BL puts the boot in! Procedure agreement builds on Tebbit
Socialist Organiser1980sA new document to tighten control over the shop floor could go through on April 23. Bill Peters reports
Transcribed by hand from the printed page.
BL's new disputes procedure document is due to be accepted on the nod by the Joint Negotiating Committee on April 23.
It is designed to further hamstring the trade unions, and provides for a range of new measures to strengthen the hand of management in the plants.
In line with the decision of the AUEW shop stewards last week, the TGWU convenors have decided to put the 'final draft' of the document back to the shop stewards' committees for 'consultation'.
But no further convenors' meeting will be held prior to April 23. Objections are simply to be sent to TGWU automotive group national secretary Grenville Hawley by letter, and Hawley has undertaken to present them to the JNC.
The document has been under discussion at JNC level for two months. An agreement to reintroduce it into negotiations was smuggled into the sell-out formula at the conclusion of last November's BL Cars wage review.
Throughout the two months, details of the negotiations have been withheld from the shop stewards and the workforce.
Management has made few concessions since the original draft was tabled in March 1981. In fact, in some ways the new draft is worse.
The document is written to take the Tebbit Bill fully into account. Instead of workers being required to be members of an appropriate trade union, as in the existing BL agreement, the new draft says only that it is in the 'mutual interest' of the company and its employees that they are members of a union, and provides for 'discussions' in the event of 'difficulties' over membership.
An extension and consolidation of the check-off system is presented as an answer to the problems of the unions in maintaining 100% membership.
The document ends all full-time positions for senior shop stewards and their deputies, except in the case of senior stewards in certain large plants. This clause has already been implemented in most plants in advance of the signing of this document.
Joint plant-level negotiating committees are to be established, and a national joint negotiating committee of 37 members — 18 seats for the TGWU, 9 for the AUEW, 2 for the NUSMW, and one each for the other eight unions.
This is claimed as a concession by management, since the original document called for a JNC made up entirely of full time officers.
But this has to be seen against the practice at the last two wage reviews of using the general secretaries as the negotiating body as soon as deadlock is reached. (In reply to a question, Hawley anyway refused to confirm that the TGWU's delegation would be made up of lay members).
The disputes procedure in the document has three stages with an optional extended plant conference. It is an extension of management control.
Plant industrial relations officers are to be present from the first (superintendent) stage of the procedure to ensure the uniform operation of BL policy in every department. There is no longer a time limit for the completion of procedure. Although 20 working days is mentioned, that is only to apply 'where necessary'.
Serious
More serious is a separate procedural arrangement to facilitate the imposition of 'productivity changes' by management. This must be completed in 10 days, after which management have the right to implement the changes.
It is a variation of the notorious agreement signed by Moss Evans on May 17 1980 which amounted to a 10-day declaration of intent for management to introduce the provisions of the 92 pages of strings foisted on BL workers a few days earlier. (This section has been added to the original draft).
But perhaps the most serious clause in the document is the provision of two distinct types of dismissal procedure.
Gross
Where management decide that 'gross industrial misconduct' has taken place, they have the right of summary dismissal before any procedure has taken place at all. This amounts to an institutionalised victimisation procedure.
In other cases, where management decide that 'gross industrial misconduct' has not taken place, the worker will remain on the payroll until the procedure has been completed.
If this document is accepted, it will be another major setback for BL workers foisted on them by the complicity of the leadership of the trade unions in the corporation.
A campaign must begin immediately in all BL plants to stop it being agreed by the JNC on April 23.
The document must immediately be made available to all workers in BL Cars. Shop stewards' committees must take it to the membership, and push for the JNC to throw it out and break off all further negotiations on it.