supplying trucksto the Nazi armies.
MARTINMETEYARD reports.
The fascists in question are involved in a bosses' union called the CSL (Confederation of Free Trade Unions).
It used to be called the CFT (French Confederation Labour), but changed its name late last year in an effort to alter LS maLe.
This face-lift became necessary arter an emoarrassingiy high number of CFT members had been caught red-handed in acts of open thuggery. included shootings, the break- , elections, ing up of factory occupations, dU S00n The CFT itself was formed out of an 'independent union' at the Simca car plant, with the aid of Italian foremen from ex-members of Mussolini'sguard.
specialises in the car industry. From Simca it moved on to Curoca and t cugous ta three are now part of tte saru hug-ridden after Peugeor's takeover of Chrysker's Europcan opcrations).
Its most recent interest, with ine active assistance management, une factory in Bordeaux.
-Lns lactOry was opened in 1972 —typically, for Ford, in an area of high unemployment. It DOSTWOURIS cailled C3. automanc scarpoxc - jU pc cent of them for the US. The OTDET BOP-CAT, MaKes gearboxes for the Fiesta, 90 per cent or wnich go to rord-Spain The workforce is mostly very young. And not much is left to chance in its hiring.
IMMIGRANTS example: as in operations elsewhere, Ford has tried to split the workforce by Takne on a lor or maus workers.
In France most of the latter come from North Africa. But they've become a bit organised and militant lately. So Ford has played extra safe: 11S immigrant WOrKCrS mostly refugees from Vietnam, Laos. and Cambodia.
How did the CSL enter the picture. Many or une actans were recently revealed with the publication ISCTC confidential documents in the French rotskvist dailv Rouge.
The documents consist He: here LOOH IN 1938 Henry Ford was decorated by Hitler for notes of telephone conversations and reports drawn up by a Michel Touzet Touzet is the local representative of a bosses' organisation in the engineering and mining industries Calee ue Touzet is no local freelance. OUSTCDORLS WCTC SCIL IO LIC UIMM's national office. And his activities fit in UIMM's reputation for dirty SUR CKS.
These During the 1974 presidential mustaucc. produced 3 million copies of a broadsheet SEHCaLHIE Socialist candidate, rand. The headline: President of the Republic drawn Mitterrand decides: rationing from Monday.
AIM ouzels toe was o neo Ford to counter the influence of trolled trade union federation, the CGT.
The aim was to build up a of strong section of the CFT (now Ford CSL) as Well as more Ouvrière (which was set up with AUB0S 2S 2 S00Ol the CGT in the late 1940s). makes Touzet worked glove the director at Ford-Bordeaux, M Clara. The documents reveal that: *The UIMM arranged for Clara to meet the general secretary oT ine inen Auguste Blanc. The idea was to eraW up BISU possessing the required qualiUCS WIO Cole De KeI OId Ford. *It fixed up meetings for him with other car bosses work1112 the Archambault, Peugeot, and M.
Simca-Chrysler. more *The UIMM also brought in a student leader named Dominique Pionat, connected with a alC far-right university Nation called UNI, Ford's personnel department. Touzet's memos spell out his role: *M. Blanc could suggest three qualified people and Pionat lets them in.. Pionat has ctre-cexcoreuse coroe of employees (CGT).* ARMED thuggery is an important weapon in the French bosses' squads patrolling SCCH 44-0 UIIVIVI with the the MitterFrancois assisting respectable hand-inpersonnel This operation still continues as far as one can tell. And its effects inside the factory can be seen in what happened to SYUunE worker, September 1977 (the incident is described in more detail in a people recent book. Les Truands di patronat, by Marcel Caille).
L WUS ESE BHErOHWTe!
MK went to report to the factory quards that his locker had been broken open. A guard went with CFT: Claude MimOsCe. director of Having only worked there a Melin of Tew davs. wrong doorway. immediately assaulted him then, when he ran off, another guard fired a shot at him.
organis- MK was to work in unconscious, and then dumped in the parking lot in the morning cold. Only after more than an hour did other workers manage to get the local police to take him to hospital. the Management ne a simpry nad an coneonc ne.
When this didn't wash, the CFT the evicting the workers in occupation.
DE DURI TWO CFT thugs at Citroen are paraded with placards denouncing their fascist sympathies in 1972. They were caught during an attack on an immigrant workers' dance in which two women were kidnapped, one of whom was raped.
the victim as a drug addict AS TOr MK. on subsequent described as follows: *His consciousness, CONTRURIS himself threatened, WaS OO maCH.
MK went into the multinational The guard militant trade unionism.
caught, beaten situation.
claimed that place.
G Gervais-Danone factory in Marseilles in January 1978 after positive CUnC one-time CHaIrDCISOH preach on Gannaway Gannaway impressed HICW SOCaISE and Tyndall Nazis*. jumped in to the bosses' rescue, circulating a leaflet describing sondent MK himself. his condition was Mussolini?
condition doesn't improve. While he has regained The remains Bower AORTEE no longer says anything and still doesn't the huge recognise his parents. Theshock That is Ford for you. The behind whose smiling exterior lies a continuing history of attempts to smash Ford isn't yet strong enough to try in Britain what it is doing KnewIL in Bordeaux. But it would like syndicalist to. In every struggle it aims to shift the balance of forces a little worked bit more towards that kind of buried in Because Ford know as well as we should that in the end it's them or us. Every time, in every SaLE for its the Features Scotsman in To the horror LEO1TO1 Popes Against the KIND and smiling people's pope (the late John unaue least one contribution to the workers movement in Bristol.
