Ford: behind the sell-out
Socialist Outlook1980sTranscribed by hand from the printed page.
The Ford strike was cynically sold out by the national trade union leaders and the Ford national joint negotiating committee (NJNC). In line with the all-union recommendation, the workforce voted by two to one to accept the deal. The only plant with a majority against the deal was the PIA in Dagenham — which voted three to one against. ALAN THORNETT examines the sell-out in the light of developments in the car industry Europe-wide.
THE CLIMB-DOWN has very serious implications for both Ford workers and for those in the rest of the industry. The Ford workers needed a victory not just to stop this particular agreement but to reverse the management onslaught which has been going on for several years. This sell-out has robbed them of victory and put management back in an even stronger position.
The implications are the same for the rest of the working class. A major victory would have been a focus to mount a fightback throughout industry. This has been denied them; but the present wave of industrial struggles is likely to continue.
The Ford strike was potentially a major challenge to the Thatcher government. Yet the same union leaders who make long speeches about the evils of Thatcherism were prepared to employ the most cynical manoeuvres to stop that challenge. The sell-out was a betrayal of the interests of the whole working class.
Shop stewards in Dagenham and Halewood who had called for rejection of the deal were furious at the sell-out, which came as the strike reached its strongest point — with Ford's European plants closing down and the strike one hundred per cent solid.
The deal was the same as the original management offer. The only change was from a three year deal to two — which means that the changes in working practices will be forced in over a shorter period of time. Everything else — the money and the strings — remained the same.
The acceptance vote was a direct product of both the recommendation and blatant lies by the NJNC. Some of them even claimed that 'strings' had been removed from the document when they knew that this was untrue. They claimed that a massive victory had been achieved, yet every member of the NJNC knew full well that this was not true. There is even an explicit commitment by the trade unions which provides for the implementation of changes in working practices within the life of the agreement. This could not be clearer in the revised deal which says:
'To ensure that there is no misunderstanding … constructive discussion at local joint works committees will start within one month of the application of the principles. Implementation will be ongoing as required and as appropriate to each plant, and with the full support of the unions in this process. If, in spite of your agreement to the principles, areas of difference occur in local discussions, the issue will be refered to the NJNC for positive resolution and may, if appropriate, be referred in turn to the relevant unions. With the above agreement from the unions we cannot envisage where these changes would need to be imposed.'
Despite this open commitment to changes in working practices Derek Horn, vice chair of the NJNC told the London Evening Standard: 'People are talking about conditions — but the simple fact is that there are no strings at all attached to this agreement. We have an historic deal…'
Not just the right wing take this line. The Morning Star said the same. It quoted Jimmy Airlie, a member of the Communist Party and secretary of the NJNC, saying that Ford workers have won a 'terrific victory'. Airlie said during the negotiations that the strings were necessary for Ford to compete in the world market!
The reality is that the key issue behind the Ford deal, as with every deal in the car industry at the present time (and the last Ford settlement) is the strings attached to it. What lies behind each of these deals is a new generalised offensive by the major car companies designed to increase efficiency and productivity. The successful Japanese companies are the primary (although not the only) model used by much of the industry internationally.
This is not a new thing. The Ford 'AJ' (or 'after Japan') plan was drawn up in the early 1980s after their UK executives visited plants in Japan. The plan was designed to achieve Japanese productivity levels in Ford's British plants. This remains central to Ford management strategy.
What is new in the car industry is the scale of technological development and the level of investment in new models. This introduces new pressures which every manufacturer has to respond to.
In Europe the lead is being taken by Fiat, Europe's second largest manufacturer. They are in the process of launching the Tipo — a new family car in which Fiat has invested over £1 billion. It makes their plant in Cassino the most advanced in the world. Fiat claims a 100 per cent automated paint facility and 55 per cent automation on assembly — a record previously held by Europe's biggest car manufacturer, VW/Audi, at their Hallë assembly facility in West Germany with 40 per cent.
But productivity levels produced by investment and automation are only one side of the equation. High investment needs to be linked to high productivity of labour which means brutally hard work, continuously carried out, and subject to repeated speed-up — a factor which has become dominant for car workers worldwide. Japanese car makers have developed techniques which have led the world in harnessing the workers mentally and physically to continuous hard work at very high speed. But many other manufacturers are now catching them up.
The Ford package contains many of the principles involved in Japanese management techniques. Ford want the introduction of short term contracts; the ending of all demarcation and the introduction of complete labour flexibility, including making skilled men a part of the same groups as unskilled; the introduction of group leaders, creating a higher-paid force of 'company spies' on the shop floor; and the so-called 'quality circles' as developed in Japan.
Quality circles have far more to do with productivity than quality. In principle they are the same as the 'worker participation' scheme which the last Labour government introduced into British Leyland (now Austin Rover), in 1975 in the Ryder report. It had disastrous results for the shop stewards' movement and the workforce.
The objective of these ideas it to change the thinking of the workers from starting from their own wages and conditions, to starting from the problems of production and profitability. This inevitably undermines trade union structures — particularly the shop stewards' movement which is more responsive to the demands of the workforce.
