The major problem for the British Leyland Motor Corporation is its low profits. jack them up requires finding an expanding market for its products; this is why Lord Stokes is a leading 'European'. But to gain any advantage from the larger market that the EEC will open up to British capital, BLMC has to improve its ability to compete with its major European and American rivals.
The methods used to increase its competitiveness are known as rationalisation. This involves a two-fold process: on the one hand, the closure of smaller factories and the concentration of production into a few major complexes (the planned closure of Thornycroft's is an example of this; and on the other hand, an increase in the rate of exploitation at these remaining plants (this is what the Jaguar strike against the abolition of piece-rates and the introduction of Measured Day Work is all about). WHY "RATIONALISATION"? Because the giant motor manufacturers compete with each other to sell their products on the market, each firm is forced to constantly attempt to increase the productivity of the labour it employs, which means investing in more advanced machinery and plant. When greater amounts of capital are required to employ the same number of workers, these workers have to be exploited more intensively to maintain the rate of profit. And this is what Measured Day Work is meant to do in the car industry. Under the piece-rate system, which was itself initially designed as a new way of increasing exploitation, a strong shopfloor organisation developed which was able to push up wages in the constant negotiations with the rate fixer. In particular, every time a new model came in, or an old one was modified, the workers could exploit the company's need to get the car on the market to force up the rates. This steady upward movement of wages between annual negotiations became known as "wage drift". That is why British Leyland are so keen to get rid of the system, along with the fact that piece-workers have some control over how much work they do, and the management loses control over manning levels, line speeds, and output.
WHAT IS MEASURED DAY WORK?
Measured Day Work is a payments system designed to prevent "wage drift" - that is, to hold down wages - and to restore full control over the shop floor to the management. The company hopes through an MDW agreement to get at least the following: 1. A fixed hourly rate of pay, thus eliminating "wage drift". 2. The same rate to cover as many employees as possible, preferably at combine level thus eliminating disputes over maintaining differentials between sections.
3. Wage reviews to be conducted on a combine-wide basis between senior management and national union officials (who are more likely than stewards to accept a lower rate). 4. Management to deoide individual work 1 28.7 per cent in June 1972, but they plan allocations, manning levels and line speeds on the basis of 'scientific work study. 5. Full mobility of labour - enabling management to smash shop-floor organisation by moving the militants in order to isolate them, then finding some pretext to sack them.
BLMC is the last major car manufacturer in Britain to try to introduce MDW throughout the combine. Fords forced it through in the carly '60's with the five main points intact, and the results are only too evident today - a basic rate around £12 per week less than the Midlands car workers, worse conditions, and a shop floor organisation which is still struggling to regain the strength of the late '50's. The very success of Fords has made BLM's problem worse. The company has to restore the competitivity eroded by the higher Midlands wage-rates in the face of the strongest trade union organisation in the industry. Moreover BLMC suffers from a shortage of liquid funds which curtails its room for manoeuvre, while the invasion of American capital into the rest of the industry has opened up vast capital reserves for BLM's domestic competitors. (One reason for selling Thronycroft's, a profitable company, was the £5 million boost to the company's cash position.)
THE STATE OF THE BATTLE BLM's share of the UK market has fallen from 40.3 percent in 1969 to WN STOP tories in Basingstoke and to other plants to increase their share to 45 per cent. These plans depend on two models: the Marina, produced at Cowley, Oxford, and a new model, code-named the ADO 67, due to go into production at Longbridge next year. The company decided they could not afford to produce either model under the old piece-work system as this would have led to a field-day for piece-work bargaining, and so they made the imposition of MDW a precondition for their introduction. A similar battle is taking place around the introduction of the XJ 12 at Jaguars in Coventry.
Initial attempts to get united combine opposition to MDW by the combine committee were frustrated by the Communist Party militants led by Dick Etheridge, senior shop steward at Longbridge. And in spite of a struggle led by militant stewards MDW was imposed at Cowley, but with important concessions from the management. These included a higher hourly rate than BLMC had intended, a continuation of the old style horse-trading" between unions and management on manning levels, important restrictions on the mobility of labour, and separate settlements in the body and assembly plants. The net effect is only a partial victory for the company - the financial press is constantly bemoaning the over-manning' and "under-production" at Cowley!
At Longbridge the Joint Shop Stewards adopted a position of unconditional opposition to MDW at first, but were persuaded to drop this in January by the Austin Works Committee led by Dick Etheridge. Eventually the stewards aliowed individual sections to accept an offer of an interim basic of £38,25 conditional on eventual acceptance of MDW, without obtaining
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BLMC. HORNYCRE
SECURITY PRESENTED FEND ADDMITTAN RS CE 11.%