Toolmakers sound deathknell for Social Contract
Socialist Press1970sThe toolroom workers have left the Social Contract hanging by a thread, and the TUC leadership humiliated and discredited in their efforts to hold back struggles of the working class.
Transcribed by hand from the printed page.
In this article ALAN THORNETT, a candidate in the TGWU election for General Secretary and BLMC shop steward at Cowley, points the political lessons of the strike, and the key role of a leadership that refused to face the real implications of the struggle. Writing in a personal capacity, he traces the connection between the anti-democratic attacks on workers by trade union bureaucrats and the central platform of the TUC and Labour government alike—wage controls.
[T]he connection between Trade [Unio]n democracy and the imposition [of wa]ge controls was violently demon[strat]ed last week with the decision of [the] AUEW Executive Council to sup[port] British Leyland management and [the] Labour Cabinet in their decision [to sa]ck the 3,000 striking toolmakers.
[Th]is unprecedented move, advocated by ['Le]ft' Hugh Scanlon was the logical [outco]me of 'participation', the acceptance [by tra]de union leaders that the viability of [Leylan]d is the primary objective and [Scanl]on and Jones's "Keep Working" front [page] spread in the Company newspaper, [Leyla]nd Mirror, last Autumn.
[In] supporting the sackings Scanlon knew [the e]normity of his action. Of the 3,000 to [be sa]cked 63 were shop stewards, and many [were] branch officers and on District Com[mitte]es. For example, 50% of the Oxford [Distri]ct Committee were involved in the [strike] and would have been sacked if they [had n]ot returned to work.
Powerful blow
[S]canlon also knew that his humiliating [rejec]tion at the hands of 3,000 toolmakers [in B]irmingham Town Hall the previous [illegible]y was a powerful blow for the inde[pend]ent action of the working class and [again]st those collaborating with manage[men]t and government.
[H]e knew that the almost unanimous vote [again]st him had exposed the enormous [weak]ness of the trade union bureaucracy. [It] had revealed the reality—that their [appar]ent strength was the strength of [mana]gement and of government and that [whe]n faced with a determined section of [their] members they were exposed and swept [to on]e side.
[S]canlon knew the implications of this [devel]opment and the effect it would have on the rest of the working class who would say—if the toolmakers can do it why should we be pushed around? The writing was on the wall.
He knew that since the Labour government rests completely on the TUC bureaucracy, and in particular Jones and Scanlon, that this development called into question the ability of the Labour government to rule.
It was this pressure, to save the Labour government, which led Scanlon to support the sackings in a desperate bid to get the toolmakers back to work and retrieve some credibility for the battered leadership of the AUEW.
Tore up cards
He gambled and lost. Within hours, strike action developing into national proportions swept the AUEW in support of the toolmen.
Next day skilled workers in a number of plants arrived at work and went straight back home. Other sections were organising. In the Oxford District, for example, Didcot power station AUEW members decided not only to strike but to picket the car plants. Harwell Atomic Research AUEW skilled men, who last year tore up their union cards because they claimed the District Committee was too militant decided for action.
In Bradford a special District Committee meeting was called to organise a strike of all skilled men in the Bradford area. The Birmingham East District Committee condemned the EC action.
Supporting action
Other sections taking supporting action were toolmakers at Ford, Chrysler, Rolls Royce and AC Delco, while AUEW branches began to move who, in the past, had objected to taking any kind of action.
There is little doubt that the rejection of Scanlon and the strikes in support of the toolmakers compounded the political crisis of the Labour government and became a major factor in the decision of Thatcher to press a vote of no confidence in the government.
Until now the Tories have been content to allow the Wilson/Callaghan Labour leadership to attack the working class on their behalf. But having seen the ability of the Labour government to rule destroyed, they are faced with the necessity of doing the job themselves—difficult as that will be.
That the toolroom strike precipitated a major governmental crisis came as no surprise to the WSL. I spoke in 13 public meetings, during the toolroom strike, in support of WSL policy.
In each meeting I stressed that the toolmakers had thrown the Labour government and the trade union bureaucracy into deep political crisis and that the strike represented a direct threat to the continuation of the Social Contract and the survival of the Labour government.
In all but two of those meetings that assessment was challenged by members of the IMG who would only concede that the strike represented, along with other struggles "the beginnings of a fight back". The task now, they said, was to "organise the fight back" through the April 3 National Conference, the April 19 one day strike and so on.
