Vauxhall torpedoed
Socialist Organiser1980sTranscribed by hand from the printed page.
THE collapse of the two-day old strike at Vauxhall is painfully reminiscent of the BL strike in 1979 which was also killed by the leadership after two days.
Although Vauxhall management was clearly shaken and forced to come off the 14 month deal, an important wave of militancy in the Vauxhall plants had been stabbed in the back.
Terry Duffy was in the vanguard of the sell-out. It was his public hostility to the strike as soon as it became a reality which created the situation at Dunstable. Not that the TGWU leaders are any better in reality.
Not a single public statement has been made by TGWU officials supporting the strike, yet such a statement by Moss Evans or Grenville Hawley would have strengthened it considerably.
Members of the AUEW were balloted separately at Dunstable and voted to scab on the strike. That became the vulnerable point. On Tuesday the Dunstable TGWU members met and voted to accept the company's offer under the pressure of AUEW scabbing.
Luton met a few hours later and voted by a 2-1 majority to follow Dunstable and go back to work.
But there was no lead whatsoever from the platform. No recommendation was made to the meeting. The mass meetings were called after only two days of the strike to vote again on a company offer which came nowhere near meeting the claim. It is the same old story. When the leadership is opposed to a strike, call mass meetings at every pretext and the crack is bound to emerge. The workers have to win the vote every time, the management only have to win it once and it's all over.
It is little wonder that hundreds of militant workers were angry and bitter after the Luton meeting. They were obviously able to see the whole manoeuvre and how it was carried out.
Like Cowley in 1981, Ellesmere Port was left high and dry, having voted overwhelmingly to continue the strike and having proceeded to seek the support of the dockers. Understandably, they decided not to go it alone and voted on Wednesday morning to return to work.
The strike, however, and the limited gains of stopping the 14 month deal shows once again that the working class is prepared to fight when the issues come up, even given the collapse of the TUC and trade union leaders in the post-election period.