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From International Socialism, No.67, March 1974, pp.8-9.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
WHEN THE government imposed three-day working and power restrictions from 1 January the trade union movement was faced with a national challenge.
But the official response was at best confused. The reaction of the Engineering Union demonstrated the inadequacy of the leadership’s response.
The AUEW circulated all district committees calling for the observance of the guaranteed week agreement, insistence on overtime payments and the honouring of existing agreements. One or two districts, for example in Lancashire, insisted even more strongly on the guaranteed week question.
But official policy was not up to the situation. Workers on piece rates faced different problems to timeworkers. Some plants managed to negotiate so that the guaranteed week was effectively paid daily: they received £10 for the two days’ lockout. Workers who stood to get as much or more than their guarantee on three days’ work abandoned the national agreement – as at the CAV factory in Acton. This situation was quite common in Midlands engineering plants as well.
The lead given by the AUEW executive left the factory leaderships stranded. A national policy was not thought out and it was left to a few local gatherings of stewards, for example in Barnsley and Wakefield, to sort out policies.
THE OFFICIAL AUEW reaction was by no means the worst of the manual unions.
Staff unions such as ASTMS and TASS stopped employers from cutting their members’ pay. In the early part of January Courtaulds tried to cut staff wages but this was fairly strongly resisted.
In general, however, it was factory organisation that was tested out. A series of issues was involved: payment for the holiday period, overtime pay, flexibility and manning levels, lengthening of shifts and so on. The ability of stewards to resist management measures varied widely. When the knitwear employers and certain non-federated engineering companies removed their guarantees there was hardly any response Surprisingly the Lancashire textile workers, faced with an adamant refusal by the employers’ association to pay Saturday rates, won a time-and-a-quarter payment after banning Saturday work.
In fact the initial intention of the employers’ associations, such as the EEF, the textile employers and the CBI, was not to pay overtime premia at all. Socialist Worker (26.1.74) reported a dispute at Rank Radio, Camborne, where management worked the New Year’s Day holiday and then ‘declared’ a non-power day as a holiday in lieu – with no time off and no overtime rates. Here a strike threat forced management to back down. In the Tyneside area, Dunlop refused to pay overtime for a considerable period. The AUEW and the GMWU were involved in various plant conferences, and it was only on 11 February, under the threat of an overtime ban, that the company caved in and agreed to pay the money for Saturday, backdated. That this was a definite try-on is clear from other Dunlop plants where the company was in too weak a position. At the Dunlop Angus factory in Lancaster, where there is no guaranteed week, overtime was paid to give a 38½ hour week. But in the nearby plant of Nairn Coated Products, management succeeded in stealing the New Year holiday period and in working a continuous 72 hours Monday to Wednesday. This meant three shifts of 12 hours (no overtime). It was this type of flexibility that the employers were after across the country.
A Financial Times survey of engineering firms and the 3-day week said:
‘CBI-type comments about the “magnificent response” of employees come most frequently from the industry giants.’ (28.1.74)
It is clear that in a number of factories stewards were content to give up hard-won protective practices under management
pressure. The CBI began the period by lamenting the Tory lockout and saying profits would be destroyed. But by 16 January it was already quite pleased with the situation of between 70 and 80 per cent of normal production and by the start of February the CBI saw the advantage of getting 75 per cent production out of 60 per cent working. The government graciously acceded to the demand to abandon the expensive Saturday working.
THE EMPLOYERS clearly considered motors as an area for experimentation. There were a number of try-ons. At Ford Leamington and Dagenham, Triumph (Speke), Vauxhall (Luton) and Chrysler Linwood various attempts were made by management to split up the workforce and erode conditions. By and large these were defeated, and management then submitted its case as a ‘continuous process’ industry and got exemptions. This scenario was repeated with various scripts in the engineering industry and was in evidence at Triumph Speke where a Carworker correspondent commented:
‘The management’s desire not to pay overtime rates got it the “special exemption”.’
