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International Socialism, April 1977. Former Leyland worker Stephen Cox said Mr Robinson was regarded by many as "way out on an extreme". The quota system mentioned seems to have been a relic of the deal to end piecework in the early 1970s. Heal opens up on shock mid-season move. Over 50,000 workers across British Leyland immediately came out on strike, including the 20,000 workers at Longbridge in . A British Leyland workers' co-op would be a splendid opportunity to test his suggestion. In February 1980, less than a year after Margaret Thatcher became prime minister, thousands of car workers gathered following the sacking of one man. He was in charge of 32 men on the night shift who were dismissed, disciplined, or who resigned rather than be dismissed. I was involved in hire and lease sales, he explains, and if someone wanted an XJ6 or a Stag, I just told them that they had to take half a dozen Marinas as well., Greenhill worked at BMC/BL for 13 years, starting as a Technical sales apprentice in 1966 and finishing up as Jaguars marketing manager when the SIII XJ was launched. Permanent Salary: 27,043 - 33,453pa; Hours: Monday - Friday 09:00-17:00 Friday 09:00 - 14:00; Person Specification Could he please have three large boxes of Cuban cigars instead?, Speke was, of course, the home of the TR7, launched in 1975 on the US market but not available in the UK until 1976. At the crash site of 'no hope' - BBC reporter in Greece. Then, on 16 November 1979, another BL plant was in the news for similar reasons. He hopes his friend will be remembered as "one of those stalwarts in the post-war era that maintained a better life for ordinary people", not as an "agitator" or "destroyer" which he said was "a complete invention". Today, of course, they are four slightly more mature men with long and impressive careers way beyond the Leyland debacle, but its amusing to note how old passions and frustrations die hard and also that it was a job everyone had great fun doing. AROnline Keith Adams 2001-2022 - please refer to the 'Terms of use' pages. A stickler for historical accuracy he has recently performed the marathon task of mining the online newspaper articles for all BMC>MG related stories. However, the wife of one of the dismissed workers, Mrs Ray Pennell, of Chelmsley Wood, Birmingham, said the management knew of the practice and had asked men to double-load the conveyors if production fell behind. Underinvestment and a lack of new models had resulted in BLs car market share falling dramatically. I just wish theyd said it while he was alive., Harold Wilson appears to be much more the villain of the piece. BL described this as potentially dangerous. There is a long-standing tradition known as stint and finish. We had a LDV van at work for about 7 years. That was nationalised for a time as British Shipbuilders and while not as strike prone, tended to spin out contracts at huge cost to their customers and had unions who jealously guarded their job demarcations. A Supervisor who was sleeping was also dismissed, along with a Foreman. He was a controversial figure throughout his lifetime but Derek Robinson remains a working class hero to many. Slight wear at extremities of boards. The Unite union said the "dedicated life-long trade unionist" fought for "the rights and future" of workers. . The statement added that the company regarded the investigation as private. 2023 BBC. Mr Robinson, one of the most famous trade unionists of the 1970s, was dubbed Red Robbo by the media. Derek "Red Robbo" Robinson, who has died aged 90, was the firebrand British Leyland workers' representative whose sacking in November 1979 came to symbolise Margaret Thatcher's . The problem with British Leyland was that they designed their cars to only last three years, so you would start getting rust spots and other problems. A survey by a Superintendent at Oxford Exhausts, a factory making most of BLs exhaust systems and petrol tanks, found employees, dozing in various parts of the factory.. Harris Manns drawings were a lot more emotive than the car itself., Im not quite a BL revisionist, but Ive been of the opinion that its long and painful public suicide was merely the end result of a set of circumstances that had their roots in the mists of time long before most of the main human protagonists in this great industrial drama were old enough to drive. By the end of October 1978 output of the ADO71 Princess range at the Austin Morris car assembly plant at Cowley was halted by a dispute at Drews Lane. Transcribed & marked up by Einde O'Callaghan for ETOL.. So says Simon Pearson of his time at the much-maligned British Leyland. leader of the unofficial BL shop stewards' committee. This support saved brands such as Jaguar, Land Rover and Mini from . The company remained a ward of the state for 13 years. Sounds very like British Leyland at the start of the seventies, four out of ten new cars were British Leyland and imports were still rare, if slowly gaining ground, and a few customers werent happy about the quality of the new Maxi. As shop steward at British Leyland in Longbridge, Birmingham, he was involved in a series of strikes and walkouts over alleged mismanagement. The UCPI is a damage limitation exercise by the British state, established in 2015 after the exposure of widespread use of undercover police agents against political organisations. The former British Leyland worker and trade unionist Derek Robinson has died, aged 90. Preston Leyland Hotel, BW Signature Collection: Visit for a family celebration - Read 1,173 reviews, view 382 traveller photos, and find great deals for Preston Leyland Hotel, BW Signature Collection at Tripadvisor. She said: My husband rang to tell me that they have all lost their jobs.. After two days of disciplinary hearings and . Officers discovered Lai was sleeping in a squalid property . Its just a shame that for a lot of