IT'S A summer's afternoon and the shills have not lone changed. On the shop floor the temperature is over 30 degrees Centigrade and already several workers have fallen ill with the been provided, so their mates take on their sick comrades' HITS CLUENS The heat and UNCHENE promise of more breaks has has if anything been increased. Beneath the racist-daubed walls, and under the eyes of the management, a sweat-soaked are workforce grapples with new yesterday's output targels and hangs on for the next break, the end of A leaflet arrives workers struggle to read it: it's • battle. for nearly all are arange, and production goes oa, so i's one sentence at a time Because of the new sales situation', the leullet explains. *the requires full production on every Saturday from now until Christmas?
The readers are diseased -strong probability that they will Iose their weekends for the next four months. There's even a management call for starting a *special shift on Sundays!
Something from the nineIcco century, peraps, Dr 1 weeks ago in the Ford complex in Cologne, West Germany.
MICK HODGE, whe was an assembly line worker in this plant month, describes whut it wus like.
It's in the stench and beat of This Tactory that 31,000 workers create the production figures that are the toast of capitalists and stock-in-trade of hack journalists everywhere Henry Ford rakes in the cash international 'family' to follow legendary German WOEkers.
pockets full of moncy, cic.
Agood time, then, to look at what those production figures are really madeal!
A Granada in less than thirty hours means a line whose speed i constantly changed without consaltation; it means working CE DO SUC once because your mate is sick;
cars that ran into cach other as they are so close together on the finishing band.
STOPPAGE I's a lost break bocause of is mine conteer mechanical Stoppape:
SUCHE 30 minute dinner break; and not just walking quickly but actually running. And it is also losine every weekend from now Till Christmas!
production figures are, however, made of much more STELE quickly They are made of Mone a Bore base and of vital consequence to workers everywhere - they are made of sacrificed rights. DISUNITY permeated by disunity and fear *fear of the poverty of the Turkish or South Italian village where over 90 per cent of the Sheen slupped from land where their means inscant return;
workers queuing before damn al the employdent office. For Ford deliberately site their of high unemployment *fear of the guy down the line, a qualified electrician who is sweeping the floor and badly needs your Job It is fear of saying anything in protest when informers are everywhere and a word is enough (for all new applicants Averted by the political police, and in a climate where liberals are dabbed "terrorist sympachisers* YUL must be careful what leaflets and papers youread!.
Iis the disunity of racism, o separale break table for Turkish workers, of the "bette toe management To te harred that still exists following the defeated strike in 1973, when the press set the German workers against the foreignENCOURAGEMENT And it is the disorganisa tion of a union which, unles you srody supposedly model car plant lucely by incident that took place just before 1 leil. A production manager actually punched an anan enver en oroceto mast more quickly, and called him a 'Turkish swine'!
A subsequent investigation given access to an aticipreter deered that the manager hac and he ee waited. encouragement"
As many of the worker said to me: *Alt, but in England everything is different here they can do what they Eket what made the attack even beins tre shan or tran, for trou Britain aids that well-known USIMILES SEMANUM second injury he'd suffered the Arab Gull. the Sultan of "What was the first?', queried the intrepid journalist.
there is the entire Well", replied the copper, 'I record of Britain in Ireland, suld radally to his The ruling of the European bul. Gradually tale Court on British torcures will unfolded: In July he'd been in a not, we think, be included as an training session with the new appendix. post-Lewisham riot-shields when he had a brick hurled a! him.
He should have used the George Ward? d? couldn't. Result: he was badly hurt and of his hearine in one GEORGE WARD, the Tory eur. This part of the story will employer who owns Grunwick. not be appearing in the local has been put on the Tory Party Parliumentary Candidates List. lax and order' = anyone surprised by this correspondent writes: 1 decision. Certainly no suppor absolutely disgusted al the ters of Labour will be reedess risks wach pouccu panamary worried. Have to undergo in the course of Bat opposition has come from Tory trade unionists. Ja a immediate end to all such recent letter in "News For Trade Unionists, a pablication of Conservative trade unionists, a ferocious debute is raging on Power in the Darkness tes A large proportion of active Tory unionists [i.e. 14 people| OUR WEST Midland corne- have demunded that Ward be spondent writes: remosed from the list. Thes Task: "How can we, as'a purty Robinson concert on Monday. Pal and went 1o a lon which allowed the formution of Sold pleaty of Revolutions [a trade unions, introduced unemployment benefit, broreference to the new revolutionary socialist youth puper which uglit in the right lo strike and was such a bit at Carnival 2]. peaceful pleketing.. Identity •After u tremendous hand with an employer who denied for "Glad to be Gay' you coul! his workers certain of these the bouncers thinking, righis?' Answer: Because inest Tory here'. Ar he started to play Party leaders were strong supporters of Ward throughout bouncers begun to beat up a kid strike. Because Thatcher had numeroos meedings with 'Robinson stopped playing him and because Ward When they wouldn't leave the regarded as a champion of free kid alone, Tom screamed out, enferprise. Hence he stand up and fight for your darling of numerous Young rights" And the place Consercutive meetings and exploded: The kids rushed the SHOES CUD BE HAT CENTUCS stage. They trampled the Question: Whul ure all sou houncers air of the way lot doing in the Tory Party starled giving the clenched fist. anyway?
'We were in the balcons and none of the kids would sit down Tea without when ordered to do so by the sympathy houncers. We got into a fight und the kids cume and got us THE POSTPONEMENT of mut of it. I haven't felt so confident about where we're general -has going for a long time. Our musie critic comnsents: Tory gimmicks. Oue of these Neither Dave L. Keep up the good work, Phil and friend. biography of Tony Benn. This was tall of a tocity stones Two are particularly revealing The First was i statistical Revisionismo survey of the numher of cups of at the COl? tea Heun drinks in a year. THE CENTRAL Office of tea contains some stimulants. Inforcation is a propaganda the conclusion is obvious. outfit which serves the nceds of drugged state. whalever govcromen: happens to be in power, A NfN reader The secood tale is more Dis intormed us mal a vie sinister. The author of tus publication of the masterpicce rabe. up Ксл Coates. Was it true that Benn Surreny noraDis ceral revisions. Jong The publication in question? telephone conversations with pampbles catitled Human Coatest 1l give Britain. This "reference pamphler as ir is revcal. who that coyly described Anthony particular onc*, replied Coates But the deal wasn't on Division, intended largely Could it be, as Chapman for an overscas readership and Pincher alleges in the Express, will be distributed by British that the intelligence service- are Information Services through up to their usual tricks? Or was British Embassies and High it the officer in charge hearing tapped telephone calls?
Commissions Socialist Challenge 5 ctober 1978 Page 3
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meton might chink had The whole acmosphere in this