Single-union deal in Dundee: AEU undermines Ford workers
Labour Briefing1980sTranscribed by hand from the printed page.
Resentment is running deep amongst workers in Ford car plants over the single-union deal signed on September 26th between Ford management and the AEU leadership for the projected new plant in Dundee, designed to manufacture high-tech car entertainment systems.
The deal is the clearest indication yet of the move of the AEU leadership towards business unionism as practised by the EETPU under Eric Hammond.
Like Hammond at Wapping, it demonstrates a willingness on the part of union leaders to act as a direct tool of the employers.
Now there is a new manoeuvre by AEU leaders following a meeting with TUC General Secretary Norman Willis. Under pressure from the other Ford unions they have agreed to drop the deal providing the other unions can persuade Ford management to do likewise!
The AEU meanwhile will continue to back the deal if Ford management insist on it. The only real pressure on Ford would be for the AEU to withdraw from the deal and join the other unions in insisting on the existing arrangements.
This deal was not simply a product of the AEU right wing in the shape of Gavin Laird. It has been promoted and defended throughout by the only "left wing" member of the AEU Executive Council, Jimmy Airlie — a leading member of the Communist Party.
Airlie argued that a single union deal had to be accepted because Ford management were insisting on it!
In fact, Ford management have insisted on such a deal every time they have built a plant in Britain — outside Dagenham — but this is the first time they have been successful.
The deal predictably caused a serious split amongst the Ford unions and directly violated the Ford multi-union agreement. Even the right wing national automotive officer of the TGWU, Mick Murphy, was forced into a strong condemnation of the deal:
"It is a violation of standing agreements with Ford which will have serious implications for jobs in other Ford plants in Britain. It is a deceitful operation."
Nor does the deal simply exclude other unions. It makes concessions to Ford management on a range of key conditions of employment, thus posing a major threat to all Ford workers in Britain.
Under the agreement the new plant will not be tied to Ford's nationally negotiated wage rates, which cover its existing labour force of 32,000 shopfloor workers (7,000 of them AEU), but will be tied to what Ford management significantly calls "wage rates comparable with the electronics industry".
The deal wil take the Dundee labour force outside the Ford national union structure. It will exclude the new plant from the closed shop arrangements existing in other Ford plants.
It will have new working times, discipline procedures and working practices and it will introduce complete flexibility of jobs and grades — which has not yet been conceded in other Ford plants.
It is not surprising, therefore, that there is a deep resentment amongst the Ford workforce. They know the new deal is pointed at their heads like a loaded gun.