An illustration of flexibility that management has been getting away with is seen at the Coventry Triumph plant where on the dayshift the factory was divided into five areas, working four days each week (a ‘continuous process’ plant). On any one day one-fifth of the factory was idle. Under these conditions, with the dayshift working about 31 hours, management was getting much more than its money’s worth. And while Triumph was working 30 odd hours, the British Leyland factories in Oxford and Swindon were, in some areas, lengthening the hours worked. A serious defeat for the workers occurred at the Cowley Assembly plant of Austin-Morris where the company achieved the break-up of the lay-off agreement despite an initially quite determined struggle to prevent it doing so.
WHILE THERE has been by and large a pretty clear policy on overtime, there was much less resistance to management imposed ‘flexibility’ and alterations in manning. Among a large number of white collar workers and in badly organised areas there was a general reduction in tea breaks and time off for dinner.
Several sharp disputes occurred over changes in working practices. One example was at Bescot Drop Forgings in Wednesbury, where the company unilaterally altered the shift pattern for maintenance men. This led to a three-week strike by 300 men until management backed down.
Unfortunately the ability to fight back on this field depends mostly on a strong tradition of mutuality or on a determined stand by officials. The latter was definitely not forthcoming. AUEW divisional reports in the February issue of the union journal contain ominous phrases: ‘many permutations on this have been agreed between various firms and our members’ (Division 4);’many employers are using all sorts of devices to opt out of their responsibilities under Guaranteed Week Agreements’ (Division 5).
Other than general exhortations to ‘stand firm’ and to make sure existing agreements were honoured, there was no indication that the AUEW was prepared to back its members in resisting erosion of conditions. At Cowley there was a concerted effort by management to break-up written agreements – with a certain degree of success as we have seen. At Chrysler Linwood the company attempted to introduce compulsory weekend working. If Saturday or Sunday was worked then there would be one less shift paid at 65 per cent lay-off pay during the week. If the overtime was refused the same penalty would apply. But the company was not able to enforce this.
An extreme example of management use of the crisis to attack conditions has been in the Glacier Metal company. The Alperton, London factory was classified as ‘continuous process’ and a tremendous degree of flexibility exploited by management. Mealbreaks were cut and conditions worsened, the plant working flat out with considerable overtime. Thus encouraged the company announced that, despite the magnificent effort, there would have to be 10-15 per cent wage cuts unless productivity and the market situation rapidly improved. In this case neither the AUEW nor the TGWU, with the majority of the workforce in membership, have taken any action. Nor has there been any contact with the other plants in the group which have also been at near 100 per cent effort.
THE TWO DAY lockout met with hardly a whimper from trade union officialdom. There was no attempt to even argue for a full week’s pay. Where this was achieved it was mainly in specific continuous process plants, such as Metal Box and Pilkingtons, where earnings guarantees have been negotiated for the period of the lockout. At Gillette full pay for all was agreed to on 1 February, and Gallaher also negotiated a temporary agreement. On the other hand the building unions negotiated a most abject surrender, abandoning Saturday overtime premia altogether at National level. Virtually the whole of the union leadership failed on the flexibility and variable hours issues – the exceptions really being only in the print.
Once again the ‘left’ leadership of the AUEW and TGWU failed to respond to the membership’s needs. No doubt one or two lessons have been learned. The latest claims for new lay-off clauses at Ford and Vauxhall are in part a recognition of the inadequacy of the present motor agreements. The absurdity of the engineering guarantee of £25 is now also apparent.
The main lesson of the rank and file response is the unevenness. Workers in the same company have achieved different results – there has been almost no communication. Stewards in the same district were meeting with vastly different responses; again the exchange of experiences is very small. Disputes, and there have been a considerable number, whatever the CBI would like to think, have nearly always been confined to a single plant. The need for an informed and active rank and file organisation can hardly have been more clearly shown.
The employers did get something of a bloody nose over Saturday working. It was significant that they very rapidly discovered that Saturday working was ‘socially divisive’ and ‘created problems’. But overall, the rank and file response could only be fragmented. And while trade unionists tried to cope with the lockout in a piecemeal fashion, the employers had really one strategy. The independent industrial relations magazine Incomes Data Report remarked:
‘Yet whatever the particular situation, the response of industry has been universally similar – to restructure work patterns and adapt machinery (where possible) to operate faster or to operate manually.’
The contrast shows the desperate need for links between stewards committees, for combine committees, for area-wide links between shop stewards. And the need for a centralised political response to the employers’ offensive has never been more apparent.
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