By a Longbridge shop steward BY A narrow majority Longbridge voted on Friday 4 December to end the strike over rest allowances. Our own works committee and union officials had snatched away the Michael Edwardes in four years of bitter strug gle. promise settlement' even by the standards of previous BL sell-outs.
We were in the fourth week of our strike against Edwardes finance the 39-hour week through cuts in our rest allowance.
We were in the strongest since he sacked our con venor Derek 'Red Robbo Robinson: supplies of the Metro were grinding to a halt, as were the engines 1UE the Cowley thanks to the picketing of the East Longbridge works which had begun five days For new readers we are offering TEN ISSUES of Socialist Challenge for the incredibly low price of E2 (real value E3.15!)
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blamed by Cardina Enterite Bo i London N1 Printed by East End Offset PUT did. Condon El BL workers at chance of our first victory over They cobbled together a so-called comwhich is pretty unique carlier.
Just as the myth of Edwardes" invincibility was crumbling, in came BE'S seventh cavalry the shape of the works comficials. Earlier ans in the Moss The TeNer. secretary of met Edwardes and алnounced the idea of a four week coons off period. And management attempted EnrOW gates to try and stampede An Autobiography by the workers across the official picket line. Contrary the national media reports of 700 strikers returning to work, only a derisory number of scabs broke the picket line.
In fact the picketing was effective that management resorted digging uP the old transportation tunneis between the plants to avoid the picket lines! The pickets were slowly bringing Longbridge to a complete hait, which threatened to involve the Cowley workers the So much for the works committee's assurances their skilful negotiating. would do the job better than picketing!
The works committee finally cooked up a deal local Tulitimers: Beadows of the
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