No confidence in BMW or Ford
Only union action can save jobs!
A Rover worker
50,000 JOBS ARE AT RISK in the West Midlands motor industry, with more at stake in Swindon & Cowley. 50,000 more could face the axe in East London.
This is the greatest blow to workers in Britain since the 1992 pit closures. The huge job losses are also a massive blow to union organisation. They would leave just two General Motors plants, Chrysler’s assembly plant, and the remnants of Ford as the only properly unionised car plants in the UK.
When 400 Rover shop stewards met at Gaydon last Tuesday, they rightly voted to campaign to keep the company together. This was a unanimous vote, despite the fact that in Solihull and Cowley some workers feel that their plants might have a future. It was explained that nobody could trust Ford or BMW to protect these workers’ jobs.
The problem is that although there appears to be a 6 week leeway before the changes are made, this has not proven to be the case. Workers are already being laid off, and plans are being worked up to implement the job losses.
The unions have correctly called a national demonstration in Birmingham. But apart from this and desperate appeals to BMW, and other employers, they have made no call for action.
The TGWU chief negotiator Tony Woodley from the platform at Gaydon echoed the views of most shop floor speakers, calling for Rover to be nationalised – but even this demand is not being pushed with any form of action.
Longbridge should have been the immediate focus of action. Occupation of that plant would not only stop BMW’s plan being implemented, but it would also encourage component workers whose jobs are at risk to take similar action, and give other threatened workers a focus for supporting action. It would also point the way forward for Dagenham workers.
Of course it is difficult for Tony Woodley to argue for this. He has consistently shied away from any fight with BMW. At every moment of crisis, he has argued for workers to make more concessions.
This is also one of the reasons why respect is not high for him on the shop floor. But if he and other union officers don’t act soon, then the car industry will go the way of the coal mines.
The first step must be action by the workforce: and then, on the basis of this fightback there should be an appeal to the BMW unions.
Some questions certainly need to be asked about the way the lionk with BMW has worked. The Rover workers come under the same European Works Council: what has happened to this?
Why weren’t Rover workers told what was happening by the IG Metall representatives who sit on the BMW board?
Obviously Rover workers can’t expect much support from these union bureaucrats, but what about in the BMW plants themselves? After all if BMW can do this to Longbridge why not Munich?
At the time of the takeover, BMW said that they needed Rover for the scale of production to ensure the company could survive. Now Rover is being closed down, where do they go next? Who is lined up to take them over? If BMW cannot be forced to put a new model in to Longbridge, then the campaign for nationalisation must come to the forefront.
The position of Byers & Blair has been laughable. They have become the puppets of big business and apologists for the free market system and global capital. Even as their deal with BMW has disintegrated all they have done is criticise the company for the way it carried out its decision. Now they are best of friends again.
The next demonstration should be outside Downing Street demanding the company is nationalised. The TUC, too, has done little other than talk about changing the law so that workers cannot be sacked so quickly. No major company is going to fear this type of response.
Only if the unions fight back – hard – will the employers be forced to think twice. Both the government and the TUC have been peddling the need for greater flexibility. and concession bargaining. This devastation is the result.
Greater productivity. and antisocial hours mean greater use of machinery – and speed up factory closures. We cannot wait. Inactivity only allows the media to lull workers in to believing they have no choice.