Betrayed – by the TGWU
Socialist Organiser1980sAlan Thornett victimised
Transcribed by hand from the printed page.
BL workers have seen a lot of sell-outs, but few can have been more slick and polished than the efforts of TGWU Oxford District Secretary David Buckle in selling out the struggle to defend Alan Thornett last week.
His long experience certainly showed from the moment he took control of events. He refused to publicly defend Alan Thornett and when the shop stewards defended him instead, he attacked them and denounced their statement.
He conspired with higher officials in the TGWU to call the mass meeting at the worst possible moment and then refused to attend it.
From the moment BL made their move to sack Alan Thornett on November 11, the full resources of both the Company and the Transport and General Workers Union swung into action to ensure that he stayed sacked. Looking back, the accumulation of these forces made a successful struggle in his defence extremely difficult indeed.
This is not to say he was not defended in the discipline procedure. By all accounts David Buckle put a very good case at the final meeting, clearly establishing victimisation.
He could rest assured, of course, that however strongly he argued the case, BL would not change their mind. The sacking was a strategic decision taken at a very high level and, short of an all-out strike, they were determined to see it through.
Significantly Buckle had told Alan Thornett and the plant TGWU convenor Bob Fryer that he had been in touch with the Regional and National officers of the union since he was first aware of BL's moves. There is no doubt that they were involved in the subsequent tactical decisions.
Final
At the extended plant conference – effectively the final appeal – Buckle concluded by registering a "failure to agree" with BL and giving them five days notice (required under BL procedure) of "possible" industrial action. It was, according to those at the conference, the first time management side showed any interest in the proceedings.
They need not have worried, however. The five days' notice was not the start of a build-up towards strike action, but the first move in a sophisticated sell-out.
When Derek Robinson was sacked the spontaneous walk-out was made official immediately by the TGWU. Here, the collapse of the shop stewards movement in the recent period made a spontaneous walk-out at plant level very unlikely. But timing remained crucial. The quicker the membership was involved the better.
Notice
In this situation five days notice was a problem. In the present conditions in Cowley convenors are disciplined and victimised for calling mass meetings after the procedure is exhausted, let alone before.
It was very difficult for Bob Fryer to call a mass meeting of the plant once the five days notice was given. Roy Fraser in the Body Plant, for example, was victimised for doing just that.
Faced with this, Fryer planned to go straight to the transport drivers and seek a decision for strike action from the end of the five days notice. (Again it was very difficult for the drivers to strike in defiance of Buckle's five days' notice given their vulnerability, the ruthless management they were dealing with, and the inevitable response of the TGWU, which would be to order them back to work until the five days were up).
He would then call a mass meeting of the plant as soon as the drivers were out and giving a lead.
Before Buckle left the plant after the final appeal he arranged to produce a letter for distribution on the plant explaining the situation. When this arrived later that Friday afternoon, it revealed the next serious problem.
It said absolutely nothing to counter management propaganda which was already circulating in the plant. It is worth quoting it in full:
"This letter is to advise you that at an Extended Plant Conference today – 12 November – a case was argued against the dismissal of Brother Thornett in respect of his failure to renew his HGV licence and other related matters.
"The Company refused to withdraw the dismissal notice and we registered a "failure to agree" and gave five days notice of possible industrial action.
"You will be kept informed of developments by your Senior Steward and Shop Stewards."
This was serious. If there was to be a successful struggle, it needed the full time official conducting the case to publicly argue it. This letter, which was the ideal opportunity, showed that he would not.
Something had to be done. Without a full statement from the trade union side, the workforce would only have the Company version and support would be destroyed.
To meet this situation a statement was produced over the weekend, defending Alan Thornett, under the name of the sub-committee of the TGWU stewards committee. It was pinned to Buckle's letter and distributed to the plant on Monday morning and Monday night shift.
It had a very strong impact and cleared away the confusion created by Company propaganda.
At the same time, on Monday morning, Bob Fryer met the transport drivers. They voted solidly to strike from the end of the five days' notice, and to call upon the plant to follow them. (Their decision was not, as some newspapers claimed, conditional on the support of the plant).
Later that day Buckle told the Oxford Mail that he hoped to arrange a mass meeting of the plant for Thursday of that week, during the five days notice, (and towards the end of that five days, giving time for a Company propaganda build-up).
Although when he put his request to management, through Bob Fryer, it was refused, it was plain that it would not end there. It is fair to assume that the Thursday meeting decision had been taken high up in the TGWU and that BL would soon be prevailed upon to concede it.
The TGWU leadership appear to have decided that they must kill the drivers' action before they came out. When Alan Thornett was victimised in 1974 they were caught. The drivers stayed out for a month despite the refusal of the plant to support them.
Meanwhile, management were stung by the sub-committee statement and reacted angrily. They intimidated Bob Fryer, demanding to know the names of the sub-committee who, they said, had distributed an "unauthorised" leaflet.
On Monday afternoon, Ian Forster (Director of Southern Operations) issued a leaflet throughout the complex "replying" to the sub-committee. His approach was to distort the case still further, since it was difficult to introduce a witch-hunt – which was what the Company needed.
