BLOODY - BUT UNBOWED
Socialist Organiser1980sTranscribed by hand from the printed page.
BL WORKERS have returned to work angry and militant. They have seen Edwardes reduced to a state of panic and they have seen their own power on the gates.
They have seen more clearly than ever before the open treachery of the leadership of their unions.
In Sunday's News of the World, Terry Duffy revealed that he and other general secretaries had attended a secret meeting at Michael Edwardes' home a week before the strike and that one of the good effects of the deal is that it will have a "moderating" effect on the wage round.
Michael Foot claimed in Monday's Daily Star that he and Stan Orme had set up the return to work formula at a three-hour meeting with Edwardes in a Commons committee room.
Although BL workers have not had time to fully assess the effects of the betrayal on their future conditions, particularly in relationship to the new procedure agreement, they have quickly seen the cynicism of Edwardes "promise" to the general secretaries to establish a more conciliatory management attitude.
Far from pulling back, the management offensive has been stepped up but it has met a militant response.
An hour after returning to work last Wednesday, a car body fell out of a hoist on the Honda Acclaim track at Cowley and hospitalised a production worker. The new "conciliatory" attitude was soon evident. "Start the track in 15 minutes or you are off the clock" the labour force was told.
A day and a half strike action won the safety precaution demanded by the workers plus full payment for the strike.
Nor is militancy confined to Cowley where the vote was strongly in favour of continuing the strike. Management has met with strike action this week at Longbridge where they have tried to force in a reduction in relief patterns to make the workers pay for the 39 hour week.
The reduction of one hour in the working week was negotiated by Duffy during the series of one and two-day engineering strikes called by the Confed in 1979. Duffy agreed that the reduction would be offset against productivity. But BL workers increased their productivity by 30% last year according to Edwardes—far more than enough to offset one hour's production.
Both the Metro and the Mini stopped work when management reduced the relief time and reduced a percentage of the slipmen from the tracks.
At Cowley management are being more cautious. They have introduced a 39 hour week (they had little option since the workers made it clear they would be going home an hour early anyway) without strings. But that will only be a temporary condition. Once they have forced it onto the other plants, they will choose the right time to attack Cowley as well.
Every new attack on their conditions makes the workers more hostile to their leaders at the top. They know they have the power to win and they know they were deprived of it by the Duffys and the Kitsons. They also know that if Edwardes had been decisively beaten on the wage review the general management attack on work effort and conditions of work would also have been decisively pushed back.