takes the breath away. BY NOW, nothing should surprise us about Michael Edwardes and the other bosses of British Leyland. But even by their gangster-like standards the decision to lay-off' 50,000 workers for 'weeks rather days' The company top brass say their cars aren't selling enough. So production has to be reduced. These words come from the same management who for the last couple of years has been moaning on about the lack of 'productivity", saying Leyland's problems have all been caused by the workers not producing enough cars fast enough.
The real reason Leyland has decided to close down in Leyland. whole plants, or sections of them is found in the workers' rejection of the miserable five per cent wage offer and the decision - reluctant as it was - of the AUEW executive to call for strike action over the victimisation of union convenor Derek Robinson.
In other words the lay-offs are nothing more than a Victorian-style lock-out — designed to ward off strike action on the double issue of pay and union rights. The lock-out is the logical conclusion of the Robinson sacking — the attempted destruction of the trade union movement Enough is enough. In the past couple of years Leyland has sacked tens of thousands of workers; 25,000 more jobs are to go under the terms of Edwardes' "survival plan'. But the writing is now on the wall — in big letters; the only way Leyland workers have any hope of 'survival' is for them to take action against the company in the most decisive possible way. And that is the immediate occupation of all Leyland plants.
start to control it. They could hardly do worse than Edwardes and company have done and as far as their interests are concerned it is the only defence they now have against Michael Edwardes and the rest of the Keith Josephite mafia in Leyland's boardroom.
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