have become the big three short-time merchants.
three day week at its Ryton and Linwood plants. The firm's excluding the Chrysler plant.
A further 7,000 are on a three-day week at Vauxhall's Ellesmere Port factory, while Jaguar have a similar number on short-time. The crutich came last week when Fords announced it was putting 11,000 of its 55,000 workforce on three or four day weeks from 3 March. Hot on Ford's heels, British Leyland informed 11,000 workers at the massive Longbridge plant that they would be losing a shift a week from next month FORDS The most dramatic effects will be seen at. Fords. At the Halewood Transmission Plant on Merseyside 450 will be going on short time, along with 2,700 workers at the transit plant in Southampton, and 8,000 at the Dagenham body and asembly plants.
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AGES La year, short-time is just part of a softening-up process for future mass redundancies.
Workers at Fords will get some protection from an 80 per cent layoff agreement. But this only covers • total 15 days, and will be caten up atter ten weeks of short-time warking.
Management have used the pretext of the introduction of short-time to reorganise the shift system of the SUBSCRIPTION RATES:
DOMESTIC: 65 per year (2.50p for 6 monchs FOREIGN: f9 per year surface mail E12 per year airmail Write to RED WEEKLY (distribution] 182 Pentonville Road, London N.1. ENGLAND, HAVEN'T SEEM JONCE FOR -DON'T SHE GO INTO HOSPITAL Foc sle of the maintenance men and for smashing short-time working, the Communist Party and the stewards have contented themselves with confised and chauvinist rhetoric against Ford's foreign expansion plans. This implies that Toreign' workers can go to hell in the fight to save "British" jobs, In fact these are the only allies of British workers in the fight against the multinationals.
NO LAY-OFFS Ford workers must reject the company's lay-offs. In place of the Blue Book Agreement on lay-offs workers should be demanding the sharing of the available work with no loss of pay and under workers' control. Management is claiming that the present measures are due to falling sales of "big" cars (Consul, Cortina and Granada), which demands a 30 per cent cut in producthe strike?
Last year the trade unions - the AUER and the Nutional Sociery of Metal Mechanics- docepted a scheme of voluntary redundancies and nonrecruitmeat of labour. "The result has been that many sections in the factory, capocially the nore weakly orpanised ones, are badly under-manned, In a section, there are meant to be 56 work en employed, and we woukl claim even more we necessary for the jobs. But at present anly 43 of these jobs are filled same Fork done by lewer workers Sev etal wecks ago we started a go-slow in opposition to Uis An a result, manage ment oned to use other workers and even stall to do our jobe Last week we cold them this practics must censo Honcues, the company took no notice, so we called an unofficial strike, Of course, it's much easier to get with occupation. workers movement. erview below. -What was the immediate cause of The management clearly wanted the the story? tion. This claim should be assessed at its face value by opening all the books on Ford's investment, produc tion and sales plans to workers" Inspection, Shop meetines should then work out line speeds and shift schedules, and an average working week with no loss of pay should be calculated for the whole work force to coincide with the cuts in produc tion levels. Such a plan should be presented to management and refusal to comply should be met The Communist Party stewards are collecting signatures for a petition to Benn to launch an enquiry into Fords UK. But this enquiry must be a workers enquiry in the workers interests, not a carve-up in the interests of the car bosses by Bean's whizz-kids. All Ford's plans and accounts should be published to the Barking MP and Trihune group process. Among them was an ING militant in the AUEW whom we inttime working or voluntary redundancies, which tond to divide the work-force Everybody on the section went out By the end of Lie first day production wa seriously affected throughout the factory, ald management was faced with the prospect of having to lay everybody They have now given us a written statement that on no occasion will anybody attempt to cover our jobs, and negotiations are starting over filling up all the vacancies arid the oxtra ones we claim are here. On this basis we apreed to return to work. -Do you think this is the end of No, quite the contrary, it is only the beginning The company ned to cur hacie manning levels on all sections dod speed up work. Indeed, managers have internally told me that this is what they intend to do. For instance. two wocks ago they altempted to stop the women on the tracks from using the toilets during working bours We will let nos NINE Haunt's WAITING LIST / member Jo Richardson has called for the nationalisation of Fords fo the good of the workers and the economy, But what's good for the capitalst economy will certainly no be good for the workers. That's wh nationsusatiun must be carried out in the workers interests. The only way to cuforce this is through wor kens control. At every stage warke must be able to monitor the plans and arrangements of any proposed nationalisation, block any attempts al sabotage by the management, an resist reorgansation of production which is against their interests.
All Fords stewards and combine delegates should meet immediately to nammer out a common policy on jobs and against short-time, sh a first step to a meeting of the union plant leaderships of the entire moto industry to ser in motion a campaie for the nationalisation of the whole industry Sam Boyd otiations start, but unless they till up the vacancies we are prepared to take action again -Do you think this has wider im plications?
lEis a sign of the times un the car industry, Brey car plant, component Plent, rolling mill, ete. is in the same bout Unfortunately few shap stewards in the industry realise what is abour to hit them.
Last week af a meeting in Binning hamn, John Deacon, secretary of AustinLongbridge works committee, claimed that all that wis necossary was basicilly an injection of Gevernment money coupled with some restrictions out Japanese and EFC competition in onder to solve our problems He did not see any crisis of over production. To die extent that Chere was one he felt this could simply be solved by more specialisation in the car industry What is really necessary is to begin to prepare car workers who are in the Toretront of the present crisis. That will anean mass neetings on the shop-floor combined with conferences of factory delegates foin right across the indusin to hammer out an albernative strategy nouad demands for nationalisation of the car industry under worker contral.
But because most shop stewards don't Enderstand what is happening, they see little nood for these stops. Whan we were trood with redundancies at Wilmot Breed the same Few warkers knaw what i going on in the factories, and so they are not prepured for a strugde Tintee this changes and the work foros in the cat industry is prepared for major str sgles, there is a danger thai major defeata will be suffered,
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LATER -. JOYCE
The car industry is in the throes of a massive crisis. In many factories workers have already accepted short-time working. But at Wil mot-Breed- en, a car components factory employing 2,500 workers in Birmingham, a section went out on strike last week against some of the effects of this
en there were no mass meetings At BEMC in Birminghant the situation is