Strike call

NUT MEMBERS at Myers Sheffield's largest school — overwhelmingly passed the following resolution on teachers' wages:

"This meeting demands of the national executive No compromise on the £135 claim—not a penny less is acceptable.

• No strings to be attached to our award. No productivity deal. No teacher unemployed.

• No prevarication. Set a date in the very near future When a reply must be forthcoming from Burnham. have waited long enough.

• Prepare now for a total national strike of indefinite teachers duration if our just demands are not met.' The resolution was sent to submited i exee she field NUT executive. This resolution will now be discussed at the mass meeting on the interim pay claim called for October 27 in Sheffield.

The Myers Grove teachers took the decision to circulate all Sheffield schools to have the resolution endorsed.

They are also calling on all other teachers' organizations to make similar demands or their executives.

Measured-Day Work at Coventry Rootes plays a waiting game Car market shares down - 'Chrysler piling on the pressure for returns on the f100 million it spent in modernizing Rootes.

The June deal - 'Money was dangled on one but another was ready to grab their pound of We work harder, from starting bell, right finishing-time? They're certainly getting Redundancy threat - What happens starts to cut back on labour?' Mobility - The management puts High rates, but... 'In a couple High rates, but ... In a couple in the same position as Ford's in the same position as Ford's 1 Many Rootes workers are increasingly worried about speed-up and TeaM 10 IT IS now four months since trade union negotiators opened the door for the introduction of Measured - Day Work into the two Rootes Motors plants at Coventry.

As 'The Newsletter'-now incorporated into the Workers' Press—pointed out at at the beginning of June, the company's 'Agreement on Pay, Productivity and Associated Conditions' is quite explicit about its intentions. What it wanted, Rootes made clear, was to:

Replace piece-work fixed hourly rates.

Time study all job operations and tie emloyees to constant work standards Achieve the maximum flexibility and mobility of labour, and Reduce the existing levels of unproductive time.

No one should imagine that everything has been cut and dried by the implementation of the deal's first stages. Many workers are growing more and more uneasy about what comes next.

In Coventry recently I was warned by a senior steward from the Stoke engine and transmission plant that a lot of people are fairly satisfied with the way things are working out at the moment — Rootes hasn't really started to tighten the screws yet'.

But speaking to a cross-section of workers from both Stoke and the Ryton assembly plant I found opinion sharply divided.

redundancies.

THE LABOUR leaders' headlong retreat before the Tories is second of a series of articles on the Motor Industry By our industrial correspondent DAVID MAUDE The deal is certainly not uncritically accepted.

'We're working harder and we're working from the starting , bell right up to finishing time, , I was told by an internal transport driver from the Ryton plant.

'What will the track-speed be for instance? I've heard that Rootes wants 51 cars an hour—almost as bad as Ford's.

'A lot of men thought they'd be getting more money when the deal went through. But we've been on short-time for a long while now-we've speeded up our work and we're getting f2-f3 less for it!' A group of setters from the Stoke plant held the opposite view.

'When we were on piecework, they said 'we were always having disputes with the ratefixers over the money on different jobs. There was always trouble when people had to be switched about.

'The new system's a good idea because everyone gets the same money as each other, there's no variation.

'For skilled men like us the money aspect's about the same as it was, but some people are getting quite a bit more than they were before--semi-skilled workers, for instance.

'The booking-in system has changed, too. Office staff has been cut down.

"They are certainly getting more work out of us. According to the agreement, we have to be more flexible and work has to stop and start to the bell.

'Although there's some automation at Ryton we aren't affected at the moment. It's doubtful if we ever will be' When I put this to a group of Stoke machine operators, they vehemently disagreed.

"These people say they're satisfied, but will they still say this when Rootes starts to cut back on labour?' they asked.

'We're jogging along to some ROOTES work out of us? extent as we like at the moment—we haven't had the result of the time studies yet!

What the company did was to dangle money in front of our noses on one hook, but they had another hook underneath ready to grab back their pound of flesh and more.

