THE RESULT of the vote by workers at Peugeot’s car plant in Ryton, just outside Coventry, was released last week. The management offered them a ‘choice’ – vote for a pay cut or 700 jobs will be axed. The workers voted 1,580 to 799 votes for the pay cut.
As one worker, Colin Reading, said, ‘I didn’t want 700 people to lose their jobs. We are disgusted that the management made us make the decision.’ The tragedy is that union officials did not lead a fight against the management’s blackmail.
Workers at the plant held a strike in July 2000 to fight against management’s attempts to impose drastic changes to shifts that increased working time. Those two days of strikes forced the bosses to retreat from their original plans. Yet union representatives did not even give workers the option to fight Peugeot’s latest attack.
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