WHEN 700 WORKERS build barricades, light bonfires, turn hose-pipes on police and smash up a management canteen, the class takes fright. Last genham "riot' at the premises'of Henry and was described as 'terrorism' in the Evening News.
Ford's press officer described it as a very unfortunate and rather sinister aberration", and claimed that the trouble ras 'caused by a group of about 50 men, B0 per cent of whom were ringleaders. That was one of the many lies which mangement issued. It was not 50, it was over 700 men. There were no ringleaders, no onspiracy; the events at Dagenham were a spontaneous angry outburst by workers who, quite simply, had had enough.
They had had enough of the guerilla war of lay-offs, speed-ups and undermanfor weeks. There was the example of a While frustration at continual layoffs boiled over into anti-management violence at Dagenham, similar provocations by Leyland management at Jaguar's Brown's Lane plant In Coventry were being met with occupation.
Trouble broke out on 28 September when the company issued an ultimatum to paint-shop workers: lift restrictions by noon or 4.000 are locked out. The stewards' response was immeciate and unanimous. ine overtime ban decided by a mass meeting stayed.
The ban has been in operation for several weeks and was imposed in protest. at Leyland's decision replace the paint-shop at Brown's Lane with one at Castle Bromwich..It is currentiv culling production about 20 per cent.
The same afternoon, management action provoked another with internal drivers on the final line. The agreed terms for the trial period for a new method of work unilaterally changed. When management refused to return status quo, the drivers struck.
couple of weeks ago, when those working as hood setters had been reduced from eight to six men. The six refused to do the week's work of the other two, and were disciplinLed and sent home by the management.
were told to go home.
politely Gainst management tactics in tions of the workers left the canteen. company formally giving up its aims of getting higher production with less men.
During the five weeks leading up to the outburst, the workers in the body plant had been repeatedly laid off. Week after week they had been sent home in th middle of the night and denied their full wage. The final straw came on Tuesday 28 September when 12 door setters went on strike in protest at yet another attempt by management to worsen conditions. Then at 11.30pm. the men at the body plant The body plant workers gathered in their canteen and listened to their shop stewards. But what they did not hear were plans for organised resistance to the lay-offs. The frustration and anger ag- shower of water, previous weeks found no active outlet from the mccung s platorm. It was ten that sec In no time at all an impressive barricade was built at the main factory gates. Other barricades followed, and about 200 police arrived at all the gates. By then there was no going back. The management canteen was invaded and wrecked and the security guards premises received the same treat ine executive Soon the whole body plant was in the hands of the occupiers. The deputy plant manager at the other side of the main barricade shouted to the men: "Trotskyists, Trotskyists, you're all Trotskyists'. A shower of cups greeted that comment. A directed from the hose-pipes, greeted the police.
The anger was directed against the management, the security guards and the police. In no sense was it a protest at the action of the door setters, because the workers Knew tom acu own experena that it was with management that the source of their problems lay.
Throughout the night, that management made regular attempts to divide the worktorce. nose who were working in the press shop were told they could not go to their canteen as the actions of the body workers meant mere were no mears available. That was another lie, for it was and not workers canteen which was wrecked. "vanguard', they had no authority to take any decisions or independent initiatives They were told to go home and wait until a mass meeting that night. advice which cut across the possibility of extending the struggle.
The same caution was shown at the Wednesday evening meeting. While not stating his own position, Dan Conners in reporting the management's offer spoke favourably of the concessions' which had Dren overed. nese amounted to a promise that instead of laying men off at midnight, the management would, in future, do so at 11pm (giving them an extra hour to get home) and would also pay the men for four hours of the previous night.
This offer was decisively rejected by the workers, but Conner's insistence that the strikers should not meet for a week denied the chance of a fighting self-organisation, and is a recipe for defeat Be that as it may, the events at Fords on that Tuesday night say much. They were followed by Denis Healey's warning to the Labour Party Conference that if his policies were not followed there would be rioting on the streets.
But what happened at Fords was a direct consequence of those policies of wage cuts, redundancies and demands to boost producavily. Iney were also En consequence of an official trade union leadership which refuses to fight those policies.
IMG Cell, Dagenham