WEEKLY A new spate of strikes against the Labour Government's pay policy is sweeping British Leyland. Infuriated by the erosion of pay differentials, 70 toolmakers at the Drews Lane transmission for nearly two weeks demanding a E10 increase to give them parity with staff demonstrators. At Longbridge 1,000 toolroom workers are demanding an extra £9 in a parallel claim.
the Government's pay strategy is coming trom o,ood workers at the rumpr car plant in Coventry. BL management are refusing to pay a productivity inThe workers have responded by reducing output to the levels before the deal took place, cutting the speed oi the line by five per cent. plant in Birmingham have now been.out But the most advanced challenge to damage. crease due in April until June because of the 12-month rule between settlements.
Continuing the scab role it played in the SU Carburettors dispute, the AUEW Executive has ordered all three groups of strikers back to work. The ones nave aso seizeo on the cisoures Michael Heseltine, shadow industry secretary, has called for the breaking up of Leyland into smaller firms.
Others are demanding an end to differential disputes and higher output as the price of the next dollop of Government aid to the firm. Yet the stop on capital investment, initiated by BL in December 1975 in an attempt to Ducceon is workers into noner oro ductivity, has already caused serious Some of the real causes of Leyland's crisis were given away in the Commons on 5 April by Coventry Labour MP, Geoffrey Robinson: "Mistaken manacement decisions taken last year to reduce tool programmes, institute wasteful and unnecessary voluntary re cuncancy proarammes and wasterul and unnecessary sales promotion program mes have done far more to damage the production, sales and profits of British Leyland than all the strikes last year and this year put together.
In pursuing their pay claim the Triumph workers have given a lead in how to fight back against the mass tained in the Ryder strategy. If you can veto line speed to protect wages, why not do the same to protect all jobs?
The best way to achieve this is to demand access to all Leyland's investment and production plans through 'Open the Books' committees to work out a policy of work-sharing with no loss of pay. Capitalism has shown that it cannot run the car industry. To protect their jobs and living standards, the workers will have to control it.