Bosses count on union collaboration
TORY Chancellor always noted for his economy with the truth, pointed to at least one correct set of statistics in his post-budget broadcast: the increase in the productivity of British industry.
Where has this "productivity' come from? At source it arises from an increase in the level of exploitation of workers - from a speed-up on the shop floor, affecting almost every sector, but most savagely hitting workers in manufacturing indusry.
With manufacturing output of the supposedly "booming" 1987 economy still well below 1979 levels, increased productivity comes from producing less with workers: hence the total loss
JOB LOSSES
Lawson.
By JOHN LISTER
750,000 jobs since 1979,
TV
- at around 4 million.
substantial attack has been British Leyland blows from Michael Edwardes and his and hived off to leave essentially only the volume car production units of the Austin Rover Group.
repeated waves redundancies to help weaken demoralise the once-powerful shop the stewards movement, and aided and abetted at each stage by full-time even fewer union officials who readily sign away of the jobs, pay and conditions of their
Socialist Viewpoint No. 16 April 1987 p5 members, and unemployment - open and hidden surpassed levels.
One obvious case of this kind of which, under a succession of hammer successors, has been hacked back
"foreign"
A brutal mangement regime, using more voluntary of and
Ford has dramatically speeded up production workers in BL
Nor has the pressure been relaxed as the company has equalled and
European productivity
Management continue to exploit the national chauvinism of union officials and convenors in order to pressurise them into concessions in the quest for "viability" • seeking to make the firm "competitive" against competitors (while BL management itself becomes more and entwined with Honda, the Tories flog off Leyland trucks to the Dutch, and offer other prime cuts to
For any other multinational with ready cashl)
Fearful of "rocking the boat", BL union leaders pushed through a pay deal last November which gives only
MOTLEY'S CREW BOY, THERE'S NOTHIN LIKE A STRIKE TO MAKE A GUY EAGER TO GET BACK TO WORK... 5% with strings — over 2 years!
Encouraged by these retreats, the company has become so arrogant that the bonus in all the main plants has dropped to wipe out almost the whole pay increase: in Cowley, wages are now only 50p above the Swindon are down ES! This was the deal about which TGWU negotiator Mick Murphy said he was "over the
The company is also trying to force in a new shift system involving four 9 hour shifts, with no payments.
With conditions under there is also tremendous speed up management have tried skillec workers onto production work.
The shop floor response has been different from their official leaders. A 5-1 vote for strike action by skilled workers al Cowley management to retreat. meeting at Swindon voted against acceptance of the new shift system.
At Cowley Body Plant, 800(XX) workers have been baning overtime for 6 weeks over the bonus cuts. Others have promised to join the action if their bonuses sink below militancy despite a decision from a full meeting of Body Plant shop stewards to urge the overtime ban be called off.
At Longbridge, been strikes over bonus payments. Two hundred stopped work recently when mangemenet sacked a worker without going through procedure: persuaded them to return to work.
The BL management drive for "flexible" working lines up with the full-scale offensive of Engineering Employers' iederation. They are seeking to opportunities for speed-up arising from proposals for the phased introduction (over a period of years) of a 37½ hour week.
With the willing assistance of the right wing leaders of the AEU, other bureaucrats from the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Unions (Confed), the EEF has set its
BACK ON THE JOB,
PULLIN' TOGETHER
WITH FELLOW
WORKERS TO DO
THE BEST JOB
POSSIBLE...
working throughout the industry.
- among other things
"variations in working hours", premium attack, dotty-but-dangerous the present 40 or 39-hour week.
did not agree, forced
A in mass these measures
Rover agreements, premium rates.
"The main proposal was demarcation lines where be commensurate capabilities and training."
production tracks.
the precisely the imposed in Austin over.
exploit eventual working time.
Engineering wording in the thousands of SOGAT
•ON THE OTHER HAND we sights on a major intensification of covered
A scandalous joint report drawn up Industries by the EEF and the Confed proposes cheque for employers to increase the working week at will, without paying overtime rates. Under the heading proposais to encourage a "flexible" pattern of weekly hours to meet "seasonal" and other fluctuations in workers would be transformed into profitability.* the EEF/Confed overlaps with the campaign of the the Graham) for a specified number of hours of a "working year" to replace
The EEF/Confed scheme also spells out that where unions and employers management would have the "right" to impose variations the working week. If adopted, The would effectively destroy the guaranteed week, lay off overtime, and SOGAT
Another section of the document focusses on Demarcation, declaring:
purpose of this to remove these existed purely because of union membership (1). (...) Tasks would required to be undertaken with individual
The net effect could be a wholesale loss of skilled jobs - and skilled anto
It is clear from this text that union leaders are working hand in glove kind of attack on conditions that is being
But the employers' offensive goes much wider than engineering. One clause stands out in the EEF/Confed
— a mutual commitment to better utilisation of resources and
This is closely echoed by the new pay offer to members Socialist Viewpoint No. 16 April 1987 pб working in the general print industry, by the
British
Printing
The agreement - strongly recommended for acceptance by SOGAT leaders -
"Both endorsement of speed-up.
sides" agree that:
"costs must be recovered through increased efficiency: and that the industry's manpower (sic!), plant and equipment must be deployed fully and effectively ... to improve
In case an printworker might miss the message - which is one of total, abject surrender to the employers by
SOGAT leadership after the
Wapping betrayal - the agreement makes clear that:
"Increases in productivity and the reduction of unit costs can only be achieved through efforts being made at individual company level.
including the introduction of new technology to its full potential (!)
parties regular encourage discussion on means of improving all aspects of performance.
members' noses are further rubbed into this mess by the additional insistence that
"It is agreed that management
Mirror Group
Guardian
[Editorial stad
Future move
Express Newspapers
Staying put for now
Fle
CENTRAL
LONDON
Mail Newspapers
[Editorial
S
Kensington
Observer
Editorial (printing 2 Co
Battersea
PANewsFeatures
Police at Vapping help press home new techhology and speed-up
Wiard
PHOTO and chapel representatives will cofully operate in discussing and implementing changes, necessary
Increased output and lower costs through the most effective use of people, machines.
This is nothing more or less than an invitation for the employers to force home whatever speed-up proposals or job-slashing new technology they may feel like. All in exchange for a inancial Times
News International ditorial to stay?
Editorial & Printing et Street
Wapping wer Bridge -
Mail Newspapers
Printing
(Printing uthwark
Printing tract houses
POLICE pathetic identifying.
any to achieve has stated that:
unit materials and this
Agreement concerned employees. the involved."
Daily/Sunday Telegraph
Editorial
Newham
DOCKLANDS
Financial Times
Thames
Printing
Barrier
Daily/Sunday Telegraph
3 miles
£6 increase which employers have already said they will not pay if they don't want to: the BPIF
"Where a critical situation exists
(in a member firm) as a result of the companies should notify their unions and the regional office of the BPIF ... so that direct discussion can take place on means of alleviating the problems
Rupert Murdoch
Society journalists
Socialist Viewpoint No. 16 April 1987 p7
A similar clause proposed to the NUJ by the bosses of the Newspaper was sufficient to persuade to withdraw from the charade of a national agreement in provincial papers: but SOGAT leaders just grin while their members are left to bear it.
Elsewhere, too, management are now looking to smash up national negotiating machinery and national agreements in order to play off one section of workers against another.
The most obvious example is the Coal Board's cynical move to force in 6-day working, 9½ hour shifts, and further speed-up, picking off the rightward moving South Wales NUM