used for rationalisation'-meaning speed-up and sackings.
jobs.
workers if jobs are to be defended.
ALEeT Onus or Dack-stape secret manoeuvring by the trade union bureaucrats, Leyland workers have had Ryder's participation proposals rammed down their throats, A fortnight's junketing in plush Midlands hotels completed the betrayal, with the 32-man ad hoc comCement which has pendence of shop stewards" organisation, and to use them to pave the way for rationalisation and speed-up.
Even in Cowley, despite a vigorous campaign by the International Marxist Group through its factory bulletin The Organiser' and a strong intervention by IMG and Workers Socialist League stewards, the Joint Shop Stewards Commince volca by 1zoiz to accept the proposals. During an historic two-day meeting, vicious attacks on trade union autonomy were wrapped up in left' demagogy. In fact the proposals have as the participation committees have absolutely no power, mey can t vote, and, if there is no agreement, management has the final say;
the management has a built-in majority, since foremen and works policemen form part of the 50 per cent 'employee" side of the committees.
RANTINGS
These were just the main points from dozens of anomalies recognised by the stewards. Yet they voted to accept. Why? It was not the openly class-collaborationist rantings of witch-hunting TGWU senior steward Reg Parsons which carried the day. What convinced the stewards to swallow the bitter pill was the intervention of the fake 'lefts' aided by the plant's tame stalinist, Soanes.
Forced to admit that the proposals had many faults, the latter nevertheless went on to suggest that they offered 'a Manaaomoni I was decided To democratically THE BANKS REFUSIN alternative but to irony of the concluding caption when we printed this first time round. on the Labour Government is useless. As with the £1000 million being pumped into British Leyland, any government finance for Chrysler will be What is needed is real measures of workers' control to implement the Chrysler Linwood stewards' demand for nationalisation without compensation. This means the opening of the company's books by workers committees in every factory, which can reveal the real facts about Chrysler's crisis, expose the systematic running down of operations in Britain, and prepare a workers plan for production and nationalisation which defends Workers at British Leyland's Cowley assembly plant have already begun to show how this can be done. In recent weeks the 'Open-the-Books Committee of the Joint Shop Stewards Committee there has worked hard to undermine the Ryder participation fraud-last week only a derisory 1,687 workers out of a possible 6,000 voted in elections for five shop floor representatives to the 12-strong participation committee in the plant.
Nevertheless, as COWLEY IMG reports below, Leyland workers have suffered a substantial set-back as these plans have been steamrollered into operation. The lessons of the fight over Ryder must be learnt by all car foot in the door and, as such, represented *a step on the road to real (!) participation'. He urged acceptance because: (1) the unions retain their autonomv: (2 "having no vote is no obligation'; (3) established disputes procedure would be followed; (4) the initial 12 month period would be used to get voting rights on participation com FRAUD This was clearly a fraud perpetrated on the stewards. Voting rights are of no consequence on puppet committees which are already stacked against the unions. But this is a minor point. The main thing is that the whole Ryder plan is intended to get the workers to pay for Ryder's projection of a 50 per cent increase in sales by 1982 can only be achieved by a doubling or trebling of present productivity levels combined with the total injection of £2.8 billion. This means a savage attack on trade union rights and organisation. Far from defending the unions' autonomy, "participation' means involvement in dismantling independent trade unionism. Yet to hear Soanes and the fake lefts, workers would have thought that the Ryder plan was a half-way house to socialism.
Even before these paper committees were set up, the assembly plant workers got a taste of participation in practice. пист ue guise ora cuary aver management launched an attack on the Princess line workers. Several were suspended for practically no reason at all; one man was suspended for two nightsa fine of £32-for missing four tiny grommets. At once the press screamed about 'shoddy work' and a 'dossers paradise.
The men fought back but were fobbed off by the senior stewards with a joint enquiry-an example of participation at work", as Parsons put it. But the comThe firis books to me. Prene accepted my recommendation.