the 70s they were rightly derided for their quality. He worked variously for Morris, Austin, BMC, BLMC, BMLH, Leyland Cars, Austin-Morris and Jaguar-Rover- Triumph Thats roughly a new corporate brand every 10 months and on the launches of the Allegro, 18-22 Series, TR7 and XJ-S. At that time, BL had the biggest advertising budget in the UK, he says, and we gave Saatchi its first-ever car account, which was the Princess., Dapper, silver-haired Alan Zafer, who began at MG, goes further: It was probably the greatest range of cars under one umbrella. Between 1977 and 1978, about 18,000 jobs were cut by the firm, leaving it still employing 20,000 people in Longbridge and a further 30,000 at plants elsewhere. "He wasn't at all like what the media portrayed him as in the 1970s," he said. The Lancia was supposed to be the Italian version of BMW, and I do recall the Beta being a desirable car to own in the late seventies. Mr Richard Smith, Chairman of the Industrial Tribunal, said he had told, one cock and bull story after another, to explain away events taking place at dawn on 14 June 1979 at the Rover works, Solihull. 1983 Cowley Moles. I realised that it wasnt going to sell somehow it had no presence. Only three men, none of them Mr Yates, had gone to the clocking point before 6.45 am, the end of the shift. Then Aldi and Lidl arrived and the facade melted away. BL began selling its interests in the 1980s, and by 1990 the Ford Motor . A communist, he had led 523 walkouts at the Birmingham car plant during a 30-month period, gaining the nickname Red Robbo from journalists and becoming an increasingly divisive national figure. He will give evidence today. 2023 BBC. It needs the shock treatment of standing on its own two feet like any other business. Stories from those at the coalface. We ask Birmingham: How can bus services improve in the city? Video, At the crash site of 'no hope' - BBC reporter in Greece, Record numbers of guide dog volunteers after BBC story. A little later, through a window, he saw two men, naked from the waist up. Five minutes afterwards Mr Yates came out. DeSantis won't say he's running. These were blamed by managers for delays to production of 62,000 cars and 113,000 engines, costing the business an estimated 200m. Red Robbo speaks to striking workers at Longbridge in the 1970s. Here, after all, was the worlds fourth-biggest car maker building the planets most complete and ambitious range of vehicles. Ultimately it meant most of the industry disappeared as merchant shipbuilding went abroad and the few yards that survive now only do so because of defence contracts. I will leave the last word to Pearson, the man who got this fascinating group together: We all worked like hell to make it work, for not much money. First edition. Ian is unable to help with technical queries he pays other people to fix his cars! Ideal business/holiday rental Perfect for families, friends and work colleagues (a pet friendly home) The cottage is an attractive Grade ll listed property recently totally refurbished to a high standard maintaining its character and charm, an unusual build with Venetian type windows and a . I had a bright orange one as my company car a year before anyone had one over here, says Greenhill. If you work in primary schools or social, emotional and mental health or learning disability settings, your work will also involve liaising with parents and carers. British Leyland would once again become a privately-owned company and the size of the state sector would be reduced. A shame really as improvements to the Maxi, Princess and Allegro had made these cars as good as many of their European rivals and certainly British Leyland never had to endure the sort of scandal that was engulfing Lancia at the time, where poor rustproofing was causing the engines to fall out of relatively new cars. Belated attempts to set up acceptable new output targets had been resisted by the Shop Stewards. Mr Alan Walters, a supervisor, said he had seen another man come from the office carrying a Land-Rover seat capable of being used as a bed. These were dark times indeed.Harold Musgrove. Mr Robinson . I called into the Plant Directors office and said that Id like to look around to see what was happening. Video, Record numbers of guide dog volunteers after BBC story, Prince Andrew offered Frogmore Cottage - reports, Ed Sheeran says wife developed tumour in pregnancy, Man survives 31 days in jungle by eating worms, China and Belarus call for peace in Ukraine, Bieber cancels remaining Justice world tour dates, Kobe Bryant widow wins $29m settlement from LA, Trump lashes out at Murdoch over vote fraud case. Start your Independent Premium subscription today. Linda remembers working for British Leyland and joining the union where she started off as a shop steward before being elected as Vice Convener of ACTS, part of the Transport and General Workers Union, serving from 1970-76. Continue with Recommended Cookies. Family Cottage near Leyland, Lancashire. Good condition, owner's inscription on flyleaf. 13 November 1979. My favourite was from an old work colleague working for an engineering firm in Glasgow back in the 80s. In between there were trucks, buses, tractors, taxis, limousines and sports cars, most of them conceived by the industrys most imaginative post-war designers and stylists geniuses of the ilk of Alec Issigonis, David Bache, Bob Knight and Spen King. "He's seen as a troublemaker, someone who resisted attempts to modernise," he said. A quote from Austin Rover Managing Director Harold Musgrove (right) from 1984 underlines that. Mr John Share, personnel manager, said the company was satisfied that Mr Yates had allowed men to sleep on a night shift and had allowed clocking offences in which he had taken part. Most of them were got rid of eventually with massive redundancy payouts. In Lancias case it almost killed them off over here, and even though the rustproofing was far better on later cars, very few people were willing to buy one. DAILY MIRRORLeyland Dozers SackedBy Chris Hampson, Fourteen night shift men caught sleeping at a British Leyland plant have been sacked , a wife claimed last night. The story first hit the headlines on 12 November 1979 when it was revealed that 14night shift workershad been caught sleeping at a British Leyland plant. The Daily Mail claimed that the car firm British Leyland was paying bribes, and was exposed for printing a ludicrous hoax. Not just the NHS government in general! Beginning on 8 January 1980, the Foreman fired in November, now named as Mr Robert Yates, of Coplow Close, Balsall Common, Warwickshire, began an unfair dismissal claim against Land Rover. This introduction is being written on 30 November 2011, the day we saw 2.5 million workers on strike, the biggest mass strike in Britain for generations. