205 model to be brought into the Ryton plant as well as Poissy. The company decided only to put it into Poissy.

What Pat Fox is saying - and I disagree with his approach, I think he's on the wrong lines -is that the Peugeot 205 should now be brought into Ryton. -We have a position as an international combine. At the last meeting. each convenor agreed to press legislation in each country that Peugeot would only be allowed to sell a model in Dave Edwards, TGWU convenor at the Talbot plant in Stoke, Coventry, spoke to Socialist Organiser a country if it had been built there. So if Peugeot wanted to sefl any model in the UK, France or Spain, they would have to produce the model there.

It's not quite what the papers report: "We'll do the work if they close Poissy down". That's impossible anyway - Ryton depends on body pressings coming from Poissy.

Our stewards' meeting this morning called for the international combine committee to be revived. The multinationals are planning cutbacks on a big scale. They will try to set worker against worker, in different plants and nations.

To defeat that, the workers internationally need to be aware of the companies' plans and to plan strategy accordingly.

What do you think of the role of the , French Socialist Party goverpment?

In view of what the government is doing here, I'm reluctant to criticise the French government. It seems to have had an interventionist role in the matter, stepping in and reducing the redundancies.

Here the government would have smashed us. I'd rather be in France striking than in Britain.

worrying, though, was the government sending in the riot police.

But, as a socialist, I expect a government, unless it is controlled by the people, to act on behalf of the state; and the state represents the ruling class.

I suppose we have a rosy view of the French government from here. To a French worker it probably looks as bad as the last government they had there.

What do you think are Peugeot's plans?

They are paving the way for an introduction of robotisation in the Poissy plant - cutting the workforce to introduce a new model with robotisation. It' Longbridge all over again.

The only way to defend ourselves is to get information, act on it together

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Organiser 10.16 January Page