Defending Jobs at Rover - 5
By a Rover worker
(First published Socialist Ooutlook May 2000)
We have had the magnificent 80,000 strong demonstration in Birmingham on April 1st. But since then there has been no sign of the planned follow-up demonstration in London, and all talk of nationalisation has been dropped. Instead, having got nowhere with trying to persuade a global car producer to take over Longbridge, Tony Woodley has concentrated on backing a bid led by ex-Rover manager John Towers. It is even reported in some of the papers that the unions are part of the bid. All Woodley's efforts, and those of the Joint Negotiating Committee, have now gone in this direction. At the first full meeting of the European Works Council of BMW, on April 13, he called not for action to make BMW backtrack on the sale, or try and get IG Metal to reverse their position of support for the company, but to ask for more time for the Towers bid to develop. It is reported that Woodley also met the company on his own to support the bid. The proposal by the unions for workers to picket BMW dealers to try to persuade people not to buy BMW cars, was also seen as a mean to give Towers more time.
The unions have even threatened to seek an injunction to delay the Alchemy takeover - again to give more time for the bid. The problem is that neither the stewards or the work force know what the Towers bid is. Woodley has become a one-man band promoting the Towers consortium. Why is the bid so secret? Does it involve the closure of Cowley, for example? Is it right that a union official who does not even work for the firm is able to do this in secret? Are the work force just fodder to pay subs, with no voice in such an issue? Most importantly, there is total confusion in Longbridge. No action whatsoever has taken place. There have only been two shop stewards' meetings, and no mass meetings. All the initiatives are in the hands of the company. Eighty per cent of the work force are laid off for three weeks. The real question is whether they will all return to work?
Divide and rule
The fact is that the Rover work force has been successfully divided up from the start. That's one reason why the Land Rover plant at Solihull was sold to Ford, while Cowley workers were told they were "safe" with the transfer of the mini from Longbridge. This left Swindon facing an uncertain future under BMW and Longbridge sold to Alchemy. Now management is dividing up Longbridge itself. Under the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) (TUPE) legislation, they are saying that about 300 workers on the mini will have the right to go with their jobs to Cowley, and they have issued them with letters saying they are under BMW. But they have also issued others with letters saying they come under Alchemy, and a further group letters saying that they are multi-branded. These latter must now argue over who is to be their employer. All of this means that they have varying chances of jobs, and varying amounts of redundancy money. This is classic divide and rule tactics, against which the unions have offered no alternative. Workers still don't know whether they are in a fight or not. Woodley has already asked BMW about redundancy terms.
Management know that this will weaken the possibility of getting a fight off the ground. If workers don't move to occupy soon, it will be too late. The work force will be too divided and the moment will have been lost. There should be an immediate mass meeting, and the choice of occupation put to the work force. If action is taken, it would be a real alternative to the present pathetic begging by union leaders for scraps off the employers table. An occupied Longbridge could be the focus of resistance for the 100,000 workers in the midlands and Essex who would be affected by the closure of Longbridge and the threatened closure of Ford's Dagenham plant. Others could be asked to support them, and the demand for nationalisation put forward. This could also give hope to the shipyard workers and others facing massive potential job losses. If no action is taken, then divisions will be sharpened and workers will be fighting each other.
In Cowley, where the work force is on a four week layoff, the workers have the impression that all Tony Woodley is worried about is keeping the mini at Longbridge, and that the closure of Cowley would not worry him. In Solihull, workers have been lulled into a false sense of security by the continuing production, and even the continued employment of agency workers.
The major lesson of Rover is that going to the employer cap in hand, as Woodley did in 1998, giving all kinds of shift and productivity concessions does not save jobs. In fact it only worsens conditions for the working class. Now we are going back to the same position, the spiralling down of conditions. Far from representing salvation for jobs and conditions, John Towers was the man who forced through the 'Rover Tomorrow' document in 1992 - the first major systematic attack on conditions, in which he argued that we had to follow Japan to survive.
It was this agreement which contained the 'jobs for life' clause, also endorsed by BMW. Clearly, this clause given by the company in exchange for conditions meant nothing. Towers will doubtless be looking to gain further concessions, having seen how desperate Woodley is. The workers at Cowley will be asked to make sacrifices to get the mini. Meanwhile Ford will use the opportunity to move models between plants to make deals at the expense of Solihull workers. This vision can only be fought by a united struggle, led by Longbridge taking action. This must be around the call for the nationalisation of Rover and Ford, not to compete in mass car production, in which working conditions are forced down, but to line up with a renationalised railway industry, in the development of a properly planned public transport system, that should be run by the workers and consumers:
All negotiations and bids must be in the open
Unions must represent members, not join employers as part of bids
Occupy Longbridge now
Unite car workers, end concession bargaining
Call a demonstration in London
Nationalise Rover and Dagenham, under the control of the workers