IMGpapers 1980–83

Newspapers of the International Marxist Group and its forerunners, 1980–83

Ford

· Socialist Challenge No. 227, 7 January 1982 · p. 16 of the scan · 446 words

The scan: sc-no227.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive, opens at this page)

Uncorrected machine reading. This text was read by machine (Apple Vision OCR) from a scan of a newspaper page, and the page was cut into articles by machine, at the headlines found by their type size. Nothing has been corrected: expect misread words, text from a neighbouring article, and titles that are the machine reading of the headline, some of them only fragments. Quote from the scan, not from this page.
How this article was cut and titled: headline found by type size in the OCR geometry (split_tabloid.py); 3-5 of 7; machine-segmented newspaper page; uncorrected Vision OCR.

page 16 of the scan

Challenge WORKERS Ford strike.

day. work stopped.

Stewards Tuesday morning.

dable co-operation in company's offer.

considered 'inefficient'.

Halewood, Swansea have given a magnificent answer to the sabotage by union officials of the national As news together over the New Year spread around the Halewood body and assembly plants on Monand mass strike action from the end of the shift. This decision was backed up by a mass picket on Swansea walked out on Tuesday. Bridgend also declared themselves opposed to the sellout. At Dagenham, stewards in the assembly plant decided to recommend rejection.

The anger of the Ford workers is understanthe Xmas meetings throughout the country voted almost unanimously for strike action against the company's 7.4 per cent with strings wage offer.

The long list of so-called 'efficiency' conditions attached to the offer - including elimination of demarcation, total mobility of labour, the technology and work systems ticularly stressed in union opposition to the In addition, the company stated its intention of eliminating all local plant agreements on working conditions and practices which it None of these strings have changed. But now, in return for bringing forward the 39 hour

Bridgend

of the deal cobbled meetings voted for holidays, introduction fight sell out and holidays.

tinue mass of new were parwhether pay cut with slavery thrown in.

tional trade union side meeting on Workers are in the face stewards on immediate continuation elected stewards and convenors.

flicted on car workers week by just five months from November to June 1982 and minor improvements in pensions, national union officials are recommen. ding acceptance of the same deal, meaning a As this offer was railroaded through a na.

there was almost a straight split between fulltime union officials who hold 32 seats on this body and the 24 Ford piant convenors - the actual vote was 27 to 17 with two abstentions The actions of the bureaucrats has wrecked the unity present on the shop floor before the now themselves about whether it is possible to conof such Dagenham stewards accepted, however reluctantly, the decision to 'defer' strike action pending mass meetings later in the week.

At Langley there was a split vote among The Halewood's and South Wales' workers actions offer the possibility of re-uniting Ford workers around the fight for their f20 and 35 hours without strings claim. But that means mass meetings taking the claim and our strike out of the hands of Ron Todd and the officials and placing it firmly in the hands of our own By the end of the week we will know that has happened another Leyland-style sell-out has been inMonday arguing among sabotage At For whether

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