Ford offer: Walk-out at Halewood

Workers Press no. 994, 10 February 1973 · scan page 14

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OUR INDUSTRIAL

CORRESPONDENT ABOUT 5,000 workers at the Ford Motor Company's giant Halewood plant, near Liverpool, downed tools yesterday within hours of the announcement of a derisory pay offer of £2.40 a Earlier in the day union negotiators representing 52,000 hourly-paid Ford workers rejected the company's offer at talks held in Essex.

The offer came in answer to the carworkers' claim for £10 extra week, plus a • 35-hour week and more holidays.

Shop stewards from all Ford plants-about 400 of them—will now meet in Coventry next weekend to decide what action take in pursuit of the pay claim.

Some shop-floor committees have already called for strike action from March 1 when the new agreement is due.to be implemented.

The company's offer is directly in line with the fl plus 4 per cent pay ceiling set by the government's wage control laws.

The offer, which comes at the end of a two-year deal, is in sharp contrast to the f30m profit just declared by the Ford Motor Company.

Yesterday pay talks between and union representatives were held at a motel near Hornchurch. A company official commented: 'The talks were brief and to the l oint. There was not much we co ild say to each other really.' -the struggle for democratic rights, for unions, and for a Labour Party-and linking their past with their present struggles.

The culminating rally, which will bring thousands of workers to the Empire Pool, Wembley, on March Il, is central to the fight to build a new leadership in the unions and force them to call a General Strike to bring the Tory government down.

It is imperative now for workers to take part in this campaign and to join socialist Labour League in rder to create and build the re volutionary party to end Tory ru e for good.