On Tuesday morning Forster got the break he wanted. The Workers Revolutionary Party were on the gates distributing a leaflet with a photo of Alan Thornett on the front and Karl Marx on the back.
It was headlined "All out strike now to reinstate Bro. Thornett". It never attempted to argue the case or relate to the situation. It was simply a political statement which ended:
"Nationalise the banks, the whole motor industry and all basic industries under workers control without compensation. This means a united struggle by the working class against the Tories and the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and its replacement by a socialist planned economy."
The leaflet had a serious negative impact on the plant. For the first time the right wing were able to divert from the issue itself and simply witch-hunt Alan Thornett as a Trotskyist.*
On Tuesday Buckle made it clear he was opposed to a transport drivers strike, saying that the issue was "too big" for one section.
Later that day, Buckle, with Fryer, met management and again asked for mass meetings on Thursday to be preceded by a shop stewards meeting on Wednesday morning. Sure enough, this time management agreed to authorise a mass meeting without pay.
Later Buckle began attacking not only the decision of the transport drivers to strike, but also the sub-committee statement, saying it was unauthorised and distributed without his knowledge.
It is an incredible statement since his own letter said that members would be "kept informed of developments by your senior steward and shop stewards". Yet as soon as the stewards acted on this he denounces them.
Inside
It would not have been so bad if Buckle's attacks on the sub-committee had been kept inside the union, but they were not. When he knew that the Company were trying to get the names of the sub-committee out of Bob Fryer in order to victimise them, Buckle went to management and denounced them in the most damaging terms.
It was the nub of the issue. By late that day supervisors were on the tracks distributing a new statement from Forster.
Wednesday's Oxford Mail, the edition before the mass meeting, exploited it to the full – which of course was the way it was planned.
Virtually ignoring the shop stewards meeting that morning which had pledged support unanimously, the Mail had a front page headline: "Don't be misled by agitators, BL tells workers". It went on:
"Workers at the Cowley car assembly plant were warned today that an extremist minority was trying to stir up a dispute for its own ends.
"The Austin Rover management has repeated its message that a strike will not get Mr Alan Thornett, sacked last week . . . back on the payroll.
"Mr Ian Forster, in his second letter in two days to the workers, says:
"Extremist organisations outside the Company and outside the union (i.e. WRP) are wrongly trying to make out this is a case of victimisation.
"A misleading document has been circulated by a self styled unofficial TGWU shop stewards sub-committee.
"The TGWU District Secretary has denied all knowledge of this body and has disowned this misleading document and has started an investigation to discover who these people are."
The Oxford Mail goes on to say that Bob Fryer had refused to say who wrote the leaflet and quotes Buckle as saying "People have assumed I am a party to both the letter and the leaflet. I am not. The leaflet was issued without my knowledge or approval."
(It is interesting that the Oxford Mail knew of the demands on Fryer to reveal the names).
The distribution of this leaflet in both Body and Assembly Plants, plus its exposure in the Oxford Mail was a crippling blow to the possibility of a strike. But more treachery was to come.
The effect of all this on the plant was obvious. The only leaflet defending Alan Thornett had been denounced, and Buckle's statement was in effect a declaration that the TGWU officials did not want a strike and would not support one.
But it did not end there. Buckle wanted to be absolutely sure that there would be no strike vote. On Wednesday afternoon he met Bob Fryer and put the boot in again by announcing that he had no intention of attending the mass meetings.
Invited
This, he said, was because he had not been invited to the stewards meeting in the morning.
This was not even true since he had jointly met management to arrange it with Bob Fryer. It was an incredible position.
In fact Buckle had no right to refuse a direct request from the convenor of the plant to attend the meeting. He was the full time official dealing with the case.
Well over £1,000 per week is paid in subscriptions from TGWU members in the Assembly Plant and the appointed full time official whose wages, car and expenses are paid for out of it refuses to attend a mass meeting on a major issue facing the plant!
His action can only be described as deliberately designed to undermine the possibility of a strike.
But the problems were still not over. Wednesday's shop stewards meeting had voted on the text of a reply to Forster's leaflet which was to be distributed on the gates by the stewards on Wednesday night shift and Thursday day shift.
The night shift distribution went well, but the day shift was a disaster. When the stewards arrived not only were the WRP there giving out their leaflet for the third morning running, but the local SWP were there with their own "Support Thornett" leaflet.
Without contacting anyone the SWP had decided to break an agreement made a few days earlier that they would leave it to the trade unions and not leaflet the plant.
It is not just a matter of giving management ammunition. The reason that Buckle's statement and the stewards' statement had to be given out on the gate is very important.
A major part of the break up of the trade union structure in the plant had been the success of BL in banning the circulation of all trade union literature with the exception of non-contentious administrative material agreed in advance by them.
The convenors have been constantly warned and intimidated about the circulation of "unauthorised" trade union material inside the factory.
Even Buckle's statement could only be distributed outside the gates.
For almost two years the official trade union movement has been relegated onto the gates for the distribution of its material. Even then, it could not carry names or signatures because of victimisation.
