Closure and redundancies at Cowley
Labour Briefing1980sTranscribed by hand from the printed page.
The media has talked about "4,000 redundancies" at Cowley by the "early 1990s".
In fact the measures revealed in the Austin Rover Group Corporate Plan — as a result of remarks made by the European Commissioner over the BAe takover — is more far-reaching than that.
It would mean the biggest plant closure in the car industry since the early 80s, and a further major boost to the Tories' privatisation schedule.
In the Plan, both volume production models currently produced in Cowley — the Maestro and Montego — would be discontinued by the end of 1990, resulting in the closure of the 5,000 cars per week South Works of the Cowley Assembly Plant (only 16 years old) and more than half of the ultra-modern Body Plant, which produces body-shells for those models.
This would close at least two thirds of the Cowley Complex, leaving a small plant with only 4,000 cars per week maximum capacity — earmarked under the Plan for low volume up-market cars.
It is unlikely that such a small plant — or the reduced Austin Rover Group itself — could survive for long in today's international car industry conditions.
Militants in Cowley calculate the number of job losses at over 6,000. Management have announced that they will pay "enhanced" redundancy money, providing there is no resistance to the closure and that there is a signed agreement to that effect.
They have also made it clear that compulsory redundancies, when they come, will be based on "the requirements of production" (i.e. management) rather than "first in last out".
The mood in the plant is one of hostility to the closure, but the Leadership is now right wing. The Leyland Action Committee, a grouping of militants in the Oxford plants, has called for a one-day stoppage with a march through the city to kick off the campaign and an occupation of the plant the moment compulsory redundancies are announced.
Something which makes a fightback more difficult is the attitude at the top of the trade unions. The only union which has anounced outright opposition is MSF. The TGWU and Ron Todd, currently presenting a left face in the trade union movement, has had nothing to say — nor has the AEU.