Philip Gannaway, a plumber city council and EETPU delegate to the Bristol Trades Council, was the local National Front. But on his return trom a visit to kome where he heard John Paul -racial - tolerance announced his resignation from the NF.
told the local Evening Post how he had been by the pope's "sincerity'. His brother Gerald, who organises private hire-cabs in thecitv. alsoresigned This dramatic conversion has opened the way for Raymond Pearce, notorious for advocating white vigilante patrols in the inner-city area, to become the chair These events coincide with the prosecution ol two well-known local allies of Pearce, responsible for several attacks on blacks and socialists, TOTCmRaCaE LIIE office of Bristol Voice, the city's COmUE PHCWS Perhaps the resignation of Gannaway, the trade unionist "nationalist' and the re-emergence of Pearce, who was disciplined last year by for nIS UTa-TIOn approach, are linked more infiltration of the NF by the British Movement than to the Dowero u00. Dul d lew oduk is certainly called for in Bristol Its theme: "Popes Against the Our religious affairs correswrites: Ho, Ho, What'sall this then? Remember Pius and the concordat with In memory of Fred him:
WHEN THE Queen 'opened pseudo-gothic monstrosity of Liverpool Cathedral, just completed some seventy five years after the laying of its foundations, probably no-one present at the ceremony had the bad taste to mention the legend of Fred Bower, if any of them Bower was a well-known SEOECHESUL of pre-World War One days. He the cathedral foundations and is said to have them a tin box containing the following mesfuture generations: SnOr "Within a stone's throw of this building there are dwellings not fit for animals to livein."
This is still as true today as it was then. The only difference is that the slums now belong to the Liverpool City Council, famous "Piggeries". Roll on demolition day!
In life as in death... ON HEARING of the death of our comrade Neil Williamson, Editor of The Edinburgh commissioned George Kerevan, close collaborator and friend of Neil, to write an obituary. How many words? asked George *About 600' was the reply.
The obituary was duly written and sent. But it never appeared.
of the Feature:
SOTEOI reruscd For publication. His excuse: how could you have 600 words for a revolutionary when the paper only prints a few paragraphs on the death of Establishment worthies?
Neil would have been both amused and gratified..
Turning a new leaf? ANY DAY now we should be Bearne rom ne Dess a00uLa new threat to humanity from COUS ZUC OHSS,E of old people liable to broken Hms Decause or aurumun seaye left in the carrying young children skid. SUTCCES of cars ding to calamity The culprits? The road sweepers employed by Lambeth council in South London. They are demanding a weekly bonus of £10 to deal with the autumn windfalls. The council, led by Ted Knight, a supporter of the BOCIRTSI Campaign Labour Victory, has offered the roadsweepers f4.50.
The result: a boycott of leaves.
Farewell, 'Socialist Commentary'... WE HAVE heard the sad news that Socialist Commentary, the journal of the 'intellectual' right of the Labour Party, is to cease publication for lack of funds Its luminaries have included Shirley Williams, David Owen, David Marquand, Hugh Gaitskell, Roy Jenkins, Antony Cros and. et al It has, in the past, survived Decause OL COnaUOns *Friends of Socialist Commen unese werE reputed to be not a million miles away trom the CIA ncauquarters in Langley, Virginia.
Wepen these lines in tribute:
So farewell then, Socialist Commentary We had only one thing in Our initials.
Are you really dying for lack of money?
Orlack ofideas?
Dave Wax laughed when we told "Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! "Surely', he said, 'Owen can ge them money From the Shah.' Cheers anyway.
Short stories THE success of last year's special Socialist Challenge has still be universally acknowledged. Nonetheless wesoldier on.
Readers are invited to submit short stories for this year's Story Comnetition Maximum length of stories ShOH PeSAWOTES They should arrive at our Olrice Dy 24 November. Th judges will be: Mervyn Jones, Emma rennant, and rrancis Mulhern.
All stories should be sent to •Short Story Competition", ocus sistenge. ,328 Upper Street, London N12XQ.
MEMORIALMEETING Friday 3 Novembmer, 7.30pm Assembly Rooms, George St., Edinburgh Speakers:
Tariq Ali (Socialist Challenge)
Mick Napier (SWP)
Gordon Brown (Labour Party)
Brian Wilson (Editor, 7 Days)
further information conacu Memona rune Cre Scottish Socialist Books, Queen Street, Glasgow.
Socialist Challenge 2 November 1978 page 3
RON TODD, chairperson of the union negotiating committee, responded to Ford's latest offer by saying that the unions were not prepared IO aCCCDE 'penalty but were prepared to discuss productivity and absenteeism in tandem wiln grealer improvements in basic pay• In doine so he dilched ine fight for the full claim, explains BRIAN GROGAN.
BONUS As we predicted last week, the DOSIS -OlPOrUs DrOOUCEy deal is an 'attendance payments raising the absenteeism question. the ciaim cans tor hour off the working day. aim isto get more workers doing the same job.
The management's proposals will cut jobs. This is what productivity is all about.
For Ron Todd to say that he will be prepared to discuss the question of productivity and give up ROSCaCCIs SO advance the fight for the full Ford workers tremendously strong position. Last week'sstewards committee got a report that all Ford's European production would be The Productivity in disguise THE latest offer from Ford of a £3 attendance allowance means an increase for those workers who clock in for 40 hours.
But for those workers who clock in late or have to take time off, it will mean losing the E3 writes TOMMY HEALEY.
POOL Ford is not offering this as a "phony productivity deal", but P S FIGHT FoR
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In 1978 Ford is again working with fascists — this time at its factory in Bordeaux in southern France.