Ford's Stand and Fight
rilue Ford Company's decision to stand and I fight at Dagenham, though late—perhaps too late—is justified and welcome. In the almost un- precedented statement the company issued to the unions one paragraph. has almost escaped notice, though it is by far the most significant.
here has been an average of two unofficial stoppages a week at the plant since last October; yet when the crucial meeting between the two sides was about to take place complete indus- trial harmony reigned. Why? The company's answer is unequivocal and absolutely accurate: the people responsible for the stoppages—a care- fully planned and deliberately executed campaign --turned them off while the negotiations hung in the balance. The whole unhappy story of strikes and overtime bans at Ford's is a story of a political campaign of industrial disruption in an industry, and an area, ideally suited to it. The multiplicity of unions involved, the manage- ment's long history of retreat, the faraway American headquarters, the volatile nature of a large proportion of the labour force in the in- dustry—all these things and others have con- tributed to the ease with which a tiny body of men have been able to infiltrate the labour force in the company and, with an influence entirely out of proportion to their numbers, bring the company to the very edge of catastrophe. It is no use saying that the workers ought to have more sense than to follow the wildcat methods of their Communist and Trotskyite shop stewards; of course they ought—they ought to have more sense than to elect to such office men whose aims have nothing whatever to do with the bet- terment of the workers' position, and have in fact resulted in a considerable worsening of it. The fact is, however it came to pass, that Ford's of Dagenham are being systematically ruined, for political ends, by a small group of men.
What can be done? It is not too late, to begin with, for the unions to crack down on the minor- ity that is ruining not only the company's posi- tion but also their own. (If anything, the unions have been even weaker than the management. But the number of official union bodies involved has made it virtually impossible for them to exert the proper pressure, and the deep conservatism of the British trade union movement has ruled out the obvious solution—the formation of a single union for the motor industry.) If the union leaders threatened to expel from membership shop stewards or other unofficial leaders who broke agreements or provoked stoppages on trivial pre- texts, they might bring the recalcitrant minority to heel quickly. The overwhelming repudiation by the men at Tuesday's shop-floor meetings of their shop stewards' call for an immediate un- official strike was, it is true, coupled with de- mands for an official stoppage. But it is note- worthy that the repudiation was more vigorous and more nearly unanimous than the demand. The union leaders have always been in a weak position, partly because of their archaic constitu- tions and partly because of their own inertia and conservatism. But their position vis-d-vis their own rank and tile has never been as weak as they like to make out, and the Ford vote shows that resolute action on their part would almost cer- tainly be supported –particularly particularly if they could bring themselves to be as frank about their situa- tion as the company was about its.
All in all, the company's salvation lies now in its own hands—no bad piece of justice, con- sidering its share of responsibility for the situa- tion. The writing is already between the lines, if not on the wall: Ford's are ready to consider closing the entire Dagenham plant. It is already unprofitable; and it will soon be so unprofitable that it will actually be cheaper for the parent company to close it down and transfer produc- tion to its continental plants. The company has not yet said in so many words that it is willing to do this; one more warning is all the disruptive elements can reasonably expect, and it ought to contain some such unequivocal statement.
But the best news in the situation is that the company has decided to stand and fight. By doing so, it has struck a blow not merely for itself and its shareholders but for industry as a whole. If the Ford Company does not weaken now, and takes care to present its case properly to its own workers and to the public at large, it can do immense good to both sides of industry and to the national economy as a whole. The only losers will be that group which has none of these interests at heart.
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