Double-talk claim on tool room pay rate

BY OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT Wilkins and Mitchell.

retreat by the trade union leaders.

At Rubery Owen's SevenAcre site, 2,500 workers are out on strike with 200 more at the nearby King's Hill factory.

The strike, now in its second week, is, according to Doug Peech, Transport and General Workers' Union convenor, 'over the right to maintain free collective bargaining'.

The strike began on Monday, April 2, when the management attempted to by-pass established negotiating procedures in an effort to end piecework and substitute a new Measured-Day Work-type of payments Had attempt Lunching with corporatists... VICTOR FEATHER will be lunching sumptuously with the bourgeoisie again today at the Piccadilly Hotel when he addresses another corporatist outfit, the Industrial Participation Association.

The Association has as its motto: "Towards a common purpose at work: It used to be called the Industrial Co-Partnership Association. Weekend meetings planned VAUXHALL workers will meet this weekend following their union negotiators' rejection of a £2.40, government-controlled pay offer.

Shop stewards will call for endorsement of the negotiators' attitude.

But as a spokesman for the Ellesmere Port stewards said yesterday: 'The big question is whether we're going to take the government on.' Vauxhall's offer is £2.40 plus improvements in lay-off pay to cover two periods of ten days and one period of five days laid off each year.

At a previous meeting with the unions, on March 23, the company insister that the £2.40 should be subject to productivity concessions. Phase Two pay cut dilemma at Massey WORKERS at Massey Ferguson, the Coventry manufacturing company, will soon learn the outcome of yesterday's wage claim meeting.

Officials and shop stewards have found themselves with an insoluble problem due to the Tory government's pay laws.

Having rejected company cessful, it would have meant wage reductions of between £6 and £9 a week for many pieceworkers.

It appears that management decided to prolong the negotiations on the present wage claim-which has taken the form of a claim for £2.52 for all workers-until the Tory pay laws became operative.

Then they sent each worker a letter advising them that from April 2 they would be on the new wage structure arrangements. In that letter Rubery Owen director Mr John Owens said:

"The present payment system cannot continue. feel our proposals are fair.' again Its president is Jack Callard, chairman of ICl, one of the world's largest monopolist corporations. Its chairman is Nigel Vinson, rightwing lawyer and supporter of the anti-communist Aims of Industry organization. on Vauxhall claim But at Tuesday's meeting a formula was agreed that if the offer was accepted it would be on the basis of the present productivity, deal, which ran out on Monday, continuing to apply.

This is not expected to be well received by the mass meeting.

The union negotiators told the company they could not accept its offer because government policy had ruled out free negotiations.

The company countered with the argument that it would have been difficult for it to come up with a better offer, even if there was no government limit.

It cited its recent trading Measured-Day Work proposals, stewards insisted the officials had to negotiate the wage claim and nothing else.

As a result of this decision the company has offered the Phase Two maximum.

The offer is worth £2.86, which includes the cost of two days' additional holiday.

PUSH

that GAEEN LINE BACK!

(As 'fair' as the document preceding the Industrial Relations Act called 'A Fair Deal at Work' and the slogan preceding the Housing Finance Act calling for 'fair rents'.)

Before • circulating company letter he told 'Wolverhampton Express Star' (March 30):

'Some people have got to realize that they are not going to get as much in the future as they have in the past.

'It's about time our the bloody wages structure in pany has got into.' In the two-weeks of the strike, the company position not changed. Mr F. Shaw, another director, told the same newspaper on April 10:

'We have serious These men have absolutely nothing in common with working-class interests.

They are bitterly hostile to socialism.

But Feather will be laughing and joking with them over the wine, food and cigars.

Feather's speech will about 'Trade Unions Industrial Democracy'.

wards course Some cedure.

worker reduce across Dividitti Pickets outside Owen's Union rights fight at Rubery Owen and we sorted mess the this combe and results and the general trading position'. The company lost £4.1m in 1972.

Engineers' union members from the Ellesmere Port factory, usually considered the most militant of Vauxhall's 27,000 workers, are to meet in Liverpool Boxing Stadium on Sunday morning to decide their attitude to the offer.

Separate meetings were being arranged yesterday for members of the Transport and General Workers' Union and electricians' union.

Luton Vauxhall also expected to weekend.

dilemma facing the steis that 31 section claims submitted during the of last year's agreement. of them exhausted prooffer these sections of i additional money would the £2.86 to £1.50 the board. workers are meet at the lies in our pay structure. There would be no useful purpose in having a meeting unless there is an understanding from the union's negotiating committee that any agreement we reached should have as its prime objective the putting right of these anomalies.' In pursuit of its wage-cutting objective, Rubery Owen has caused massive disruption to the Midlands car industry: there are already lay-offs at Rover's, Solihull; Jaguar and Massey Ferguson in Coventry, and it also threatens production at the Austin Morris plant at Longbridge, Birmingham. A continued stoppage would also halt production at Ford and Chrysler plants.

