MDW clash at Leyland's Longbridge factory

Bhutto.

In a desperate attempt to threat of total closure hold together what is left of forced through a producPakistan, Bhutto is making tough speeches about reclaiming lost territory.

His latest proposal-for a referendum in Kashmir and Bangla Desh to decide their relationship with Pakistan- and acceptance of jobwas greeted with derision by evaluation. the Indian government yester- In May 1969 McGarv day.

Backing trips Bhutto is planning trips in the near future to China, the forced through Soviet Union and possibly the United States in an attempt redundant and persuadec to win backing for his new government. increase.

In Bangla Desh, meanwhile, acting President Nazrul Islam is trying to bury the hatchet British capitalism. with the United States and China, which both supported Pakistan during the war.

He called President Nixon and Chairman Mao to recognize Bangla Desh as a reality and said he would welcome any gestures of moloved. friendship.

labour, but increase the those that remain. BRITISH-LEYLAND is preparing to force through the Measured-Day Work pay system at its Austin-Morris car plant at Longbridge, Birmingham. cess claims remarkable suc.

with the changeover from piecework to MDW at its Cowley plants in Oxford.

The facts are somewhat different.

Stubborn resistance to MDW continues throughout the Cowley body-and-assembly complex. Leyland is in fact extremely worried about its inability to exploit the system at Cowley.

No MDW agreement exists there with the unions.

And earlier this month the company was forced to come to terms with shop stewards about the conditions under which work-study men operate.

These terms give very extensive union control and will certainly not ease Leyland's problems.

Admission

The company, has been forced to admit that 30 direct workers' man-hours are still needed to complete a vehicle in the Chrysters 24 and Fords 19.

continuing struggle against the implications MDW at Cowley is the result of a long campaign by the shop stewards.

At the Cowley body plant, formerly Pressed-Steel Fisher, treacherous opportunism by union national officials has given Leyland a MDW agreeLeaders of the Transport and General Workers' Union instructed stewards to negotiate MDW, and then signed for it on the strength of a completely phoney promise of control over line-speeds and manning.

Treachery by the union chiefs also played a role at the assembly plant, but despite public attacks • on the Id the UCS boilermake ho dared to take time ol ork 'to get the hell out o made men his members to waive a 5s The UCS story is only part of a national trend in The latest statistics on country-wide productivity show that a record 8-percent increase during the year was achieved almost entirely because of a hary drop in numbers On December 17, Martin Jukes, Engineering Employers' Federation President told businessmen that even with a revival of economic activity, employers would not recruit new rate of exploitation of The productivity bonanza, which Communist Party members like UCS steward James Reid boast about, has been an important factor in halted by working Solution ented by promises or pull socialiss one, and therefore 'his means the Tory got enment must be forced 1 retinie is che isun eha ike consciously policies of stewards there, they have been unable to get an agreement signed.

Leyland's strategy here was to split the men with a threat of unemployment.

Marina rate

In September last year, the Cowley pieceworkers struck over the rate of pay which was to operate prior to the Marina going into volume production on the plant's South side.

Leyland wanted the nucleus of its labour force on the new model drawn from the discontinued Minor 1000 line and paid an interim flat rate of 84p an hour.

This was £6 to £7 less than they should have received under a movement-of-labour agreement. It accepted, it would also have breached established practice that new lines were manned by canvassing all pieceworkers in the plant.

After six weeks union officials forced a return against bitter opposition from the stewards.

INVESTMENT in British shipping has shrunk from more than 12 per cent of the world total to about 3 per cent in just over a year.

Shipbuilders have laid the blame for the slump at the door of the Tory government, which abolished the 20 - per - cent : investment grants soon after coming to power.

This money was usable throughout the world and did not depend on the making of profits.

Grants have been replaced by allowances against tax and at lower rate. Although the Tory "lameduck' philosophy has undoubtedly speeded the The terms on which they did so opened the door to the next phase of Leyland's MDW push.

Early in November. the company threatened that it would not proceed with the Marina unless the system was accepted.

This meant the creation of a surplus labour pool of 400 to 500 men.

And it was this threat — clearly masking an even more serious one of eventual redundancy—that Leyland used to impose MDW into the South side without any agreement with the unions.

Ultimatum

The company's ultimatum to the South-side men in mid-January this year was: accept MDW for fl an hour or go into the pool with a big cut in earnings.

In July they extended the system to the factory's North side on the same basis.

A fight against MDW • at Longbridge will require the utmost vigilance on all these fronts.

int slump in collapse of the British shipbuilding industry, the driving force remains the fall in world trade as a whole.

Over 3.3 million tons of shipping are laid up throughout the world for lack of work. The figure has jumped 200 per cent since August.

Freight rates have been falling continuously for the past year, according to the Chamber of Shipping.

It is in this context that new orders for commercial ships in Britain this year have only just amounted to 1 million tons. And half of this is for one order in formula.

The talks, which began last Thursday but were adjournec over the Christmas holiday ended yesterday in London with agreement on a formula which will be put to a mass meeting this afternoon.

Neither Bill John, engineers' union executive member, nor transport union national officer Tom Crispin would be drawn on details. But the feeling among union officials They will meet local officials and shop stewards this morn. ing to report the outcome of yesterday's discussions.

It may be the first real ten days ago were yesterday forced to vacate the Bolovens Plateau, from which the US tried to dominate the Ho Chi Minh trail.

ike • Lon Nol's army 1 neighbouring Cambodi Laotian forces have apparently lost the will to resist in the of a determined communist offensive.

The strategic town of Paksong was evacuated without a ight because-as a spokesmai ut it—the defenders 'did no want to suffer heavy casualties rying to hold the town he liberation forces objective is the town of Long Cheng. neadquarters of th ro-American army of Mer tribesmen led by Gen Vang Pao and trained Central Intelligence Agency. ANNUAL GENERAL