Left gains at car factory
Socialist Organiser1980sTranscribed by hand from the printed page.
BOB Fryer, who has been the TGWU convenor of the BL Cowley Assembly Plant since 1959, with a three-year break when the right wing were in power from 1974-77, has been defeated in this year's election by a challenge from the left.
The new TGWU convenor is Ivor Braggins, who has been a principled and militant shop steward in the plant for many years.
This election was the first time that Fryer had lost the support of the left in the plant since he was first elected 24 years ago.
Opposing him was not an easy decision for the left to take. Bob Fryer has a long history of struggle and was one of the people responsible for the building of the shop stewards movement in the plant in the 1950s and the early 1960s.
In recent years, however, he has faded seriously and had reached the point where he was no longer able to provide adequate leadership in the face of a ruthless and determined management.
The extent of this was reflected in the unity of the left in opposing Fryer and supporting Ivor Braggins, which was more or less complete.
This gave Braggins a 250 majority in the shop floor ballot held recently. Ivor Braggins polled 745 against Fryer's 495 and Frank Corti, the right wing candidate's 59 in a 40% poll.
Corti's vote reflects the crisis the right wing faced in the election. Their candidate capable of polling the most votes, Jim Barson, was beaten for the shop steward's position in his own section, the paint shop, and was consequently not eligible to stand for convenor.
Frank Corti, who was the unsuccessful right wing candidate in the previous election, had just been found guilty in a TGWU disciplinary hearing, of threatening physical violence to Alan Thornett during a shop stewards meeting at the works, eighteen months ago.
As a result of this it has been recommended to the General Executive Council of the TGWU by the Midlands Regional Committee, that he be banned from holding all offices in the union. This factor undoubtedly reduced further the small vote he was likely to get.
The low poll (40%), is partly produced by the strict voting procedures in the plant whereby workers have to attend the polling station at a given time and be in possession of their membership card, and partly by the current conditions in the plant.
As a result of the management offensive, and betrayals by the trade union leaders over the last four years, shop floor trade union structures have been seriously broken down and there has been a very serious loss of shop stewards and activists. The South Works, where the Maestro is assembled by a largely new labour force, has been the worst affected. For the past year there have been virtually no shop stewards in that area and trade union influence is very weak, although of course they are all members of the union.
This situation resulted in a high poll in the North Works amongst the older labour force but a tiny percentage poll in the South Works.
This is one of the problems which Bob Fryer had failed to tackle and one to which the new leadership must give a high priority.
It is going to be a difficult period over the next year in the plant. The management offensive continues and will intensify with the introduction of the LM 11 shortly, and after that the new Honda model, the XX.
The result of this ballot and the recent ballot in the Body Plant next door, where left-winger Tony Richardson polled 942 votes against the right wing candidate's 1224 in a ballot controlled by the right wing, who used very unsatisfactory and biased procedures, show that workers are looking for militant leaders.
The new leadership in the Assembly Plant therefore faces the contradictory situation with a labour force willing to fight, as they demonstrated in the so-called hand-washing strike last year, but with trade union structures seriously dismantled.
The new leadership will therefore have to fight management at the same time as it is rebuilding the union. There is no doubt, however, that a leadership under Ivor Braggins offers the best opportunity to tackle this task.