FOR OVER TWO YEARS NOW, the question of "worker-directors" and "workers" cooperatives" has been discussed on the floors of trade union conferences. The TUC Conference this year voted for a policy of 50 per cent representation of workers and employers on Supervisory Boards in companies employing over 200. Schemes for worker cooperatives are For some employers, "participation" proniises a timid and pliant workforce in retur for the flattery of sherry and cigars in the boardroom (dressed up, of course, with pleases like "progressive and harmonious labour relations'). Equally, many militants reject "participation" in principle as blatant class-collaboration. Even Ray Buckton (General Secretary of ASLEF) claims that for a trade union member to take on the job of a worker-director would be tantamount to coming out of the factory to American market. The co-op will also bave to compensate the present owners for machinery and premises, The owners will also be market controller of the product for two years workers have conceded what the previous boss could not impose on them through several militant strikes before the closure was announced.
Benn in particular, have been deeply involved in both schemes, In fact Benn supports them as cxamples of and also for the Triumph trade name. and industries.
for a take-off of course, All in all, the Why didn't the workers demand nationalisation? The Labour Cabinet, "industrial democracy' in action. The question of nationalising companies workers have a go?"
best to preserve a sector of the existFor shipbuilding and aircraft that industries are all tied up with them.
But in capitalist terms, to nationalise and IPD would be 'economic madness'. Their disappearance would have little impact on other firms At IPD, the state assessor originally turned down a loan and after a feas ibility study even pronounced the co-op scheme "not viable", Later, under pressure, Benn agreed to a E3.9 million loan. The workers at Meriden have occupied over a year and still their co-op is not off the ground. For Benn, Jack Jones and the otber 'lefts" who eventually backed the schemes, the issue was how 'viable these co-ops would be on the market, not whether tbe struggles could become part of a strategy apainst redundancy for the whole worker movement.
KNUCKLED UNDER From the start, the local leaders involved in these struggles have obs erved the rules of the capitalist market and the law, or have eventually knuckled under to it, Bill Lapworth, T&GWU Divisional Organiser and originator of the co-op idea at Meriden, argued against confrontation, in order to persuade the Government that t5 million would be in good hands. The co-op was announced in the Financial Times. Stan Ely. Dep uty Convenor at IPD, said: *Cur image is not to bea group of militant shop stewards who are going to squander E3.9 million'. Les Huckfield, MP for Nuneaton and closely involved in Menden from the start. is more blatant in recommending that the workers adopt the vajues of their old boss:/'If the so-called professionals from private industry can't make a success of it, then what is the barm of letting the INTENSE PRESSURE Clearly, If these cooperatives get off the ground, the workers will eventually he faced with intense pressures to take steps that would be fought to the death by the workers in an ordinary plant, The only way such problems can be avoided is to take the campaign into the trade union movement and mobilise apainst capitalist pressure for further concessions.
At IPD, such future problems are not unforescon. There, they are determined nol to compromise the workers' interests in the decIsions they have to take. They are determined to call on wider trade union support if they find suppl Jers and customers resist the wishes and policies of the co-op. If this occurs, the germs of real workers" control will be underway at IPD and some pitfalis in the present schemes can he avoided.
But at Meriden, a new threat has arisen to the co-op scheme, The workers al another NVT factory at Small Heath, alarmed that Benn's grant and the concessions on prod uctivity exacted from the Meriden workers are a threat to their own jobs, barracked Been at a mass mecting with the demand for a comprehensive nationalisation of the whele motorbike industry.
The old management of NVT created splits between the workers of both factocies by their schemes to guarantee jobs in one factory and not the other, Ic was in 1970, Jong before NVT decided to try and close Meriden, that BSA-Triumph sacked 3,000 workers at Small Heath co concentrate production at Meriden.
TRAGIC The rite between the workers at the two factories also reflects the sectional intercats of the workers at the Meriden factory in their determination to "go it alone with the co-op scheme, At present they have no wish to mount a joint fight with all workers in the motorbike industry to defend jobs. To put the narrow interests of jobs in ane factory of the group before the fight for a common job policy hy all the NVT workers could have tragic consequences Militants should not be opposed in principie to rationalisation or mergers of small factories into a