Not the way to open the books! And even Red Weekly didn't appreciate the double Back in May we warned car workers that the bosses' offer of a 'new deal' involving worker participation was a short step to getting the unions to take responsibility for mass redundancies and speedup. Material pushed out by Leyland management last week and recent events at Chrysler has brought home this bitter truth to many pany had already made its position clear and clearly intended to maintain its monopoly of information.
The day shift rejected the senior stewards recommendations and called for a trade union enquiry by the Openthe Books Committee. Although the senior stewards refused to drop the joint enquiry, Princess stewards refused to cooperate and instead gave their information to the workers' committee.
The Open-the-Books Committee sought to establish who is responsible Five thousand now - nineteen thousand next September. No, not the number of extra teachers being sent into overcrowded and understaffed schools, but. the number of unemployed teachers.
ment's cuts in social expenditure.
of 180 in Gloucestershire next year with three new nursery schools and a new Educationally Sub-Normal school being left empty. education in Bristol will be virtually wiped out if 26 redundancies are allowed to go ahead. In Hereford and Worcester the council voted by 41 to 39 against cutting 150 teaching jobs, but these will be under the axe again as the cuts bite deeper.
Prospects
no less bleak. After spending a fruitless summer searching for work, many school leavers are back in the classrooms - not from choice, but to stay off the streets. And in London, for example, the Education Authority expects these students to be provided with a meaningful job-orientated course without any prior preparation or additional staffing and material resources.
This disastrous situation has been brought about by the Labour GovernTeachers face a possible staff cut i Nursery The prospects for their pupils are November.
me tuture of th for reject cars, It reported: "Everyone knows that 99 percent of all rejects have nothing to do with the assembly worker. They are due to faulty components and shortages.' To prove this point the report reproduced an ADO 71 (Princess) Problem Report from supervisors on section four, track four which listed ten problems dating back as far as a year ago. This report effectively gave the lie to Leyland's accusations.
The investigation of the company's books and all aspects of its operation by The increasingly strident cries for more discipline and more authoritarian teachers are an attempt to divert attention from the real source of the crisis in the schools, and from the only solution to it: united working class action against unemployment, the cuts and falling living standards.
All levels This fight can begin at all levels. At the Hackney Downs school in London, an inter-union committee of all workers has been set up as a result of possible reductions in technical and ancillary staff. This committee will take up the cuts and unemployment and could start to develop much broader support by investigating the state of education spending in the school and area. and by informing the local labour movement of any proposed cutbacks.
In many areas, organising teachers and students will be the first step in building the campaign. The Socialist Teachers Conference, for example, is organising a meeting for all unemployed teachers in London on 20 In the Extra Metropolitan (London) District, teachers have agreed not to cover for non-appointed staff and for teachers absent for more cuts. than three days. This raises the issue of sharing the available work with no loss of pay between all teachers Leyland Cars elected trade union committees is in sharp contrast to the collaborationist policies of participation. But it must not stop there. Throughout the car industry, in Ford, Vauxhall and Chrysler as well as Leyland, similar committees are needed in every plant to examine the books of the car industry.
S WOOny break maccal monopoly of information. It will allow car workers to ascertain the true state o!
the industry and demonstrate the need for its complete nationalisation under the control of workers' committees.
COWLEY IMG and uniting employed and unemployed teachers in a common struggle.
Much of the information education service workers need to know about the extent of planned cuts is handled by local government workers in NALGO, who have access to financial plans and the books of the local authorities. These must be made available to committees of teachers and all trade unionists so that they can draw up alternative plans to the Government's cuts in spending..
Programme
A programme of socially useful public works allied with a sliding scale of social expenditure to pretect spending against inflation are vital elements of such an alternative. 26 November lobby and demonstration against unemployment can be an important step in building a mass campaign against unemployment and setting up Right to Work committees in every area. Teachers students and school students should make sure they turn out in force.
The attacks on education spending hit the social wage of every worker. United action by all workers, inside and outside the service, will be needed to detend jobs and throw back the Betty Hunter (Wandsworth NUT)
red weekly 2
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BP to do this and to i TU ENQUIRY