Vauxhall Luton:
It's OUR plant
15,000 car workers and their supporters marched through Luton on one of the coldest days of the year in protest at General Motors proposal to shut the town's Vauxhall factory laying off the 2,000 workers currently employed.
Several thousand more in the components supply industry would probably face the sack as well.
More or less the whole Luton workforce was joined by a strong delegation from their sister plant in Ellesmere Port. Car Workers from Longbridge and several other British factories were there as were delegations from car plants in Germany, Spain and Belgium
Other groups of workers represented included the Dudley Hospital strikers and stalwarts from the miners' strike.
The demonstration had a different feel from last year's massive protest over the Longbridge closure. Of course the Birmingham demonstration was much larger - and felt extremely powerful.
Many were also vocally supporting calls for occupation at the final rally. However at the end of the day no action happened - whereas this time at least the European Day of Action and the ballot remained to look forward to.
At Rover as well union jacks and nationalist rhetoric was strong, whereas this time workers from GM plants across Europe received the greatest applause from the crowd, both on the demonstration itself and when they spoke at the final rally.
The fighting tone of their speeches, and frequent references to their determination to build the forthcoming European day of action was in sharp contrast to the tepid talk from the assorted union chiefs who also addressed the crowd.
John Monks, general secretary of the TUC was heavy on rhetoric about the power of 'faceless directors' but of course refrained from making any suggestion as to how this power could be challenged. .
Tony Woodley, the TGWU's chief officer for the car industry, clearly under pressure from both the anger of the workforce and the demonstration itself, reluctantly used the phrase 'industrial action, if necessary'.
You would not have known from listening to him that a ballot for action was already planned
The union bureaucrats were joined by a whole plethora of local worthies including local new Labour MP, Margaret Moran.
Challenge
She faces a general election challenge from Joe Hearne, a local fire-fighter, who is the Bedfordshire Socialist Alliance's prospective candidate in Luton South.
Even the local Tory MP, Sir David Madel addressed the rally, though happily many workers from the plant booed his speech.
It was clear however that Tony Woodley's previous plea for unity was geared to keeping people like Madel on board. The "unity" he and the rest of the union bureaucracy want is unity to prevent militant action from the workforce - whereas the unity we need is unity to achieve and spread support for such action.
The danger now as balloting begins is that the anger that sparked a swift occupation of management offices in December in response to the closure announcement in mid-December may have already begun to dissipate.
Offers of jobs elsewhere or redundancy packages which can seem generous if the alternative might be the dole queue have their effect, especially when the leadership have dragged the start of the ballot out for all these weeks.
While the signs are better than they were at Longbridge or Dagenham, given the successful European day of action, occupation remains the best way to undermine the power of the bosses.
Vote yes in the ballot - occupy Vauxhall now!