Behind the sell-out The Ford strike was cynically sold out by the national trade union (NJNC). In line with the all-union recommendation, the workforce voted by two to one to accept the deal. The only plant with a majority against the deal was the PIA in Dagenham — which voted three to one against. ALAN THORNETT examines the sell-out in the light ford strikers indicating distrust of their representatives: the national joint negotiating committee falsely attempted to pretend that the final deal was
Carlos Guarita/Reflex NO STRINGS
issue will be refered to the NJNG for
positive resolution and may, if
relevant unions. With the above
agreement from the unions we cannot
envisage where these changes would
need to be imposed."
Despite this open commitment to changes in working practices Derek Horn, vice chair of the NJNC told the London Evening Standard: 'People are talking about conditions - but the simple fact is that there are no strings at all attached to this agreement. We have an historic deal..
Not just the right wing take this line. The Morning Star said the same. It quoted Jimmy Airlie, a member of the Communist Party and secretary of the NJNG, saying that Ford workers have won a 'terrific victory'. Airlie said during the negotiations that the strings were necessary for Ford to compete in the world market!
The reality is that the key issue behind the Ford deal, as with every deal in the car industry at the present time (and the last Ford settlement) is the strings attached to it. What lies behind each of these deals is a new generalised offensive by the major car companies designed to increase efficiency and productivity. The successful Japanese companies are the primary (although not the only) model used by much of the industry internationally.
This is not a new thing. The Ford 'AJ' (or 'after Japan") plan was drawn up in the early 1980s after their UK executives visited plants in Japan. The plan was designed to achieve Japanese productivity levels in Ford's British plants. This remains central to Ford management strategy.
What is new in the car industry is the scale of technological development and the level of investment in new models. This introduces new pressures which every manufacturer has to respond to.
In Europe the lead is being taken by Fiat, Europe's second largest manufacturer. They are in the process of launching the Tipo — a new family car in which Fiat has invested over £1 billion. It makes their plant in Cassino the most advanced in the world. Fiat claims a 100 per cent automated paint facility and 55 per cent automation on assembly — a record previously held by Europe's biggest car manufacturer, VW/Audi, at their Hallë assembly facility in West Germany with 40 per cent.
But productivity levels produced by investment and automation are only one side of the equation. High investment needs to be linked to high productivity of 32 labour which means brutally hard work,
UNIONS continuously carried out, and subject to repeated speed-up - a factor which has appropriate, be referred in turn to the become dominant for car workers worldwide. Japanese car makers have developed techniques which have led the
harnessing the workers mentally and physically to continuous hard work at very high speed. But many other manufacturers are now catching
The Ford package contains many of the principles involved in Japanese management techniques. Ford want the introduction of short term contracts; the ending of all demarcation and the intro-
complete labour including making skilled men a part of the same groups as unskilled; the introhigher-paid force of 'company spies' on the shop floor; and the so-called 'quality circles' as developed in Japan.
Quality circles have far more to do with productivity than quality. In principle they are the same as the 'worker participation' scheme which the last Labour government introduced into British Leyland (now Austin Rover), in 1975 in the Ryder report. It had disastrous results for the shop stewards' movement and the workforce.
The objective of these ideas it to change the thinking of the workers from starting from their own wages and conditions, to starting from the problems of production and profitability. This inevitably undermines trade union structures — particularly the shop stewards' movement which is more responsive to the demands of the workforce.
In Japanese car plants everyone is involved in a quality circle. They are required to meet regularly, generally weekly, in their own time, to discuss ways of improving their production per-
'the only break the workers
get is when the track breaks
down' formance. In some plants failure to produce positive proposals from such meetings is regarded as 'uncooperative' or 'anti-management' and can lead to dismissal.
Clearly, quality circles cannot be introduced as effectively in Britain as in Japan. In Japan these techniques were introduced following the smashing of the independent unions and the creation of company controlled 'yellow' unions. Their most extensive use in Britain is still in the Sunderland Nissan plant. But that plant is still in a 'honeymoon' pe-
Ford workers lobby negotiations in Februry
package at Austin Rover workforce as hard as they intend to. And it is not a highly capitalised plant.
Quality circles have also been established in some other parts of the car industry in Britain. In Austin Rover, quality circles (under the name of zone circles) have been introduced by a deal done at national level between the national officials and the unions — the same individuals negotiated the current package with Ford. Mick Murphy, the TGWU national officer, became known for saying that he was 'over the moon' with the deal — a deal to which the workforce has become increasingly hostile.
These 'zone circles' include the shop stewards and meet in working hours with one hour per week facility time. Involving the shop stewards tends to make the situation worse — making it easier for management to use 'zone circles' as an alternative to the trade union structures.
In some Austin Rover plants, including the Cowley assembly plant at Oxford, 'zone circles' are already in operation, but in most places they still lack authority. In the Cowley assembly plant they have been backed by right wing senior stewards and convenors. They operate with only those workers who are riod. They are not yet pressing the prepared to become involved. In the
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 6 March/April 1988
Susan ry: TGWU national officer Mick Murphy (placard) has negotiated a similar body plant there has been more resstronger left wing in the plant.
In Austin Rover the introduction of quality circles has gone alongside the abolition of many categories of workers — particularly grades such as inspection and rectification — resulting in many hundreds of job losses.
Besides quality circles, labour flexibility is the other key tool of the new "the sell-out was a betrayal of
the interests of the whole
working class management technique. The ability of management to move workers from one job to another — across grades and skill demarcations — is crucial if work is to be continuous. If non-production workers can be switched to production, when production workers are absent, or there
production problems, management can cut down the number of relief workers needed, or even abolish them completely.
The only break the track workers get, apart from brief official relief times, is when the track breaks down. With flexibility production workers are required to SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 6 March/April 1988
UNIONS Carlos Guarita/Reflex do running maintenance themselves, or istance, because of the existence of a help the fitters in the repair of bigger breakdowns. They are also expected to do general cleaning to cut out the need for janitors. This is all designed to ensure that there is never a break in the work-load, from one end of the shift to major innovation. They are widely used in Japanese plants and allow management to maintain a core experienced labour force which can work flat-out all the time, whilst employing casual labour to cover peak periods — and then sacking them with no rights at the end of it. This creates a labour force outside of trade union control and vulnerable to
Such contracts have already been introduced in some British plants. In the newly privatised Unipart (the Austin Rover service division), short contract labour is regularly used to meet peak demand periods.
There have been disputes in Austin Rover over the introduction of these conditions. But management has succeeded in introducing into some of their plants some of the conditions Fords are now seeking. In the Swindon body plant, for example, short term contract workers already exist. But the would be strongly opposed in the main
Austin Rover plants.
In addition to these innovations discipline has been stepped up. New disciplinary procedures have been introduced and the rate of dismissals has gone up sharply. In the main Austin Rover plants workers are sacked every day for 'offences' such as failure to keep pace with the track, failing to work to standard or for breaking the very strict management codes on lateness or absenteeism. In some Austin Rover plants workers are disciplined as a matter of course (although not necessarily sacked) for one error on the track.
It is these conditions - the strings attached to the deal - that have been central to the Ford strike. The chances of success in the next stage of this process in Britain will be greatly increased by the sell-out of the Ford strike. Car workers in Britain have to seek ways of challeng-
The employers' offensive has some lessons which need to be taken up by car workers both in Britain and internationally. A generalised offensive needs a generalised response. In Britain, where the multi-union set-up in the industry fragments the workforce and prevents the workers speaking with a single voice, there is an urgent need for contact at rank and file level, particularly through the shop stewards' ment. Some shop stewards in Ford and other car manufacturers are calling for an urgent national conference of car industry shop stewards to discuss and assess these developments and develop a strategy for opposition.
This would be a very popular initiative and could be the starting point for a fightback in the car plants in Britain. It could also lay the basis for greater links with car workers across Europe, in the
The high level of militancy in the car plants in Britain is likely to continue and increase despite the Ford sell-out. At the time of writing the Land Rover plant in Birmingham is on strike over wages. The General Motors plants in Liverpool and Luton have voted for strike action over the decision by management to plunder tens of thousands of pounds from the pension fund, using new Tory
There needs to be an international response to this as well. The employers are organising their offensive across national frontiers. It is an international offensive with internationally developed techniques of attack. There needs to be a
Tin which car workers from, at least across Europe, can pool their experience and develop a response beyond
33
Should socialists take sides in the Gulf war?
The Socialist Workers Party has made a turn in its attitude to the Iran-Iraq war: from revolutionary opposition to the war to critical support supporters of the SWP. an 'anti-imperialist' casualty?
The SWP and Iran: for Iran. The turn has been announced in a series of articles the most detailed of which is Phil Marshall's 'A test of strength' in the December 1987 issue of Socialist Worker Review. PHIL HEARSE argues that this turn is ill-conceived and will profoundly mis-educate The dead body of a young Iranian volunteer lies motionless, a picture of Khomeini in his pocket (for good luck): a victim of senseless slaughter or
POLEMIC A young Iranian trains... Kaveh Golestan/Reflex Kaveh Golestan/Reflex
PHIL MARSHALL says there has been a change in the character of the war signalled by the clashes between the US fleet and Iranian gunboats in the Gulf. He says: 'The war is no longer just a conflict between two ruling classes fighting for domination of the region. Washington has decided it is to be a test of strength between the west and the Arab rulers on the one hand, and the upstart Iranians on the other'. This is quite wrong.
The US and other western fleets are not in the Gulf to intervene directly in the Iran-Irag war. They are there, as they have openly said, to guarantee the west's oil supplies — even if they have shown more concern to defend boats going to Iraq than those going to Iran. The SWP are making a mistake if they think that the clashes in the Gulf are part and parcel of the Iran-Iraq war.
But it is far from clear that the US and the west simply back Iraq against Iran. Imperialism is keeping its options open. The Irangate affair blew up because the US was preparing, in the medium and long term, to 'do business' with at least a wing of the Iranian regime. The calculations of the US are much more complicated than just defending the oil sheiks against the 'upstart Iranians"
The main US ally in the middle east — Israel - is opposed to an Iraqi victory, because Israel sees a victorious Iraq as a threatening Arab regional power. Israel has been Iran's main supplier of arms, but arms have come from many western countries, including (by secret routes) from the US itself. The Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq has just as strong links with the USSR on the diplomatic plane as it has with the US. The Soviet Union has been the main supplier of Iraqi weapons. So the US preference for Iraq is far from obvious.
In any case, the preferences of US imperialism can change. Although the US wants to defend the oil sheikdoms in the region against any Iranian expansionism, that doesn't mean that it can't swivel its alliances to meet changing circumstances. The US recognises that if anyone has the upper hand it is the Iranians. And, if necessary, the US will be quite capable of making new diplomatic overtures to the Khomeini regime.
Many leading US politicians and military people have said the best option for the US will be if 'neither side wins and they go on killing one another'. This is probably nearer the consensus imperialist view than the one given by Phil Marshall.
What is incontestable is that the war remains one of conflict between two SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 6 March/April 1988
POLEMIC domination of the region. Having re-make unpleasant choices, and he quotes pulsed the original Iragi attack, the Iranian regime took the war onto Iraqi territory with the express intention of bringing down the Saddam Hussein regime. It is the Iranians who have refused peace negotiations; Saddam Hussein realises he now can't win and desperately wants peace.
Phil Marshall has some extraordinary things to say about the character of the regime and the war. He says: 'During the Iranian revolution of 1979 Khomeini championed the mass movements of the workers, peasants, women and national minorities. But with the Shah gone, he soon revealed his intention to consolidate Iranian capitalism, while giving his Iraqi president Saddam Hussein: it is far from obvious that the US supports Iraq most important supporters among the petty bourgeoisie a bigger share in the system'
This is wrong on two counts. Khomeini never, ever, 'championed' the workers, women, peasants or national minorities and it is quite misleading to say so. Khomeini promoted the mass movement under the leadership of his supporters in the mosque and the bazaar, the demonstrations of Khomeini supporters in the streets, but he always opposed the direct expressions of the movements of workers and other oppressed groupings - especially of national minorities and women. The Iranian regime is not 'petty bourgeois' in any fundamental sense. It is a bourgeois regime, and the ruling class in Tehran is the capitalist ruling class.
Phil Marshall says his new line 'will stick in the throats of socialists' (quite). utterly reactionary capitalist regimes for But he argues that socialists have to
the example of the Spanish civil war as comparison since 'the Spanish situation has much in common with that in Iran' (sic). Now it could just possibly be that the Spanish civil war had something in common with the Iran-Iraq war, but Phil Marshall fails to mention anything, and I can't think of anything either.
Marshall says Trotsky argued that "we are not neutral' between the 'decaying bourgeois democracy' of the Negrin republican government and the Franco fascists. Quite right too. But there is no 'decaying bourgeois democracy' in Iran or Iraq. Both are utterly vile reactionary dictatorships. Both have the blood of thousands of workers, peasants, women and people from national minorities on their hands. Both want to dominate the region, and neither are in the slightest bit genuinely 'anti-imperialist' - although they both use 'anti-imperialist' rhetoric.
Socialists should, says Phil Marshall, 'encourage working class discontent' with the Iranian regime, but should not disrupt the war effort. This is a hopeless and reactionary line. What should socialists say about the sending of hundreds of thousands of young people to their deaths by Khomeini in his quest to bring down the Saddam Hussein regime? That they should go and fight in an 'anti-imperialist' cause?(!) The Khomeini regime is, if anything, the worst criminal at the present stage of the fighting in prolonging the senseless slaughter.
A final point, Marshall says that 'islamic fundamentalism is a complex and contradictory phenomenon'. Of course, any amateur dialectician will tell you that all phenomena are complex and contradictory. But if Marshall means that fundamentalism is politically contradictory he is wrong. It is a reactionary creed through and through and can never lead the peoples of the middle and near east in an anti-imperialist direction. Socialists have to fight it every step of the way.
The new swp line is misleading for socialists in Iran and in the west. While it is absolutely correct to oppose the intervention of US imperialism in the region, and right for socialists to defend Iran against attack by the US it is another thing again to side with the Iranians against Iraq. In taking sides in this bloody and pointless conflict, the SWP have concluded that the Iranians are basically anti-imperialist and the Iraqis are pro-imperialist. Such a position involves an error of fact, as well as of judgement • 35
THERE IS nothing wrong in reassessing marxist interpretations, but where this has lead Socialist Organiser as far as this particular exercise is concerned is to the
Cof the class divide. This is illustrated in the January edition of the magazine Workers' Liberty and an article therein by Sean Matgamna.
This is entitled Ireland: lies the left tells itself. A more fitting headline would have been 'Ireland: examples of the lies the right tells itself'. For what has now emerged from what at first was a sloppy and impressionistic analysis is one which stands four square with the opinions of the British ruling class.
We are told that there would be a bloody sectarian civil war if British troops left the north of Ireland, that those troops have every right to be there anyway because 'Northern Ireland has been part of the British state since the 12th century', and that Britain has no political, economic or military interest in staying in the north of Ireland
The reason they do so apparently is because of the 'power of the orangeists on the ground', and it is this power which, if British troops did leave, would result in all sorts of nasty things happening to catholics.
Not only do we have a series of views which suggests the role of the British army is to keep two sets of mad paddies apart, we have an additional reactionary bonus. This is that protestants in the north of Ireland are quite right to resist any attempt to submit them to the rule of the Irish majority because they are British, have always considered themselves so and because they are faced with 'Sinn Fein's catholic Irish nationalism' which is alien to them and their 'traditions'. These politics of Sinn Fein are also something which break from the traditional republicanism of Wolfe Tone which, contrary to Sinn Fein's version,
There is, in all this, so much disinformation it is difficult to know where to gasp most. But, for example: • 'Northern Ireland' was only part of the British state in name since the 12th century. Ulster was so resistant to British occupation that it did not happen in reality until the 17th century when the native Irish were driven from their land and were replaced by English and Scottish settlers. • The protestant community of the northeast of Ireland have rarely considered themselves as 'British' in the sense that term is understood in Britain. From the horne rule bills of the 19th and early 20th centuries to the Anglo-Irish accord 36 of today they have continually resisted
POLEMIC Socialist Organiser and