In Japanese car plants everyone is involved in a quality circle. They are required to meet regularly, generally weekly, in their own time, to discuss ways of improving their production performance. In some plants failure to produce positive proposals from such meetings is regarded as 'uncooperative' or 'anti-management' and can lead to dismissal.
'the only break the workers get is when the track breaks down'
Clearly, quality circles cannot be introduced as effectively in Britain as in Japan. In Japan these techniques were introduced following the smashing of the independent unions and the creation of company controlled 'yellow' unions. Their most extensive use in Britain is still in the Sunderland Nissan plant. But that plant is still in a 'honeymoon' period. They are not yet pressing the workforce as hard as they intend to. And it is not a highly capitalised plant.
Quality circles have also been established in some other parts of the car industry in Britain. In Austin Rover, quality circles (under the name of zone circles) have been introduced by a deal done at national level between the national officials and the unions — the same individuals negotiated the current package with Ford. Mick Murphy, the TGWU national officer, became well known for saying that he was 'over the moon' with the deal — a deal to which the workforce has become increasingly hostile.
These 'zone circles' include the shop stewards and meet in working hours with one hour per week facility time. Involving the shop stewards tends to make the situation worse — making it easier for management to use 'zone circles' as an alternative to the trade union structures.
In some Austin Rover plants, including the Cowley assembly plant at Oxford, 'zone circles' are already in operation, but in most places they still lack authority. In the Cowley assembly plant they have been backed by right wing senior stewards and convenors. They operate with only those workers who are prepared to become involved. In the body plant there has been more resistance, because of the existence of a stronger left wing in the plant.
In Austin Rover the introduction of quality circles has gone alongside the abolition of many categories of workers — particularly grades such as inspection and rectification — resulting in many hundreds of job losses.
Besides quality circles, labour flexibility is the other key tool of the new management technique.
'the sell-out was a betrayal of the interests of the whole working class'
The ability of management to move workers from one job to another — across grades and skill demarcations — is crucial if work is to be continuous. If non-production workers can be switched to production, when production workers are absent, or there are abnormal production problems, management can cut down the number of relief workers needed, or even abolish them completely.
The only break the track workers get, apart from brief official relief times, is when the track breaks down. With flexibility production workers are required to do running maintenance themselves, or help the fitters in the repair of bigger breakdowns. They are also expected to do general cleaning to cut out the need for janitors. This is all designed to ensure that there is never a break in the work-load, from one end of the shift to the other.
Short-term contracts are another major innovation. They are widely used in Japanese plants and allow management to maintain a core experienced labour force which can work flat-out all the time, whilst employing casual labour to cover peak periods — and then sacking them with no rights at the end of it. This creates a labour force outside of trade union control and vulnerable to management moves. Such contracts have already been introduced in some British plants. In the newly privatised Unipart (the Austin Rover service division), short contract labour is regularly used to meet peak demand periods.
There have been disputes in Austin Rover over the introduction of these conditions. But management has succeeded in introducing into some of their plants some of the conditions Fords are now seeking. In the Swindon body plant, for example, short term contract workers already exist. But the idea would be strongly opposed in the main Austin Rover plants.
In addition to these innovations discipline has been stepped up. New disciplinary procedures have been introduced and the rate of dismissals has gone up sharply. In the main Austin Rover plants workers are sacked every day for 'offences' such as failure to keep pace with the track, failing to work to standard or for breaking the very strict management codes on lateness or absenteeism. In some Austin Rover plants workers are disciplined as a matter of course (although not necessarily sacked) for one error on the track.
It is these conditions — the strings attached to the deal — that have been central to the Ford strike. The chances of success in the next stage of this process in Britain will be greatly increased by the sell-out of the Ford strike. Car workers in Britain have to seek ways of challenging this.
The employers' offensive has some lessons which need to be taken up by car workers both in Britain and internationally. A generalised offensive needs a generalised response. In Britain, where the multi-union set-up in the industry fragments the workforce and prevents the workers speaking with a single voice, there is an urgent need for contact at rank and file level, particularly through the shop stewards' movement. Some shop stewards in Ford and other car manufacturers are calling for an urgent national conference of car industry shop stewards to discuss and assess these developments and develop a strategy for opposition.
This would be a very popular initiative and could be the starting point for a fightback in the car plants in Britain. It could also lay the basis for greater links with car workers across Europe, in the USA and beyond.
The high level of militancy in the car plants in Britain is likely to continue and increase despite the Ford sell-out. At the time of writing the Land Rover plant in Birmingham is on strike over wages. The General Motors plants in Liverpool and Luton have voted for strike action over the decision by management to plunder tens of thousands of pounds from the pension fund, using new Tory legislation.
There needs to be an international response to this as well. The employers are organising their offensive across national frontiers. It is an international offensive with internationally developed techniques of attack. There needs to be a forum in which car workers from, at least across Europe, can pool their experience and develop a response beyond national limitations.