Cowley Strike

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Council vs unions THE 250 trim shop workers at BL's Cowley Assembly Plant voted to continue their two week old strike at a mass meeting on the morning of the 15th.

The strike has closed down two production lines - the Rover and the Acclaim - and has laid off 1100 other workers.

It has been provoked by the imminent ending of Acclaim production in Cowley which is being switched to Longbridge and programme reductions on both the Rover and the Maestro. Workers made surplus are to be switched to the new LM11 model, which is a derivative of the Maestro.

Management insisted on total control of the movę, with no seniority applying. This has been the situation in most of the plant for some time, but not in the trim shop where the seniority agreement has. been largely maintained. • The breaking down of seniority agreements has been one of the major achievements of management in the recent period.

Without the protection of such agreements, Job allocation can be used to break up trade union organisation, isolate shop stewards, prevent militants from becoming stewards and victimise militants by putting them on the worst jobs.

The trim workers demand for seniority is therefore a major challenge to management strategy and potentially a major fightback against management attacks.

Management did shift their ground a bit in the course of the strike but it amounts to no more than vague promises which they refuse even to put in writing. THE four week period "granted" by the British Rail Board to the NUR for discussion of the running of Mercury Communications fibre optic cables is over (even though they tried to run trains every weekend throughout the period).

They had planned to run two trains; on the Saturday night (4 February) from Rotherham to Sheffield, and on Sunday night from, Chesterfield to Sheffield, and had plenty of management con hand to try and make sure they ran.

However, after sending two guards home on the Saturday night, and threatening to send a signalman home if he did not signal the engine out when he ISLINGTON ISLINGTON Council's leaders seem set on overturning one of the main benefits for council workers that the left-wing' council has conceded.

In the process they will overturn Labour's manifesto, threaten key council policies and disrupt their own plans for a joint campaign with the unions against rate-capping.

Six months ago the Council introduced a 'flat rate' payment system for manual workers in their Bullding Works Department. All craft and manual workers are now paid a flat rate wage - consistent from week to week - and the previous bonus scheme was scrapped.

This scheme went part-way to fulfilling Islington Labour's manifesto commitment to extend staff conditions to manual workers in the department.

Even then the decision was reluctant - it took a strike and intensive lobbying by trade unions to get the scheme on a temporary basis.

Now the Chair of the Council's Personnel Committee has virtually ruled out keeping the scheme on, and the Labour Group's leaders seen to agree.

Their reasons have nothing to do with providing a decent repairs service for tenants - they are about trying to screw out more work for less money.

The leading councillors claim that the flat-rate scheme is losing thousands of pounds per week compared with the bonus scheme.

But their own figures disguise a lot: they are based on 'bonus figures' of tried work for jobs -not on the actual service delivered and they ignore the fact that the council is part-way through a complete reorganisation of its department to locally-based repair Italis. ONCE again the Scottish area leadership of the National Union of Mineworkers has blocked action against the closure of Polmaise colliery.

At an area NUM delegate meeting on Monday 13th, the area executive, led by Communist Party members Mick McGahey and George Bolton, proposed a one-day strike on the 20th.

The feeling from the floor was too strong for that, and the conference decided to reconvene on the 20th to discuss all-out action. But immediate action had been prevented. was ready, they gave up Sunday morning.

A few hours later theycancelled the Sunday night train and likewise on Tuesday. A further train was meant to run from Cudworth (just north of Barnsley) to Rotherham on Wednesday morning.

Previously five signal and telecommunications staff (S&T) had refused to work on the train doing any necessary disconnections.

Meanwhile the BRB have met the NUR and conceded some of the demands, including that &T staff should fault and maintain the cable; that a guarantee should be given that no redundancies should arise out of its The February 13 conference was itself a product of earlier moves by the area leadership to delay the issue.

Polmaise miners present at the conference were furious, and later stormed a press conference being held by McGahey.

Meanwhile the national overtime ban grinds on. 21,000 miners were laid off on Monday 13th because of weekend maintenance work not being done, more than on any previous Monday.

But moves towards strike action are obviously long overdue. use and that S&T staff do the weekend • installation rather than contractors.

It is only the last one of these. that has not been conceded by the BRB.

The NUR has accepted the Appeal Court ruling on the POEU battle against Mercury and so is making no opposition to Mercury on the grounds of privatisation.

Latest news is that the disciplinary charges against the two guards sent home for refusing to work the trains, have now been dropped.

The Board is again meeting the NUR to discuss the matter on Wednesday 15 February while already planning to again run a train for Mercury on 19 February.

andigest A warning that up to 50% of NUM pit maintenance workers could lose their jobs over the next few years due to the pit closure programme and the introduction of new computerised monitoring equipment was given by Arthur Scargill last weekend.

The NUM propose a technology agreement to protect jobs and provide new training, but the National Coal Board has been pushing maintenance craftworkers into other pit jobs or to accept redundancy, while skilled work under the new system is privatised., This comes on top of renewed threats by the NCB to axe further collieries in Scotland -Polmaise, near Stirling and Bogside, Fife - and speculation that two out of the three Kent pits are to be closed following a refusal by area management to meet with the NUM to discuss a report last Friday (February 10).

Union der cognised

A SMALL but growing trend is underway for employers to derecognise unions.

Last week the food company Nabisco withdrew union recognition from its sales staff, members of ASTMS.

The Financial Times reported: "The decision follows similar moves by ICI, Birds Eye, Tadworth Court Hospital and National Mutual."

So far these moves by private employers have involved relatively small and weakly-organised groups of workers _ nothing on the scale of the Government's move at GCHQ.

If the Tories get away with it