Chrysler's threat to close down their British operations has one again revealed the power of the multinational firms - and the need for an international working class response to their plans.
In 1922 there were over 200 firms producing cars in the United States, Britain and Germany. By 1968 there were 23 in the capitalist world and most of these were specialist producers.
The power wielded by the multinationals is fantastic. When faced with a strike they inevitably threaten to pack up and go. what Chrysler did earlier this year at the time of the pay strike at the Stoke, Coventry engine During the 1969 Ford strike that particular company threatened to boycott Britain as an investment outlet.
The home-based multinational, British Leyland, is the same. They are currently threatening 4,500 workers at their Italian subsidiary, Leyland-Innocenti, with closure if they do not accept 1,500 sackings - the biggest redundancies in a single Italian firm for 20 years - and a 25 per cent hike in productivity for the remainder of the workforce.
METALWORKERS
The Italian workers have responded with the threat of occupation against any redundancies and a magnificent one-day general strike of 300,000 Milan metalworkers. say there is 'only one solution - nationalistion without compensation'. Thev are also seeking links with British employees of Leyland.* Now American Chrysler workers have said that they will strike if necessary to support British Chrysler employees taking action to safeguard their jobs. Douglas Fraser, vice-president of the United Auto Workers' Union, said last week. 'the workers should not have to suffer the consequences' of the 'bad planning and poor management' of Chrysler's British division. In the fight for jobs it is urgent that these small beginnings are built upon.
One start British Levland workers could make is to break the blockade on spare parts goiny to Portugal. The Lisbon bus service is being crippled for lack of spares and repairs, while Leyland is threatening to lay-off workers at the AEC Southall bus plant. Breaking the blockade would not only defend British workers jobs but would also de a concrete act of assistance to the Portuguese revolution.
* Mr Percy Plant, Innocenti chairman commented that he did not understand why such a fuss was being made over the dismissal of a few thousand workers *When in England 20,000 men lost their jobs at Leyland....nothing happened. Why is it so different in They used to call it Britain's little Detroit and jobs to Coventry. In the late 1960s u This was the first city of the £2,000 a yea Now, in the mid-Seventies, 16,000 are unemployed - 6.4 per cent of the total working population. The slow but steady trickle of re dundancies in Coventry has turned into a flood over the last year. The "social contract' and the £6 limit were accepted by the union leaders "to Workers were told to accept shorttime working as an alternative to redundancies - and then voluntary redundancies as an alternative to sackings. A thousand jobs went at Jaguar's alone. Chrysler's nas now shown where such 'alternatives' lead.
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