Automation for good or evil? mHE walkout of 11,000 workers from Standard Motor Com- pany’s plant at Coventry in what is becoming known as “Britain’s first automation Strike,” is being seized upon by sections of the Canadian daily’ Press, echoing their British counterparts, to misrepresent labor as being against ‘automa- tion. Some papers are referring to the strikers as Luddites. The Vancouver Sun, in an editorial’ headed “Ludd’s ghost walks” in its May 3 issue, said: “It (the Strike) recalls the Luddite riots in England more than a century ago when workmen destroyed the machinery in the new fac- tories, fearing they would be thrown out of work.” But, as Andy Boyle, convenor for the Amalgamated Engineer- ing Union at Canley, said at a ‘Mass meeting in Coventry last Week, “We are not Luddites and we appreciate the introduc- tion of new techniques if used’ properly.” The issue has been succinctly Placed by the London Daily Worker, which declares that Standard workers “are on strike _for the future, they are on Strike against the past, against 4 return to mass misery and Mass unemployment...” In an editorial published in its May 2 issue, the London Daily Worker said: -“No serious body of workers is opposed to automation any more than they are opposed to electricity or to any develop- ment in the productive forces. “But the point is that this development has important effects upon men's relations Within production, and at Stan- dards, as in capitalist society in general, the relation of men 1s that of employer and worker. ' “The growth of the new forces, in this case automation, has the effect of making the contradic- tion between employer and Worker sharper. “The contradiction in the long run will only be resolved when automation and greatly increas- €d productivity serve to raise the Standard of the whole people, instead of raising the, profit or Competitive ability of the Capitalists. That is socialism. “But that is in the long run. What of the short run? Should: the workers accept the sack be- Cause machines can _ replace them? If they adopted such an attitude there would be no halt down the slippery slope to Poverty, _ “Standard men are quite right M arguing that they are fight- ing against the return to the ungry Thirties”. The following article is writ- ten by R. J. Stynes, a member of the Standard strike commit- tee, press officer for Coventry Trades Council and an executive Member of Coventry Borough abor party. FHE refusal of the Standard Motor Company to discuss With shop stewards their alter- st AL scans meee dineeeeteenetneemnsteinneneneeeninent ann oem maar a - natives to the redundancy of ; 3,490 workers was either a cal- culated act of provocation or a ham-handed piece of bad man- agement. It has already been judged as mismanagement by one prom- - jnent national daily newspaper end this judgment may prove to be a kindly one since evidence of a deliberate policy is strong. The first shot in a battle to introduce _ automation without consultation may have been wantonly fired by this very act! _ Early in-February this year the company told the shop stew- ards that 2,500 employees would be laid off, between mid-May and September, owing to a change in tractor production. The current Ferguson tractor production would cease entirely on May 18 anda new and im- proved tractor would be man- ufactured. But, said the company, there would be an increase in car pro- duction to offset the labor to be laid off. An immediate in- crease was wanted and the stew- ards were urged to improve gang performances and work more overtime rather than take on -new labor! By July 27, it was promised that 10,000 operators would be at work and by August 13 most should be back. \ The shop’stewards got to work at once to investigate the pos- sibilities of keeping every work- ~ loyed within the plant and every alternative to redun- was considered, Cae ne be noted that trade union membership at Standards is 100 percent and that for some years a “no redundancy” policy has been very successfully oper- ated. Only last year, when * ; * ; R ‘ PERIOD RRR Fs si 4 The new Soviet Five-Year Plan calls for increasing automation ly changed over should be pro- ceeded with. + Holidays should be stag- gered to allow a percentage of workers to be absorbed by this means. + Three shifts should be in- troduced on car jobs. + Short time should be work- ed throughout the \ company’s factories so that the maximum number of men affected could be absorbed. * The company’s reply, given on Aprii 25 at a works conference, was a bombshell. It stated that the figures for the lay-off originally given had been affected because car sales had failed to reach the antici- pated target and would, there- fore, have to be increased; 2,240 would now be redundant at the Banner Lane plant and 1,250 at Caniey. These figures were based on the company’s intention to op- erate a 42%-hour week. The company also told stewards that of industrial plants — to raise living standards and reduce working hours. Above is shown a Soviet engineer’s design for a new automated plant and below, an automated ball-bearing* plant already in operation. Standard’s airplane engine plant ceased production, nearly 1,000 workers were saved from re- dundaney and absorbed on car and tractor work.) Finally a works conference was arranged for the stewards to put forward their proposals to cover the lay-off period. These included recommenda- tions that: + Jobs common to both trac- tors should continue to run dur- ing the changeover. +> Jobs which could be quick- - to absorb all tractor labor would mean only a 12-hour week for all. The company said it intend- ed to shut down tractor mach- ining completely from May 18 to June 6 and only 132 charge- hands and setters would be re- quired for the actual change- over, The three-shift proposal was rejected because of the extra MAY Il, 1956 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 9 cost involved and the difficulty .of finding enough supervision. The stewards then told the company that Banner | Lane workers would not accept re- dundancy, whereupon the man- agement said it-was not prepar- ed to discuss short-time work- ing. This is the sequence of events which led to the strike. The spectre of unemployment hovers . menacingly over the heads. of Standard workers. While the company may Say - it will take most of the men back, the doubt about this is a real one, for the tractor plant has been automated, and the inescapable factor about auto- mation is’ that the machine re- places the man. Only a few days ago Alick - Dick, the managing director, said some $12 million worth of ° equipment for manufacture of the new tractor at Canley was © being installed. When asked about our fears that all of the 3,490 men to be laid off would not be re-empfoyed, Dick said: “We are not installing $12 million worth of equipment in order to employ the same num- ber of men. We can’t carry peo- ple fori fins 4247s Twelve months ago the com- pany, in announcing forthcom- ing programs of production, is- sued figures showing that the - new machinery was expected to displace about 1,200 men. Those figures still remain in the memory of the workers. Will the new tractor program be big enough to wipe this potential displacement from the “sheet,” or will the redundancy of that ; number, from the ranks of those it is intended to lay off, be per- ° manent? ; The shop stewards say that the’ policy of the trade iinidns on questions of redundancy and automation must be fully taken into account by the company before any agieement can- be reached: A RSE IS ; .To end this article it might be of value to recall a resolution passed by a meeting of confed- eration shop stewards in Cov- entry on January 21,-1956, and later adopted by the confedera- - tion district committee. mi The resolution asked for: + A national policy for ‘the industry; a development -coun- cil to coordinate production within the industry. ‘ + Urgent consideration to the policy of a 40-hour week; the government to remove trade barriers and allow exports to those countries. closed to the import of British vehicles. + Shop stewards to resist in- discriminate discharges of labor on the grounds of redundancy; to insist on regular consultations in relation to planning of labor loads. + Short-time working wher- ever praeticable until suitable _ jobs are found for those likely to be displaced; and + Full resistance to any de- liberate action to form a pool of unemployed even to the ex- tent of advocating industrial ac- tion. It_ is these principles that Standard workers are fighting to uphold and messages of sup- port have been sent from almost every faetory in the British auto industry. Standards fight not only for their'‘own jobs but for the jobs of all in the industry.