Despite prevarications by local union officials, the Rubery workers know they are in a struggle which has enormous implications for the future of their living standards.

They are mounting pickets at all gates on the Seven Acre site.

One picket the Booth Street gate told Press:

'We are not just simply fighting on an economic issue. It's a fight for basic trade union principles. It's a fight for free negotiations.

What happens here will have its effect throughout industry in this area' The revolutionary and the history British working The Unions and class in Britain.

The Revolutionary Pas British working classfuture.

The Transformation of

SLL LECTURE

SERIES Merthyr Tydfil Caedraw School Merthyr Tydfil Sunday April 22 Lectures given by READING Trotsky, Where is Going? Problems British Revolution.

Perspectives for Transforming the SLL into a Revolutionary Marxist Analysis of the Registered as a newspaper at the Po Clapham High Street, London, SW4 71 Clapham High Street. London, SW4 01-622 7029. offer of £2.88 a week appears to be double of Employment.

The men went on strike two weeks ago when the firm refused to pay the £2.88 a week on a graduated scale of monthly increments.

The men stepped-up changes in which would creased their the first mon a week and it £5.76 a the end of months.

(This was a similar scheme to the old District Toolroom Rate which gave monthly increments based on the average earnings of skilled pieceworkers.)

The firm turned the toolmakers' demand down claiming at the time that it 'would distort the company's overall wage structure'.

Now they say it is "inflationary.

The firm claims that a DEP official 'made it absolutely clear that the proposal was contrary to the White Paper covering Phase Two' of the Tory state control of wages.

'The official expressed the very strong opinion that if the company paid the increase in the manner required by the toolmakers the Pay Board would have no alternative but to issue an order prohibiting the company from paying the inèrease. thus making a settlement illegal.' But stewards senior class t of the -and its the SLL Britain TOOLMAKERS on strike at the Coventry GEC Stoke and Helen Street plants over the way the company intends to pay its wage wanted the rate, have inwage in h by 48p increased week by PRESS now meeting what talk by the Department who met the same official claim that after much "beating about the bush', he stated that to spread the raise of £2.88 a week over a year by increments was not illegal.

The GEC toolmakers, whose strike has been endorsed by the AUEW district committee, have now come up against both the intransigence of the GEC and 'interpretations' of the Tory government's Phase Two paper and even anticipation of a tougher Phase Three stage.

In a statement AUEW district secretary Andrew Boyle said: 'The DEP official made it clear to our senior stewards that there was nothing illegal about their proposals except to say it might lead to difficulty under Phase Three. 'It is also his job to state the law, not to express opinions about what the Pay Board might do' The facts are that DEP officials are creatures of the Tory government and will 'interpret' the law to suit Tory strategy in its vicious drive to push down all workers' living standards.

Skilled toolmakers are no exception in the Tory strategy.

GEC toolmakers must see that their strike cannot be separated from the fight of millions of others. against the Tory government.

SLL LECTURE

SERIES Socialist Revolt Middleton nr Manchester ellins Social Centre irn Road, Hollins Estate 7.30 p.m.

Monday April 16 Lectures given by Cliff Slaughter (SLL Central Committee) The Socialist Revolution Britain:

3. The state and revolution. Reformism and revolution in Britain. The fight for democratic rights today means preparing for working-class power. Basic reading:

Perspectives for transforming the SLL into a Marxist Analysis of the Crisis. Problems of the British Revolution (Trotsky)

Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International, Communist Manifesto.

" Office. Published by Workers Press, 186a G. Printed by Plough Press Ltd. (101. 180b UG. Newsdesk: 01-720 2000. Circulation:

Iranian students harassed Ford production halts Press, IRANIAN students demonstrating outside 10 Downing Street yesterday against the visit of Abass Amir Hoveida were subjected to unprecedented harassment by the police.

The students, who. could face long prison terms in their own. country for taking part in demonstration, were refused permission to wear masks.

Police also tried to take the names and addresses of all the protesters, but backed off when they threatened to call a solicitor.

Later the police even demanded that the demonstrators clear up their cigarette butts or face prosecution under the litter laws.

Ahmad Ghotbi, the demonstraors' spokesman, said the police had told him: We don't know you. You could be just runaways from prison. We will not allow you to wear masks.' Agents from the Iranian embassy were spotted among the onłookers as the demonstration took its course. SHAH I'S -ENDARM THE CULF WUR I SAM TO SET AN SAL WA P-YAEMN THE PARTULNE MCCARTE INDE DETHE RAFTHE AIS DENTS ARE Y HAAN •TH BULLETS