The refusal of the SWP to recognise that the stewards were carrying out the official distribution of shop stewards committee material and that they were interfering with that distribution made matters worse.
Difficult
It was a very difficult situation. Radio Oxford had been pumping out Forster's statement since it was issued. The early morning news broadcasts each half hour which most BL workers listen to before they go to work had each repeated Forster's key words "Extremist organisations outside the Company and outside the union . . .".
When workers entered the plant for the mass meeting many of them received three leaflets – one from the WRP, one from the SWP and one from the shop stewards committee.
The responsibility however lies with Buckle and the TGWU. When Bob Fryer announced to the key day shift mass meeting that Buckle would not be there it had a visible impact on the meeting. By that time the six or seven to one vote against a strike was inevitable.
The night shift which is smaller and generally more militant on the issue voted 60-40 to support a strike, but it was not enough to counter the day shift vote.
The transport drivers, meanwhile, had actually strengthened during the course of the week. They had received very important support from the drivers at Longbridge who pledged to black Cowley if Cowley drivers struck – a very effective action since they supply engines to the plant.
The drivers met on Friday morning to consider the mass meeting decision. Buckle by then had told both the Oxford Mail and Bob Fryer that if the drivers struck on Monday they would receive no support from the TGWU.
They were up against a very difficult situation. There was a strong mood to continue, whatever the odds.
Some however felt that it was hard enough for 90 people to take on BL in its present mood and after the mass meeting vote, but to take on the TGWU at the same time was impossible.
Remarkably the vote was very close, narrowly going against strike action. In fact it could easily have gone the other way since those unavoidably absent were militants. The vote however ended the last possibility of strike action over the issue.
But even that is not the full answer to the defeat. The chronic weakness of the shop stewards movement, gutted over recent years by a combination of 'worker participation', voluntary redundancy and management offensive was a major factor.
It limited the ability of the stewards committee to counter the treachery as it arose on the shop floor.
Also the confusion and demoralisation created in the workforce by repeated betrayals by national officials and general secretaries of the annual wage reviews which have been used as the bedrock of management authority.
In addition to their hostility to Trotskyism the national leaderships of the major unions in BL remain politically committed to the profitability of BL and are opposed to anything which can shut down the plants.
There is no doubt that BL will build on this victory and that conditions in the plants will worsen. More victimisations are likely to follow. With Tebbit's laws on the statute book, BL is likely to remain a front runner in the offensive against the unions.
*This could not have been an innocent blunder by the WRP. Gerry Healy knows exactly the results of such a leaflet.
In "Victimisation at Cowley", the WRP account of the 1974 strike, Healy attacks the IMG for exactly the same thing – putting leaflets into the plant at the time of confrontation with management.
This remarkable page (p.53) from "Victimisation at Cowley" makes the point very well.
"This kind of intervention was extremely dangerous. It confused the workers on strike, it subverted the role of the trade union movement and it gave the company its ideal opportunity. Here at last was a real group of 'extremists' issuing their 'inflammatory communications' in order to wreck the company!
The way British Leyland used the IMG is most revealing. The method is illustrated in this letter from the production manager of the Cowley South works, W.B. Kennedy.
Kennedy wrote to the strikers:
"The present dispute at QT has been the subject of unauthorised leaflets recently, on behalf of an extremist organisation.
"Such groups aim to wreck British industry. They will oppose any measures designed to promote harmony. That is why they have always wanted to tear up the Industrial Engineering Agreement and get back to the Dutch Auction system of bargaining.
"The Company does not intend to allow extremists to run the plant."
Observe how Kennedy jumps from the singular to the plural.
In the first paragraph we have: 'an extremist organisation' (the IMG) 'wrecking' British industry. But in the second paragraph we have: 'Such groups aim to wreck British industry'. The WRP, Alan Thornett, the senior stewards, have been roped in and been found guilty of the provocations carried out by the IMG."
It even explains exactly the same technique used by management again last week – taking a political leaflet and skilfully turning the smear onto the trade union publication.
[Photo: Drivers from Alan Thornett's transport section giving Regional Secretary Mathers and Chairman Davies a rough ride outside TGWU offices during the kangaroo court "inquiry" which attempted to expel Thornett from the union. The threat of industrial action by the drivers if this went ahead forestalled this victimisation by union leaders. But though the drivers remain solidly loyal to Thornett, the bureaucracy has never abandoned its determination to drive him from the plant.]
[Photo: From a heyday of 200 TGWU stewards, the Assembly Plant has been reduced to 40]
Move this motion
[Photo: Buckle – no public defence of Thornett]
This Branch condemns the actions of Oxford District Secretary David Buckle in the recent victimisation of Alan Thornett at the BL Cowley Assembly Plant on the following grounds.
1) Failing, as the official handling the case, publicly to defend Alan Thornett.
2) Denouncing the shop stewards committee leaflet, which did defend Alan Thornett, to the management.
3) Failing to attend the mass meeting at the request of the convenor knowing that the attendance of the full time official was crucial on such an issue.