Rover – a fight to the death
Labour Left Briefing, May 20002000sTranscribed by hand from the printed page.
The only way to rescue the British car industry is by nationalisation, argues Alan Thornett.
A great demonstration – but will it be the start of a fightback? A magnificent 80,000 people demonstrated in Birmingham on April 1st against BMWs plan to sell-off and break-up Rover and close most of Longbridge. It was the biggest trade union demonstration in Britain since the closure of most of the coal industry in 1992.
The tens of thousands of working class families on it – many of them Rover workers – were looking for a militant lead to defend the 50,000 West Midlands jobs at risk, with more at stake in Swindon and Cowley. Unfortunately they got nothing from the trade union dignitaries on the platform – Bill Morris, John Edmonds, Sir Ken Jackson, Roger Lyons and Tony Woodley.
The only speaker who called for direct action – to stop the Mini leaving the factory – got a huge response. He was not a trade union leader but a local historian who had been a prime mover of the demonstration. The others were booed by furious Rover workers who demanded to know what they were going to do. There is now a real danger that the demonstration will be the end of resistance rather than the beginning.
BMW is handing over the Longbridge plant to Alchemy – a firm of unashamed asset-strippers – free of charge and with a cash sweetener of £500 million.
Under the plan, Longbridge will be reduced to a small specialist plant making MG sports cars. The new Mini, the factory for which has already been built at Longbridge, will be moved to Cowley. BMW will sell the Land Rover factory in Solihull to Ford, and keep the Cowley plant to produce the existing Rover 75 model under licence from Alchemy.
Many on the demonstration were calling for the occupation of Longbridge, the only realistic alternative given the large stock of unsold cars. Occupation would stop the plan being implemented and give other threatened car workers a focus to support. It would also provide the basis for an appeal to the BMW unions internationally. After all if BMW can do this to Longbridge, why not Munich?
But it was not just that the trade union leaders had nothing to say. They have supported social partnership in Rover and pushed through the concession bargaining deal in Longbridge. This gave productivity concessions and accepted unsociable shifts in return for guarantees for the future.
At that time, the Government gave BMW £125 million to bail them out. Rover-BMW chair Joachim Milberg said that Longbridge would double its capacity as a result. Stephen Byers declared "I wanted the Longbridge agreement to be one which heralded a new approach to government assistance to industry – a new approach which reflects a long term commitment and not a quick fix."
AEEU leader Sir Ken Jackson claimed the package "heralds a new era."
Tony Woodley was far more cautious, however, saying: "My problems as chief negotiator are far from over – they are only beginning." He had, of course, played a key role in getting the deal through.
The deal compounded the problem by increasing productivity and production capacity and therefore increasing the problem of overcapacity in the industry.
When BMW took over from BAe they said that they needed Rover for economy of scale to ensure the company could survive. If BMW cannot be forced to put a new model into Longbridge, then the campaign for nationalisation must be vigorously pursued and the asset strippers stopped.
But the crisis goes wider than Rover. Ford at Dagenham, which is being run down to a single model single-shift plant, with the existing 10,000 jobs set to be cut by a third, is under serious threat
Last month, Ford announced a sweeping review of its European operations, aimed at cutting overall capacity and Ford of Europe chairman Nick Scheele warned: "I can't guarantee the Dagenham plant won't shut."
And the future of Rolls-Royce is also in the balance. Goodyear tyres in Wolverhampton went on short time last week and management refused to give any assurances for its future. This follows cutbacks and redundancies at other tyre plants in the Midlands.
Potentially this adds up to the greatest blow to manufacturing jobs in Britain since the 1992 pit closures.
BMW is blaming the strength of the pound against the euro for the situation, which clearly is a problem. But there is another agenda. Most of manufacturing industry – as opposed to finance capital – have been keen to get into the eurozone as soon as possible. They thought this would happen soon after the next election, following a referendum.
But the anti-Europe xenophobia whipped up mostly around asylum seekers, with the full support of the Government itself, has increased reactionary opposition to the euro – to a point where no one knows when Britain is likely to join.
Most manufacturing companies either want to concentrate their production outside of Europe altogether – taking advantage of the highest levels of productivity available globally – or they want to be inside the euro zone and avoid currency fluctuations within their main market.
The European Union has resulted in attacks on jobs and services and the Single Currency will deepen this process of rationalisation still further. But currently much of manufacturing industry within Britain sees itself in the worst possible position – inside the EU but outside the Euro.
EU membership has consequences for nationalisation as well. It is permissible to nationalise but not for the Government to put into these companies the money necessary to regenerate them.
We have to demand that the Government nationalises Rover and rejects any restrictions placed on it by the EU.