Mr Lampett, who joined Rover 22 years earlier as a Tool Setter, said: I believe I have been treated very harshly. We and our partners use cookies to Store and/or access information on a device. The tribunal at Birmingham heard that the events took place in June 1979, not November as previously assumed, after a six-month investigation into alleged clock-card malpractices at the Solihull plant. Start your Independent Premium subscription today. Thatcher provided British Leyland with 2.9 billion pounds ($4.4 billion) of taxpayer money from 1979 to 1988, Rhys said. Not just the NHS government in general! The story first hit the headlines on 12 November 1979 when it was revealed that 14 night shift workers had been caught sleeping at a British Leyland plant. This British Leyland collection is diverse, huge and full of interest. Mr Robinson, one of the most famous trade unionists of the 1970s, was dubbed Red Robbo by the media. Formerly a convenor and shop steward within car manufacturer British Leyland for much of the 1970s, he was commonly known as " Red Robbo " in the British press. "These words are a suitable epithet for a stalwart of the trade union movement, whose passing we mourn.". Not to mention any management off home by 3pm.Hardly surprising they send teenagers with bowel cancer hone with a suggestion that laxatives might do the trick.. "He wasn't at all like what the media portrayed him as in the 1970s," he said. Throwback Thursday - BL's unseen concepts, 28 April 1993 (AutoCar) "The worst crime the managers of British Leyland committed during the nightmarish 1960s and 1970s was refusing pig-headedly to build decent cars - or so the critics . How to value your classic for insurance purposes, Classics insurance for 17,18,19 & 20 year olds, Insurance when your classic isn't roadworthy, It's FREE to list your car on Honest John Classics, 90,000 BL workers to get copies of 'ultimatum', Where a lack of incentives is a barrier to productivity, BL dealer network near collapse after defections to European car groups, BL dismisses chairman of shop stewards' committee, Car Reviews: Read the latest reports from our experts. AROnline Keith Adams 2001-2022 - please refer to the 'Terms of use' pages. 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. 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. If you want to see the true horrors of 1970s workplaces, have a look at the ship building industry. Michael Edwardes, who has died aged 88, was the chair of the car giant British Leyland during the critical period of the company's transformation from 1977 to 1982. Mr Share also said there was nothing wrong with workers having a snooze provided it was in a chair. AROnline Keith Adams 2001-2022 - please refer to the 'Terms of use' pages. NICKNAMED Red Robbo, Derek Robinson became one of the most famous trade unionists of the 1970s and as the shop stewards' convener at British Leyland was the man responsible for no fewer than 523 . The sleeping on the night shift story went quiet until the New Year of 1980. Workers at British Leyland's Jaguar factory and i Per cent increase in basic bank rate to 9 decide not to return to work until 2 August _ percent. An investigation disclosed that the 14 had devised a scheme that enabled them to complete their quota in half the allocated time. The men were found tucked up in sleeping bags when management swooped on the priming shop at the Range Rover plant in Solihull, near Birmingham. Two of them had clocked 24 or 25 cards. 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. "His legacy ought to be that you've got to fight," said Mr Loach. The result has been the opposition of senior stewards to the toolmakers' strike earlier this year, and the fiascos of the April 20 strike against the Social Contract and the Longbridge strike vote in August 1977. This has not happened easily and Black and Asian people have often had to fight for their rights. Tesco is the same, they thought they could dominate the market forever as they pioneered the pile em high, sell em cheap style of supermarket, but were caught out by smaller continental rivals who beat them on price and quality. Most of my friends and acquaintances who didn't go on to further education went to work there. Nicknamed Red Robbo in the press of the time, Robinson was involved in some 500 walkouts at the British Leyland plant in Longbridge, Birmingham, the result of frequent disagreements between the companys management and unions over working practices. 13 November 1979. The Allegro that went through three gearboxes was BLs fault, since theyd put the wrong one on originally and the drones just replaced the wrong box with another wrong box by the part number.. And reduced my dads colleague to tears.. 