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. It was cosmetic rather than structural rust but terrible for the cars reputation. An example of data being processed may be a unique identifier stored in a cookie. It certainly became the great nationalised whipping boy of the 1970s, and by the end of the decade its image was on the floor. He will give evidence today. The odd 1m going missing (I would have paid money to see the auditors face when they found that little gem), contractors doing nothing for weeks at 100 a day because the bloke who set the administration lock password buggered off for sunnier climes without telling anyone what it was. The Musicians Union, which was the union for musicians employed directly by the BBC, dictated that Top of the Pops had to employ a staff orchestra and singers, even if their services werent needed, which in most cases they were not. Learn how your comment data is processed. He was credited with causing 523 walkouts at British Leyland between 1978 and 1979, costing an estimated 200 million in lost . Mr Robert Yates, British Leyland foreman, was dismissed for allowing men to sleep on the night shift at the Rover works in Solihull, West Midlands, an industrial tribunal was told yesterday. BLMC was created in 1968 by the merger of British Motor Holdings (BMH) and Leyland Motor Corporation (LMC), encouraged by the Wilson . The idea was that they should be able to make triple time: do each job in a third of the time allowed which meant that by half past two everyone would pack up and bugger off home!, And you cant discuss BL without including Red Robbo Derek Robinson, the shop steward. Video, Record numbers of guide dog volunteers after BBC story, Prince Andrew offered Frogmore Cottage - reports, Ed Sheeran says wife developed tumour in pregnancy, Man survives 31 days in jungle by eating worms, China and Belarus call for peace in Ukraine, Bieber cancels remaining Justice world tour dates, Kobe Bryant widow wins $29m settlement from LA, Trump lashes out at Murdoch over vote fraud case. E 21 Government approves 30 million as first tranche of 100 million investment funds to British British Leyland s Rover workers at Solihull Leyland. But why had Mr Robinson's fellow workers not supported him? His crime was to put his name to a combine committee pamphlet setting out an approach that drew on the experience of the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders. However, someone should have really gone at Lyons (head of Jag) and put him firmly in his place. In this article DAVE LYDDON analyses the forces at work in British Leyland. Following the election of Margaret Thatcher in May 1979, the government and BL sought to implement a recovery plan to save the ailing company. The organisation specialises in providing best-in-class care and . British Leyland, Britain's largest automaker, faced bankruptcy in 1975. It will prove that ordinary working people have got the intelligence and determination to run industry'. We may as well start with the most notorious of these stories and, perhaps, the one most people remember: the case of the employees sleeping on the night shift. Six hundred workers had been laid off indefinitely because of a shortage of suspension units caused by a work to rule by 150 workers at the transmission plant at Drews Lane. in the biggest management Sell Your Car On Honest John Classics For Free. One of the most notorious trade unionists in recent memory has died aged 90. Christopher Lunt worked at Longbridge until MG Rover - the successor company to British Leyland - went into administration in 2005. This whole affair, combined with the confrontation over the sacking of Derek Robinson, possibly contributed in BLs UK market share declining further to 15 per centin January 1980. Leyland Dozers Sacked. Mr Robinson led the fight back, organising hundreds of disputes. He was the main spokesman for the British Leyland combine committee which united about 40 different plants around the country, for most of the 1970s. Derek Robinson - nicknamed "Red Robbo" by tabloid newspapers - was one of the biggest names in the trade union movement during the 1970s. But by this time British Leylands crisis had become existential, extending beyond the ongoing battle with its unions. I dont think we realised what halcyon days we were living through at the time., AT THE TIME, BRITISH LEYLAND HAD THE BIGGEST ADVERTISING BUDGET IN THE UK, AS PEARSON RECALLS: LORD STOKES WAS COGENT, ACCESSIBLE TO ALL AND A LISTENER!. A spokesman said that they would Mr Arthur Scargill yesterday pledged the support of Yorkshire miners for the reinstatement of Mr Derek Robinson the shop stewards' By Edward Townsend BL's controversial 2m "Buy British" campaign, initially aimed at new car buyers, has now been directed at dealers. BL has delayed implementation of its plans for the MG factory at Abingdon in Oxfordshire because of a probable offer from the consortium. What's the best type of insurance for my 30+ year old Volvo?

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