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From Notes of the Month, International Socialism, No.56, March 1973, pp.3-4.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Sabby Sagall writes: Ford is one of the six giants of the international car industry, each with a capacity of at least a million units a year, which together control more than 80 per cent of world output.
Ford (UK) has been at the bottom of the wages league in the car industry for many years, lagging behind the advanced sections of the industry by £10 to £15 a week, due mainly to the early introduction of a ruthless system of Measured Daywork. This was an immediate result of the 1962 defeat in which 17 leading Ford militants were sacked with the assistance of right-wing union leaders. Fords’ increased production by a third without taking on more labour. In the years that followed, the company steadily squeezed more production out of less workers: in 1965 64,000 workers produced 630,000 cars, in 1968 61,000 workers produced 712,000 cars. The 1962 catastrophe ensured that Ford wages remained low and that whatever control Ford workers had over line-speeds and manning levels fast disappeared.
In 1968, the relative peace that had lasted since the 1962 victimisations was finally shattered by the famous strike of the women sewing machinists. The 1969 ‘penalty clause’ strike broke the stranglehold of the right-wing union leaders over the trade union side of the National Joint Negotiating Committee. In 1970 the Ford convenors’ call to strike in support of the parity claim resulted in the £4 offer which Ford’s conceded in order to buy off trouble.
A year later rank-and-file agitation conducted by shop stewards since 1969, albeit inconsistently, finally paid off. Fords’ insulting £2 offer made in response to the claim for parity provoked spontaneous walkouts at Dagenham, Halewood and Swansea. A nine-week strike followed – the longest and most militant battle in the history of the British car industry. The level of rank-and-file determination which the strike revealed took the company totally by surprise, especially as only a year earlier Ford shop stewards had been shouted down at mass meetings.
Given the strength of the movement in 1971, a substantial breakthrough towards parity could have been achieved but for the fatal intervention of union leaders Scanlon and Jones. Going over the heads of the NJNC, they negotiated a secret deal with Gillen, Chairman of Ford Europe, by which Ford workers were to receive an immediate increase of £4 and a further £4 spread over two years. During the two years of the agreement, there was to be a ban on all industrial action in support of economic demands. In addition, Scanlon and Jones willingly accepted the idea of a secret ballot to determine the workers’ attitude to the settlement. They wanted to prevent militant plants like Swansea and Halewood carrying on the struggle independently, as they had the previous year.
Scanlon and Jones transformed what was potentially a massive victory into what could only be interpreted, given the fighting strength of the workers, as a partial defeat. The outcome of the 1971 strike has been all too clearly reflected in Ford’s balance sheet. They have had a tremendous bonanza over the past two years. A £30 million loss in 1971 has been converted into an estimated £60 plus profit for 1972. Since the middle of 1972, the company has been operating at a full level of capital utilization. In 1972, Ford workers produced around 750,000 cars and vans, and at Dagenham at present the average scheduled production of cars is over 1,200 per 24 hours. This represents a 20 per cent increase in production since before the 1971 strike.
The unanimous strike decision of the Ford Convenors meeting on February 18th is the most important – and potentially the decisive – challenge to the Government’s Phase Two. There is no doubt at all that Ford would increase its offer in response to the present parity claim but for the government’s limit. The industry is booming again. Profits are climbing. The Ford workers can win and will win if they remain determined and united. And if they do Phase Two is finished.
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