Hawley cons convenors
Socialist Organiser1980sTranscribed by hand from the printed page.
TGWU convenors from BL Cars, meeting last Friday blocked one attempt to impose a totally unrepresentative negotiating committee on BL workers and opened the door to another.
The convenors were meeting in Birmingham to determine their position on the annual wage review; both the nature of the claim and how it will be negotiated this year. (The original, grossly unrepresentative National Joint Negotiating Committee [NJNC] was disbanded last year and despite pressure from the plants both management and national officials have deliberately dragged their feet in negotiating its reconstruction on democratic lines).
Last Friday's meeting was confronted with a blatant attempt by TGWU national car industry officer Grenville Hawley to manoeuvre it into a decision which would effectively put all negotiating rights in the hands of the national officials of the eleven unions involved.
Noone would have known from Hawley's report to the meeting that the policy of the TGWU is to fight for a democratic, proportionately representative NJNC.
Noone would have known from his report that this is the policy of every TGWU committee at local and regional level and even the National Committee to which he is responsible.
Everything which has been done from the plants and the committees over the past year to achieve that policy was ignored.
Instead Hawley gave a report based on the meeting of national officials which he had taken upon himself to convene four days earlier over the heads of the convenors.
He reported that the officers' meeting had adopted a six point claim including a "substantial increase" and then asked the convenors to endorse his report.
Had it been endorsed it would have established by precedent a procedure putting everything in the hands of the national officials with himself as convenor.
A sharp two-hour debate resulted in Hawley's report being rejected and a decision taken to send a delegation to see Alex Kitson as acting General Secretary apparently to complain about Hawley's actions.
The meeting then went on to endorse the Combine Committee claim of £20 across the board.
But it didn't end there. Hawley then proposed that the meeting demand the resurrection of the old NJNC on a "once off basis" — a body which has been repeatedly denounced as unrepresentative of TGWU members and which the TGWU has been trying to get rid of for two years.
Hawley informed the convenors that he had already discussed this proposal with management who had rejected it out of hand. They were quite determined that they would only negotiate the review with national officials.
The meeting then voted to accept Hawley's proposals, effectively abandoning previous TGWU policy, and giving Hawley what was in reality his fall-back position from the start.
Neither the Combine Committee alternatives of a properly reconstructed committee on democratic lines or a temporary committee on equally democratic lines was discussed nor was the policy adopted at the Cowley Assembly Plant mass meeting. This had called for either a democratically reconstituted committee or alternatively for the TGWU, as the major union representing the vast majority of production workers to elect its own democratic structure and demand to negotiate directly with BL.
The vote was a serious retreat by the convenors, coming before the wage claim has even got off the ground. They seem to think that BL will continue to reject the resurrection of the old committee and have decided to meet again on 1 October to consider the position if deadlock remains.
BL, however, are out to get the best deal they can. If they fail to get a committee of 100% national officials, they will be happy to resurrect a body which has served them well in the past.