Red Weekly asked Gerry Jones, a shop steward in the Engine Machine Shop, what he thought of Convenor Bob Morris's statement at the mass meeting that it was left wing trash' to say that workers bore no responsibility for the crisis That's nonsense. The present crisis is part of the rationalisation policy of Chrysler International which started five years ago.
Systematically they've run down the Chrysler factories, first by sacking 600 people at Whitley (the administrative and research centre in Coventry) including designers, which made sure no Brit ish car would be designed at Whitley; then they made sure that the Cricket, which is the American version of the Avenger, was replaced by the Mitsubishi Colt which they've got a stake in; and systematically since 1972 they've run down the Hunter Do you think acceptance of "participation' prepared the way for Chrysler's hard line attitude on Jobs now!
It's difficult to say where it actually stands on this. It seems clear at the moment that Chrvsier ed strong and militant shop floor organisation. But the overwhelming bulk of these struggles were single-factory based, concerning piece rates, regrading and shop floor organisation. Often it wasn't even a single factory but a single shop involved.
The leadership that emerged in these years at a plant level made few attempts to cement cross-factory links. being paid in the face of growing unemployment and attacks on jobs and living standards by bosses and the Wilson Government alike, with big divisions between factories and between different sections and unions within factories.
Nowhere were these weaknesses more clearly exposed than with the failure of the trade union leadership to confront the introduction of Measured Day Work into the Coventry factories of British Leyland. Each fell in turn -on its own A second major weakness was the failure of the local trade union leadership to project demands and policies which could have laid the basis for such class-wide organisation to arise. This lack of leadership fed on the illusion that to defeat the bosses it was sufficient to have 100 per cent union membership and a good steward. Gerry Jones are quite prepared to pull out. For instance, the cars that they produce in this country are well covered by imported cars trom cary sler-owned factories in France and Japan If there is a loan by the Government on the basis of keeping a few jobs and keeping Chrysler in this country at the cost of mass cuunuancies, men qure od viously the workers participation plans will figure as a way to implement this.
There have been attempts to play off car workers in different firms against each other. What would you like to see happen to The price for this is now Coventry in the summer. including white collar workers as well. ment as a wrote.
in this country. But the danger as lar as natonasadon Is coreeT mra is ust what tie senior stewards in most plants of British Leyland have fallen into.
That is they have given up the independent trade unionism they have enjoyed previously (under the the basis of all pulling together to produce cars, to proace pronts -again at the expense of the workQuite obviously as far as a nationalised car industry is concerned we would have to main lam our macoendent trade unionIsm and we would nave to have workers control, not participation.
Has there been discussion at the Stoke plant about the Linwood stewards' decision to occupy employed. axams anemDEce Ciosure:
I welcome the Linwood stewarus accision, Inis idea was a actually moved on the Joint Shop Stewards Committee this morning, but it was decided that it was politic to leave this kind of decision on tactics and the nature of the campaign we should employ to safeguard jobs to at least next Friday's shop stewards meeting 1 mink wis was wrong. We should actually lay out our plans as far as a campaign is concerned for complete nationalisation without a penny compensation. And the tactic to enforce this must be occupation when the redundancies are amouncea The consequence of all this is that two of ghter. the principal bodies of the Coventry labour movement, the district committees of the Am algamated Union of Engineering Workers and the Transport and General Workers Union, are dominated by the right. This leadership has consistently acted to sabotage not only any exdancies.
SHOWING THE WAY stration.
A campaign for the adoption of the policy of a slid.
ing scale of wages. Along with opposition to all cuts and redundancies, this policy was adopted by a mass meeting of local authority manual workers in Since then shop stewards on Coventry Corporation have taken big steps to prepare all local author ity workers in the area against the effects of the dramatic cut-backs now being proposed by the Corporation. Actions have included the building of a committee covering representatives from all sections of manual workers with the definite intention of Stewards have organised stoppages and demonstrations to protest about proposed reductions in manning levels on the Corporation work force; coupled with demonstrations and pickets to explain the case against the cutbacks to other workers in Coventry.
A public meeting to be organised in the near future will lay the basis for a campaign in the whole trade union movement on. the importance of fighting the cuts, as well as adding the voice of manual workers to the need for a unified fight back against unemploypression of class wide action by Coventry work. ers, but also those struggles which have taken place in individual factories — such as the s strike at Chrysler, Stoke engine plant this year.
Only a common jobs policy for the whole of the Coventry working class can begin to challenge the grip of the right wing on the local labour movement. Only a policy which contains class-wide demands capable of challenging Organiser) the management's right to impose their solutions on the workforce can stop the jobs slau: