Cowley production line: small-scale operation would rule out latest technology
PICKING UP the papers or walching the television you would not know huge job losses were goig ahead at Austin Rover.
There are no statements from national Labour or trade union Icaders the only activity Is local" talks at the threatened Llanch and Cowley plants: Thisisnoaccident: the Cowley cogychors. Ivor Braggins in the Assembly plant and Alce Morton in the Body plant have argued against a national light. When Oxford Trades Couneil held & public meeting with TGWU deputy Leader Bill Morris, the convenars condemned this "outside interference"?
Quite the opposite approach is reede. The closureware both part of the Austin Rover Groups 5year plan and the Ell agreement ovel the British Aerospace takeover. The EEC imposed certain conditions betore aprecing to. what was the most scandalous give
Cowley:
Fighting the forgotten closures away privatisation of any vet carried our by the Torics.
The conditions were that BAc/Austin Rover dispose permamently of their excess capacity. working to an upper limit of 500,000 care a year. Only a specialist company could possibly survive with this scale of production. All the main manufacturers turn out over 2 million a year.
Large-scale production is necded to finance rescarch, adver tising and dealer networks; but most cif all it is vital to utilise the latest technology.
Austin Rover is nor a specialist producer. The replacements forthe Maestro and Montego will be just normal mass production models. The more exclusive Rover 800 is already tacing sales problems in its main targer marker, USA.
The fact is that the 5-ycar plan is just astage in the process of clos ing Austin Rover. BAe cannot lose from this close down. They have picked up Land Rover and valuible sites (the Cowley site alone is worth the purchase price of the whole AR Group: they may even he able to sell off some suplus plant to Honda.
The only losers would be the Austin Rovor workforce. The final steps toward Cowicy sclosureinvolve the transfer of models lo Longbridge. Maestro production ends at Cowley next ycar: its noplacement the ARs is already being built at Longhridge. The Montego ends in around wo years. and its replacement. if built. will also be at Longbridge. Around 7.000 Cowley workers stand to lose thoir jobs when these models. finish.
Meanwhile virtually all present work at Llanelli is to be moved to Swindon at the end of next year, with the loss of 900 jobs.
All this shows that to fight such i national plan the unions need a national response. It is possible. ABU stewards at Swindon have said that they will not handle work lam Ilanelli unless the workforce there agree lo it Longbridge sewards have said they would lead a national campaign 1o get the AR9 built at Cowley.
However one problem is that the Austin Rover workforce has been so oppressed by vears of dietatorial management imposing specd up, rexibility and mobrity of labour, and victimisation of stewards from
Derek
Robinson
(Longbridge) ta Alan
Thornett and Bob Cullen
(Cowley) - that they lack contidence. The company have offered enhanced rodundancy payments if the unions sign an agrcement notto resist the joh losses.
Under these condilions a strong lead is needed to huild the resistance. Linion leaders have offered nothing of the kind. There has not even been a union leaflet produced, and only onc
P mass meeting in cach of the Cowlcy plants: at the
Assemhly plant workers were not even allowed vote on opposing the closure.
'Though pressure in the
Body plant forced a decision to oppose closure. senior steward
Alec Morton complained mostly that redundancy payments were too low.
and suggesting a fight not against reculancy but for wlast in, first out policy.
The local talks are being stretched out and gelting nowhere, while demoralised sections of the workforce. particularly older workers with the biggest offers in redundancy pay. have had a free hand to preach defeatism in the ubsence of any alternative from union Icaders.
The only information available to the workforce has been coming from the keyland Action Commit tee leaflets, which have boon the subject of hitter attacks from union leaders of both plants.
These leaflets have argued for a build-up of the campaign. begin ning with an ovenime ban: all plants should refuse work from a threatened plant; and when any compulsory redundancy takes place, the plants should be occupied, combined with a national fight throughout Austin Rover.
Other car workers could also be won to a fight hy Austin Rover workers. They are all threatened with Quality Circles', team leaders" and new shift patterns: in
Germany the threat is Sunday working as management step up the offensive. A newly militant
Cowlcy defonding jobs could again become a beacon for car workers struggles.
Anthony Johnson
Why Hussein is pushing his luck view • Unlike several other currents on the left Socialist
Worker, Militant, Socialist Organiser we do not think left wingers should stay in the
Electricians' Union (EETPU)
after its expulsion from the
TUC: nor do we think this is the right lead to give to ordinary EETPU members. At a time when Eric Hammond is gloating at his success at grabbing the headlines and in getting out without losses, the fewer members that leave the EETPU, the greater his authority - and the more demoralising life will become for any militants trapped and
Isolated inside the