The reality was that a section of workers were on strike who had the power to close down a section of the engineering industry covering two million workers. They had a right wing leadership determined to avoid the political issues of the strike and the inevitable confrontation with the government over the Social Contract.
The immediate task therefore, was to tackle the leadership problems, the political development, defence and extension of that strike.
This may not have fitted into the IMG's schema but it was central to the struggle to break Phase II of the Social Contract. If the toolroom strike had been defeated wage control would have been strengthened.
Tackling the development of the strike meant developing a struggle within the strike committee to begin to explain the political issues involved to the mass of toolmakers in preparation for the struggles ahead.
Confusion sewn
The essential prerequisite for this was a clear and accurate assessment of the strike itself.
It was necessary to refute the confusion sewn by the media about "differentials" and establish that the motivating force of the strike was the Social Contract and the fall in the standard of living and that the strike reflected the mood of the whole working class.
Separate rights
There is a dangerous element in the toolmakers' claim—they are demanding separate negotiating rights on a corporation-wide basis. This falls in line with management policy and could be used by management as a lever to impose the corporate principle on all grades of workers in Leyland.
The corporate principle would centralise wage bargaining in the hands of the national officials and hamstring Leyland workers in any effort to re-establish previous wage levels.
This danger must be strongly pointed out and the policy opposed within the toolmakers' committee. It could not however influence our attitude towards the toolroom strike itself. With the strike ranged against the Social Contract and giving the possibility of striking a blow against wage control for the whole working class, the dangers of corporate bargaining in British Leyland become secondary.
The crucial task, and one taken up by the Workers Socialist League, was to call for full support for the toolmakers' struggle and pose an alternative policy to the wage-cutting Social Contract—the sliding scale of wages. Recognition of the real nature of the strike as a struggle against the Social Contract coupled with a fight to have wages linked to inflation so that workers' incomes are compensated on a point for point basis for increases in the cost of living were the demands necessary for this situation.
In fact, historically, the toolmakers' struggle has developed in step with the rising hostility of the working class to wage control.
Socialist Press made the following point in a lead article last April dealing with the strikes of toolmakers at Triumph, Rover, Tractor and Transmissions and SU Carburettors which had lasted four weeks. (They had been instructed back to work by the AUEW Executive and Tractors and SU had rejected the instruction).
"But the strength within the working class—the same strength which defeated the Tory government and removed them from office; the same strength that defeated the Industrial Relations Court; the same strength that forced through last year's railwaymen's pay claim; that strength has not been confronted or defeated by the employers. It emerges still in the continuing pay strike at BL's Tractors and Transmissions plant, in the SU strike, and in the surprise decision of the Coventry AUEW District Committee to reject the Executive instruction."
Letters passed
The issue remained very much active whilst letters were passed between the committee, the management and the union. On December 6, a successful one day token strike was called throughout British Leyland as a shot across the bows of the management.
On February 18 1977 the call went out for an indefinite strike demanding recognition of the Toolroom Committee as a negotiating body, a demand which the toolmakers saw as leading quickly to cash on the nail. The strike received the solid support of 3,000 of the 4,500 toolmakers within Leyland—not 50% as claimed by the management. The main plants not supporting were Llanelly and Swindon.
The massive backing given to the Toolroom Committee from the start of the strike again reflected the working class. It was the rejection of the official leadership and the searching for an alternative leadership which could lead a fight on wages.
From the first day the strike met the bitterest hostility from the entire official leadership of the trade union movement.
Instructed back
The strikers were promptly called upon or instructed back to work by every group of bureaucrats who could be got together: the Executive Council of the TGWU; a unanimous vote of the 21 unions in the Confed; meetings of BL conveners from both the AUEW and the TGWU; a special Sunday meeting of the Cars Council—the top 'participation' committee, the Cabinet, the NEB and the House of Commons. [illegible] the toolmakers to go back.
The first action to flow from this official activity was organised scabbing. At the gates of the Cowley Body Plant drivers from my section, Cowley Assembly Plant Transport Department, were pressed by the TGWU conveners and TGWU Branch officers to cross the toolmakers' picket.
When they refused I was called in front of the District Secretary and convener and with other transport section stewards told that the policy of the TGWU was to cross the picket.
When this failed a TGWU Branch official told the toolmakers "If you don't remove yourselves from these gates we will bring TGWU members out to move you".
At the Castle Bromwich Body Plant when Cowley drivers refused to cross the picket they were told by TGWU conveners that Cowley transport "would be blacked throughout the Midlands area".
