Sit-in at PSF body plant

BY OUR INDUSTRIAL ALREADY in serious financial ties, British-Leyland has been week by an unprecedented sit-in at Cowley, Oxford, car body factory.

The action involves 2,350 workers on key Maxi and Marina production lines. It shut down all work on these models at neighbouring assembly plant.

Sitting-in started on Monday. It was preceded by a month of production restrictions which halved production for the two models of 1,000 bodies a day. Even now the dispute is being seen as the most serious confrontation since CORRESPONDEN diffi hit 1 its has the lengthy strike which organizedatbe factory in 1934.

Ironically, the struggle takes over the first ne place review of a Measured-Day Work pay agreement which was supposed to bring industrial calm to Cowley. And it comes in a factory where successive owners have often held it up as a symbol of class peace.

At issue is a claim submitted by the powerful 5/60 Transport and General Workers' Union branch.

This calls for a £10-aweek pay increase on top of the present £42 flat rate, guaranteed earnings during any shut-outs, a new company pension scheme andin line with the nationa engineering claim — a 35hour week plus improvements in holidays and shift allowances.

Particular emphasis is being placed by shop stewards at this stage of the struggle on the guarantees. Now that Leyland has got rid of piecework and its sometimes very high earnings level, they say, it must also remove the insecurity that went with negotiations on ALL TRADES UNIONS ALLIANCE MEETINGS SE LONDON: Thursday, April 13, 8 pm. Deptford Engineers Club, New Cross Rd (nr New Cross stn). Report back on YS conference.

N LONDON: Thursday April 13, 8 pm. 'Bricklayers Arms' Tottenham High Rd (nr White Hart Lane). Report back on YS conference.

STOCKPORT Monday Aprll 17, B pm. 'Manchester Arms', Wellington Rd South. The Engineers' pay claim.

E LONDON: Tuesday April 18,8 pm. Blackwald TAnner Aberfeldy St, Blackwall innel Poplar. YS conference an d the fight against the Industria il Re lations Act. Marina bodies are now halted review should have taken 3a the company fant ea meet union representatives from the MDW section of the factory until January 12.

Their opening statement was that they could not see themselves negotiating separately tor the 2,350 workers involved. They wanted talks in conjunction with the assembly plant.

Yet in February 1971, Leyland had signed an agreement with the T&GWU as the sole representative of the workers on the two lines which stated specifically that 'the hourly rate and other benefits will be reviewed annually' between the parties.

Immediately the stewards scented that what the company was aiming at was an attack on their much-prized autonomy and the start of joint negotiations throughout the Cowley body-andassembly complex. They insisted on separate talks.

At a further meeting on February 2 the company turfed out most points of the claim, but offered some improvements in the hourly rate, overtime and nightshift premiums.

If the whole claim was conceded and overtime continued at an average of costs would De" increasea by 70 per cent over the next year. This would effectively put the firm out of business.

Stewards and local officials heard the same story time and again at a series of meetings during the following month: And so, on March 9 the work restrictions started.

On March 29, Leyland tabled its 'final' offer.

This was for increases of £2.20 for 40 hours for dayshift workers and about £5 for those on nights. Stewards say these rises amount to just 71 and 13t per cent respectively.

Also on offer was an increase in holiday pay, higher overtime premiums and an extra four days' lay-off guarantee at 80 per cent of average earnings.

New Year's Day was holiday it workers would offered as extra paid agree to give up two other days' unpaid holiday. And acceptance of this was made a condition of settleThese terms had been Short-time Albion accepts MDW OVER 2,000 car workers in the W of Scotland yesterday accepted the Measured-Day Work principle, despite a warning that it would lead to big redundancies.

The decision came at a mass meeting of British-Leyland workers from the Albion truck plant at Scotstoun, Glasgow.

After hearing sub-convenor Jimmy McKenzie say that he could guarantee no redundancies, the meeting accepted a £4 rise, four hours a week, said the described them as a retreat management men their from the national engineerdecepteu vy workers at the Tana's nara-core recruIts assembly plant, despite from Chryslers. The men fierce opposition from did not have to wait long militant stewards, who for him to act.

Wing claim.

But many body-plant pieceworkers had given up very high rates of pay for what they thought was the security of MDW. They were expecting to recoup some of their losses under the review.

Their stewards insisted that: • The March 29 offer was in no way a real answer to their claim. • Company insistence that they must accept the same offer as the assembly plant was a breach of the February 1971 agreement and would destroy the power of the 5/60 branch. director Last Thursday, Simpson works sent out letters to every worker on the two lines involved in the claim.

Their tone was sharp. The restrictions must be note less there is an immediate resumption of full normal working, the company will have no alternative but to • take action.' Simpson is one of Leyincluding f1.50 on the basic rate, in exchange for discussions on the details of the deal.

McKenzie - an ex-Communist Party candidate for Clydebanksaid that after visiting two Birmingham factories he was sure MDW could benefit workers.

He attacked movers of an amendment which called for a rejection of the deal as 'disrupters' and "Trotskyists'.

Redundancies at the Albion works are now very likely. The plant has been on four-day working for the last. ten weeks-in At 10 a.m. on Monday morning, they were told that if the restrictions were still in operation, they would not be paid and would be sent home. They refused to go. The sit-in had begun.

Despite the largely strike-free record of the body plant and its traditions of good attendance and sound workmanship, there can be little doubt about their determination to struggle.

All the votes to continue the action have been nearly unanimous. Each morning the men clock on and start work operating the restrictions agreed by their union branch. Management informs them they will not be paid and they stop.

At night they queue up to clock off..

On the wall of a nearby cutting is pointed out as an old newspaper summing up what they are fighting for.

Clipped from the September 1934 issue of "The Conveyor', rank-and-file paper which led the recognition fight, it says that workers at the plant 'cannot be satisfied with the slightest infringement by the management of the [recognition] agreement'. They aren't. fact management's move to introduce MDW dates from that time.

Militants fear that the first to sufier will be time workers in the toolroom, inspection and maintenance departments.

The majority union in the plant is the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers whose official policy is now to oppose productivity dealing.

The Albion decision follows agreement on MDW at RollsRoyce, Hillington, steered through by convenor George McCormack, a leading CP member in the Glasgow area,