In a sign of the increasing anger at job losses, workers at BMW’s Mini factory in Cowley, Oxford threw fruit at union officials when they heard they were to be sacked with one hour’s notice on Monday 16 February. Management at the Mini factory had minutes earlier told the weekend shift of 850 workers that they were being made redundant.
BMW Management had decided that because of falling demand the factory would no longer produce cars at the weekend and therefore the shift was being ended and the workers sacked there and then. To add insult to injury, Management even threatened with to deduct £25 from any worker who failed to return their uniform and £10 from anyone who failed to return their ID at the end of the meeting.
Immediately after Management’s announcement, local union officials took the stage to explain what they had been doing. At the meeting, they appeared to have obtained a minor concession for a small group of workers and absolutely nothing for everyone else. To jeers, including being called “traitors”, the union representative accepted the redundancies and said that:
“We have tried to negotiate. This is the climate that we’re living in. It’s happening everywhere.”
One worker, Silvia Fernandes, quoted by the BBC felt betrayed and said:
“I’ve been here for four years and I’ve never been sick, I’ve never missed work and they tell me one hour before that I’ve been sacked. That’s not on.
“That’s why people are angry and so upset with BMW and the union.”
Most of the sacked BMW workers are agency staff which means that they have no right to redundancy pay. BMW and other employers deliberately employ agency staff to avoid the cost of paying for basic employment rights for their workers. Rights that full-time workers enjoy. Ministers in the New Labour government have encouraged such discrimination and refused to pass legislation to protect agency workers, citing their mantra of “flexible labour markets”. Unions should not just oppose such discrimination in words, calling on the Government to change the law. All well and good, but unions should also seek the maximum possible unity between full-time and agency workers on the shop-floor.
The severe economic crisis facing British capitalism has mean that demand for new cars has fallen through the floor. The car industry Almost each day brings news of fresh cut-backs and redundancies in the British car industry. Since last October, almost every factory has been affected. Setting aside the component manufacturers and just taking the major companies:
• Aston Martin: Extended Christmas shutdown and 600 redundancies. Temporary three-day week began in January
• Bentley: Worked a three-day week in October and longer Christmas break. Closing Crewe plant for seven weeks from the beginning of March
• GM (Vauxhall): Extended Christmas closure and 40-day shutdown
• Honda: Four-month shutdown of its Swindon plant between February and May
• Jaguar Land Rover: Series of one-day shutdowns and production cuts late 2008 plus 450 redundancies planned
• Nissan: Two-week shutdown late last year and 1,200 redundancies
• Toyota: One of the night shifts suspended.
The crisis in the British car industry is indicative of the crisis facing British capitalism. The boast of British capitalism that it was “the workshop of the world” has long blown away on the breeze. British capitalism is now wholly parasitic.
Much of what remains of the British car industry is now owned by foreign companies. Until the current crisis British capitalism relied on the “easy profits” resulting from speculation and gambling on the financial markets, usually with other people’s money. With the collapse of these markets in the past few months, the bosses are panicking.
Workers are growing increasingly angry at the disgraceful way they are being treated and are looking to their trade unions to show a way forward. We say: if Management refuse to negotiate, as in the case of BMW, the only answer is militant action from all members including if necessary strike action, factory occupations and work-ins. Union representatives at all levels should be prepared to plan for and propose such action. If the union leadership is not up to these tasks, as the BMW reps clearly are not, then members need to replace them.
Clearly there is no future for the British car industry under capitalism. Only under socialism, with industry under workers’ control and management, can we hope to remedy the misery caused by this system.
