Conflicting views on Rubery Owen wage deal

Darlaston workers have doubts over return

CORRESPONDENT

THE FIVE -week - long Rubery Owen strike at Darlaston, Staffordshire, is over, with conflicting views of the return-towork agreement.

Mr Doug Peach, Transport and General Workers' Union convenor, claims it is a complete victory' and Mr Fred Griffiths, Wolverhampton district secretary of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers, says: set out to do "verything achieves we all Rubery But this view is not shared b T&GWU shop steward when we all came out on April 2, but it is not now, after five weeks of strike action.

'What we have won is a breathing space until October. The firm wanted to implement high base rate on April 2. Now it seems they will have to wait until October 1.' The settlement terms are that that Rubery Owen will pay wage increases ranging from 50p for trainees to £4 a week for indirect workers, subject to approval being granted for the increases by the Tory government's Pay Board.

In return, the unions have agreed to start immediate negotiations to devise a new wage structure. These discussions should be completed by October 1973.

The strike started on April 2 because Rubery Owen had informed workers that those who clocked in for work that day would be paid on a revised wages structure. This meant that about 700 pieceworkers would be transferred from traditional piecework to the compary's high base rate wages structure (i.e. Measured-Day Work).

This involved a wage reduction of between £2 and £13 a The question of a general wage rise was secondary issue, although negotiations had been going on since the previous Octo ber, and management had linkec the general wage demand with the transition to high base rate.

As Doug Peach told Workers Press on April 17:

'I'm out on strike because the management said, 'from April 2 you're ture', On that [new wage strucAnd Harry Littlehales, T&GWU Wolverhampton organizer had said: 'No one in his right mind would accept a substantial reduction in his earnings.' But the first turn against the principles of the strike came on Friday, April 27, when the national officials were called in, only hours after 1,400 workers had voted unanimously to continue the strike into its fifth Moss Evans (T&GWU) and Bob Wright (AUEW) met the management for seven hours of talks in Birmingham's luxurious Albany Hotel.

All Trades SUNDAY MAY Mona James near tub The Rubery Owen workers vote to end their five-week strike.

Afterwards Brian Mathers, T&GWU regional secretary, announced: "The management has agreed to separate the claim for an immediate pay increase from its long-term policy of reforming the pay system on a high base rate. That's what the unions have been pressing for all along.' (Emphasis added.)

On the basis of this separation, Evans and Wright recommended a return to work, and in return for the promise of a f4 rise for lower paid workers and fl for higher paid, they committed the unions to immediate discussions on the new wages structure.

When local officials met the management the following Monday, it appears that the talks broke down because management wanted a definite commitment to high base rate, although cash was put forward as the official explanation.

Mr Fred Straw, director of production services, said on Tuesday May 1, after a mass meeting had voted unanimously to continue the strike:

•We agreed in principle last week to a union proposition. When we came to identify details, this would have and us beyond the government's limit El plus 4 per cent.' But the company was clearly prepared for a showdown to reach its main objective of laying a foundation for the longterm pay structure.

It seems that certain words may have disappeared from the proposed agreement at about this time.

A T&GWU steward told Workers Press that the Birmingham agreement meant that. no transfers from piecework would take place without the agreement of departmental stewards. That condition disappeared /in the fifth week of the strike.

Then, according to the 'Birmingham Evening Mail' (May 3): 'The union claimed [that] Owen's only course is to make an offer outside the government limit and fight the case ... at the Pay Board' The 'Birmingham Post' on May 5 quoted Fred Griffiths as sayıng that if the Pay Board ordered a reduction of the award, the unions had agreed to pro rata decreases of the graded pay increases!

But how did officials get the termination this solid strike?

At the meeting that ended the strike, Doug Peach said: 'This is going to be a wage structure that we can be proud of. You don't want to come out here every 12 months. We are going to negotiate whilst you keep working. I'd never sell you pig in a poke.

The Communist Party's 'Morning Star', having failed to notice the strike for five weeks, reported on May 3 that it was over 'how wage rises, within the government norm, should be distributed.

And the revisionist 'Socialist Worker', in its issue sold at the May 4 mass meeting. said: 'It looked as though an important victory had been won for organized trade unionism in the West What will determine the next round of the Rubery Owen fight in October is whether a new leadership can be built.

Rubery Owen workers want to fight wage-cuts. But they need the Tory government out so that all attacks on their living standards can be halted.

SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE LE (CTURES Merthyr Tydfil National Secretary iocialist Labour Leagu Wednesday May 9 materialist conception Wednesday May 16 Dialectical Materialisma Marxist theory of knowledge Wednesday May 23 Theory and Practice of Marxism Wednesday May 30 of the revolutionary David's Church Hall, Ch urch Street, Merthyr 7.30 p.m.

Jarrow

SLL Central Committee membe Civic Hall, Jarrow 7.30 p.m.

Mondays May 14 and The Socialist Revolution Britain: 2. The roots of capitalist crisis: Marxism and the contradictions or capitalism. Britain and the vorld crisis. 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 revolutionary party. Marxist Analysis of the Crisis. Problems of the British Revolution (Trotsky) .

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

All Trades Unions Alliance meetings TEACHERS' MEETING The way forward after the NUT conferenc hursday, May 24, 7.30 p.

Conway Small Hall.