The second thing to emerge was a list of suggestions from the NEB to Varley designed to deal with the strike: close down the whole combine until workers agree not to strike; close one plant as an example; sell off the volume car section.
These suggestions were entirely ridiculous. The combine was already closed down, all the plants are integrated and the termination of volume car production would collapse the economy of the Midlands and is politically impossible for a Labour government.
All Varley could do was to make the standard threat to cut off finance. The result was that the strike hardened and the political crisis of the government deepened while Callaghan placed the ball in Scanlon's court.
Scanlon, having at first refused, now agreed that a meeting could take place between the AUEW Executive and representatives nominated by District Committees—"which could include toolmakers". This was seen by the government, the employers and the trade union bureaucrats as the move which could end the strike.
Rigged meeting
Scanlon rigged the meeting from the start. The toolmakers' stewards arrived to find that there were 11 of them and 12 others. When the vote was put for a return to work and for Scanlon to meet the 3,000 toolmakers at a single mass meeting it was carried with a majority of toolmakers voting against.
On returning to their districts the minority of toolmaker stewards who had voted with Scanlon were heavily attacked by their members and when the full 63 stewards met the next day they voted unanimously to recommend rejection of Scanlon's terms at the mass meeting due to be held the following day, (Friday).
The media was shocked. The strike was still on!
Scanlon's manoeuvres turned what would have been a hostile meeting into a near riot. Only appeals from the strike leaders secured Scanlon a hearing at all. When the vote was taken there were only 11 prepared to back Scanlon.
The vote was a turning point in the political situation in Britain. The prop had been knocked from under the government and it was clear that the political repercussions would be far-reaching.
The vote also placed the ball back in the courts of the management and the government, who after a lengthy meeting with the 21 unions in the Confed announced that unanimous agreement had been reached with the trade unions to sack the toolmakers if they refused to return to work.
In Scanlon's words:
"This means if the company dismisses our members we will not approach the company saying they have done wrong".
Promptly, and correctly, Roy Fraser, on behalf of the strike committee said:
"We do not think there will be any breaking of our ranks . . . We are now running into a type of industrial relations attitude of the 1930s. This will affect every worker in this country if Leyland management succeeds in this type of coercion".
The strike committee voted to recommend the continuation of the strike and to call for support from other skilled men both inside and outside British Leyland if the sackings were carried out.
Flowing in
The following day, Wednesday March 16, a full meeting of the 63 toolroom shop stewards was held. Already support was flowing in from other skilled sections. But there was a change in the meeting. Derek Robinson, leading Communist Party member, AUEW convener at Longbridge, chairman of the Cars Council and a toolroom steward was at the meeting.
There were three positions voiced at the meeting: (1) acceptance of the strike committee recommendation; (2) to make a fresh offer to management and the AUEW—to recommend a return to work on condition that a three sided meeting took place between management, the AUEW Executive and the toolmakers' representatives to discuss the toolmakers' pay grievances; (3) Robinson's position of an immediate return to work on current management terms, in other words, complete surrender.
It was the first stewards meeting Robinson had attended since the dispute started. The effect of his intervention was to strengthen support for what appeared to be the centre position. A motion to make a new offer to management was carried with nine votes against.
Later that day both management and AUEW Executive compromised with the toolmakers. The Executive dropped their opposition to the unofficial committee nominating its representatives and the management dropped their opposition to discussing the toolmakers' pay grievances in isolation.
The deal was a sell-out. The concessions made by management were worth very little. The meeting was held without top management or national union officials in attendance and described as "low key".
But the toolmakers went back far from defeated. They were not intimidated, and had gone back believing that important gains had been made. They followed the committee in which they had so much confidence.
Last card
It was a sell-out because their leaders took them back at the point where all was possible. Fifteen of Leyland Cars' 18 models were at a standstill. The last card had been played by the management, the government and the bureaucrats. The working class was coming forward to defend them against the sack. The demands could have been won in full.
The leadership retreated when the reality which they had avoided from the start was inescapable—a political struggle to bring down the Social Contract.
It is a great tribute to the strength of the working class that despite the sell-out the struggle still shook the government and will have a profound effect on the future of the Social Contract.
If the talks with management are abortive and they almost certainly will be, the committee should call for the strike to resume. There is little doubt that the support would be forthcoming from the toolmakers. The issue is far from over.
[Photo: Toolroom workers going into the Birmingham meeting before voting to return to work.]