Ford's Agony

"The agony of Ford's is the agony of Britain," proclaimed the London Daily Mirror last week. British Ford's agony is acute. Its main plant, which sprawls across the dreary Dagenham mud flats east of London, has what may well be the world's worst labor record: it has been hit by crippling wildcat strikes at the chilling rate of more than one a week for the past five years. "The American owners of this mammoth motor concern," editorialized the usually pro-labor Mirror, "would be justified in writing Britain off as a base for their factories." At Dagenham. irresponsible union shop stewards--some of them Communists--ignore appeals for moderation from national union leaders, and march their men off the job for grievances that in a U.S. plant would be handled without a ripple.

In the past, the strikers have usually won their point because Ford's British management was quick to knuckle under. But with the appointment of Lancashire-born J. (for James) Allen Barke as managing director in April, the situation changed at Dagenham.

Sunday Sandwiches. Barke, a onetime production-line worker himself, decided that Ford had to halt the costly walkouts.

In October he fired a troublemaking Communist shop steward. When the other shop stewards called a wildcat strike, Barke refused to yield, and within ten days the strike collapsed. Then Barke refused to rehire 600 of the striking workers--including twelve shop stewards--all of whom he classified as troublemakers.

At this, the national unions which represent Dagenham's 32,000 hourly workers called for an official strike to start Nov. 17.

But the union officials reckoned without the women of Dagenham, who were fed up with strikes and wanted their husbands' paychecks for Christmas shopping.

Led by Mrs. Evelyn Carter, the 29-year-old wife of a Ford machinist, 150 Dagenham wives staged a meeting at which they threatened to serve their husbands nothing but sandwiches for Sunday dinner if the strike went through. A public-opinion poll showed that 81% of Dagenham felt the same way. Union leaders got the message, decided to negotiate rather than strike.

Fostering Chaos. Tough Allen Barke, 58, has thus scored a notable break through at Dagenham: Ford workers have been forced to recognize at last that wildcat strikes can no longer be called with impunity. But Ford's basic difficulty at Dagenham is not yet solved. Dagenham executives blame their labor troubles variously on Communists, the failure of the national unions to control local shop stewards, and widespread resentment among the workers at U.S. ownership. However, General Motors' experience at its Vauxhall plant in Luton, north of London, suggests that there is more to the story. In its 37-year history, Vauxhall has had practically no work stoppages even though it pays lower wages than Ford.

The difference lies almost entirely in management attitudes. At Dagenham, Ford refused to deal with unions at all until 1944, then recognized 22 different unions. While the rival unions squabbled over jurisdiction, the grievances of individual workers got scant attention. With tacit encouragement from Ford, Dagenham's shop stewards then took into their own hands matters that should have been handled by responsible leaders of the national unions--and the Communists, quick to capitalize on chaos, moved in.

By contrast. General Motors' British managers long ago accepted the inevitability of dealing with unions, and encouraged the development of just two major unions at Vauxhall. On top of that, Vauxhall established a Management Advisory Committee (22 members elected by the workers, six by management) to handle grievances. The committee rights wrongs so quickly that Vauxhall shop stewards have little function or authority.

Now that they have shown the unions who is boss, perhaps the most constructive next step Dagenham's managers could take would be across London to see how things are run at Vauxhall.

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