'We've lost every bargaining that's it. No argument.

right we ever had. Even when we get the timings our hands'll be tied.

'The work's going ahead hard enough now. However, soon blokes working one machine will have another one shifted up alongside and they will be told-"work that one as well!" No argument.

hook, flesh'. up to more of years we'll be ow.

'Mobility of labour? Once the management puts you on a ob, that's it. No argument.

The money may seem good at the moment compared to some places, but what is it going to be like in two years' time?' firms-will certainly have to do within a very short period of time.

Like all Chryslers' European subsidiaries, its share of the home market is being whittled away at a rapid rate — going down from 11.9 per cent to 9.5 per cent in May of this year. Chrysler's share in the European market as a whole, at 6.5 per cent, is only half of that of The American firm is now piling considerable pressure on executives at Coventry and Linwood to show some returns on the £100 million it has spent modernizing Rootes.

In order to break back decisively into the running and increase its market share, Rootes is already preparing to slash its production costs down the middle. It is said that the new 'B' model car, scheduled to come into proPrices the re! introdı some Rootes cars of ne w pay and I first at Linwood duction at the beginning of next year, has been pared down to the minimum as far as components are concerned.

This is where 1 MeasuredDay Work comes in.

Workers are already having their time packed as tightly as possible. Under the agreement's terms, late starting and early finishing are cut down to three minutes at each end of the shift and provision is made for the changeover to three-shift or twilight-shift working in certain departments after 'joint consideraA three-shift system is most likely to be introduced of course, in the new 'B' shop.

Workers claim that no women or older men are being taken on for work in this shop. They fear the company will demand an intolerable pace of working from those who are to be employed there.

Measured-Day Work is an integral part of ChryslerRootes strategy. As "The Financial Times' reported after Rootes cut the prices of some of its cars on July 10:

'These cuts are partly the result of new pay and productivity contracts introduced first at Linwood, which makes the Imp, and recently at Ryton, the home of the Arrow range.' By introducing MeasuredDay Work, Rootes hoped to establish the untrammelled exploitation of its workers for most of the year. Pay disputes would be limited to the time of the annual pay review.

Method -1 • do tave must be made in con- EVERAL other points clusion.

Because Measured-Day Work came to Coventry in an atmosphere of struggle, Rootes was forced to pay out relatively high rates as a carrot for acceptance of the deal.

It is to be hoped that Rootes workers will read the next article in this series, in which we will be looking at the situation in Vauxhall Motors — where a similar agreement has been in operation for several years and rates are 40 per cent lower than those at Coventry!

October cut in July-'partly productivity contracts and recently at Ryton'.

Times', July 10, 1969.

There are other straws in the wind here.

News of Ryton's top 17s. 5d.-an-hour wage grade has been heard like a bugle-call by many lower-paid car workers.

As one Stoke machine shop steward put it:

'There's method in the company's "madness". Having payed out relatively high money to get the deal through they've now got other workers looking a bit enviously at us.' His comment on this should come as timely warning:

'Look at what goes with this. In a couple of years we'll be in the same position as Ford's workers are now.

'We've had a time-study, but no-one's been had up in the office yet about their performance — Rootes is obviously just playing a waiting game at the moment.' No trade unionist can tolerate the conditions Rootes hopes to bring in. But, at the same time, there is little room for some of the pessimism many stewards are beginning to express.

Now is the time to prepare the fight back.

A Stoke transport driver, told me:

'A "go go" firm like Chrysler doesn't bring in any deal for our benefit—if I'm up for going out of the gate it'll be the big shareholders who decide, they won't consider my wife and kids.

'The factory leadership has made mistakes all down the line so far. I think some of them were looking for a lead to their head offices-but of course you've got the TUC and everybody else all tied up with the government's policies. tics.

'But once this system really gets going, that's when the reaction will come. It's bound to!' The third article in this series will appear in next Saturday's issue It will deal with the fight of Vauxhall workers against speed-up, mobility of labour and the threat of 'penal clauses' at the company's Luton and Ellesmere Port plants.