workers' WaLes LITOUKI speed up, rationalisation and shop floor wrake lie organisation.
A year ago Longbridge convenor gerek Kobiasol was sacked for advocating op postuon. LO Edwardes' plan. Despite the resulting sunke acuon, made ornelai vy the TGWU, the struggle was diffused and eventually sold out by the leadership Robinson's own union, the AUEW The real struggle building up around the Robinson case was sabotared when AUEW president Duffy announced an 'inquiry' into sacking.
By the time the inquiry reported the obvious fact that Robinson was unjustiy sacked, the workers were mood, in the financially tight post-Christmas period enter into turther strike ac. of tion.
The satking Edwardes' point: he showed that he could against any militant, any sign of opposition to his plan.
Spurred on by this victory Leyland management moved ast Amni to ram home thell advantage.
in no In the wake of Robinson's dismissal they were able to impose acceptance derisory five per cent wages offer. At the same time they established forced acceptance new 92-page code of conduct move at will wac ennee practices, including. mobility of labour and the introducI lats.
The but invitable.
Rove. platl of their strike. ed, there was that Cowley new wolkig in step with the struggle.
Offer tion of 'time and motion' engineers to assess new work- workers a , imposition of this defeat last April was anything Led by the Solihull, 18,000 workers came out on As support snowballevery chance and Longbridge per week. would have eventualv talen fer met rebuttal!
Management offered the derisory 6.8 per cent, in reply to the claim for an across the board £17.21p.
Awl ell Htc Lol around 17 per cent To add injury this offer comes in the wake of two suc. cessive 5 pay levels Leyland's much vaunted bonus scheme has resulted an average net bonus of bp No wonder the of Will such a decisive Socialist Challenge But an analysis of the vote, plant by plant shows that those plants which last April came out and were défeated, were those which are most reluctant to take on the management again.
Rejection Whereas rejection of the was overwhelming at OECE Longbridge and Cowley, Rover — • faced with dramatically falling , orders and more redundancies the vote was toa pt thant si Even the Lance alhaygu eten opt more mililan although Cvel Solihull there were some close votes the Landrover over D ato accepted • But the decisive thing is Only 2,300. ual all une most important plants voted against.
The decision to reject the company's offer and to take SuIKe Ila Ui threat Tories.
6 November 1980 Page 5
from the charácter of our Por is that producion Rather than 'share'