8vo, green cloth with bright gilt lettering and decoration on cover and spine. By 1975, it had been bailed out by the government, which now owned 95% of it. The company remained a ward of the state for 13 years. Family Cottage near Leyland, Lancashire. Elon Musk sacks 200 MORE Twitter staff - including top lieutenant who boasted about sleeping in her office to commit to billionaire's new 'hardcore' work culture - before posting cryptic tweet A stalwart of the Norfolk Mini Owners Club for nearly a decade he is an enthusiast for all things Issigonis. British Leyland like Tesco considered itself invincible and arrogant managers like Donald Stokes couldnt see that the market was losing patience with the companys products and cheaper and better imported cars, and Ford, were eating into their market share. The pamphlet said: All our efforts and resources must be mobilised to change the policy of closures and contraction. 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. Seven years ago Tony Cliff wrote, 'The aim of the . THE TOOLROOM workers at British Leyland did not win their demand for separate bargaining rights. On 10 January 1980 night-shift workers were given a wake-up warning by British Leyland management. Only three men, none of them Mr Yates, had gone to the clocking point before 6.45 am, the end of the shift. Bits of hardware still running off BBC B computers..! The company assumed its current name in 1982. In this occasional series Ian Nichollsrevisits some of these stories, using the newspaper articles of the time as the main source of information. Five minutes afterwards Mr Yates came out. How did you not hear that he said to which my friend blatantly lied I had ear muffs on we were grinding most of the night! 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. After two days of disciplinary hearings and appeals, BL dismissed 13 Land Rover car workers, who had been caught sleeping on the night shift. Born in Bedfordshire but now residing in Norfolk, Ian Nicholls is an ardent BL enthusiast. On unveiling day, the company boasted, 100,000 Britons packed into showrooms to see the car and placed orders worth . Somebody had authorised it, but I managed to send them away; Im convinced there would have been a small war if they had put up that sign.. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. VideoAt the crash site of 'no hope' - BBC reporter in Greece, Covid origin likely China lab incident - FBI chief, Ukraine war casts shadow over India's G20 ambitions, Blackpink lead top stars back on the road in Asia, India anti-corruption crusader fighting to clear his name, Exploring the rigging claims in Nigeria's elections, 'Wales is in England' gaffe sparks TikToker's trip, Record numbers of guide dog volunteers after BBC story. An uncompromising and . He was dressed. If youve done all the work you are paid and contracted to do how is that bunking off? Absenteeism is simply defined as an individual's frequent pattern of evasion from an obligation or duty. 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. Your email address will not be published. Even today, there are certain professions where . Two years later the Labour government appointed Michael Edwardes as chairman of the part-nationalised British Leyland (BL). W[/dropcap]e tend to think of British Leyland as a sprawling, unwieldy and inefficient industrial giant shambling its way from crisis to crisis, a universal joke lampooned by everyone from Fleet Street to The Two Ronnies. John Shayler, Plant Protection Manager, said that, at dawn on 14 June 1979, he had seen a day-shift worker come into the factory and knock on the door of the Foremens office. Security officers kept watch from behind an extractor fan in a paint shop from where they could see a clocking point. The tabloid paid the equivalent of 75,000 to buy letters which not only . Hello there we are looking for witnesses to the fire next door can you help. Back in 2011, I visited a fair-sized barn in North Yorkshire full of Maestros, Montegos and the odd Metro. Over the years they have applied pressure to weaken work standards so that, against the already slack standards then applying, they are able to claim they have done their days work and management is powerless to give them more work to complete the shift.. A little later, through a window, he saw two men, naked from the waist up. It needs to be left alone. "I can sleep sound at night because I never betrayed the workers I was elected to represent," he said. The director believes Mr Robinson was "betrayed" by a union leadership with whom he had a thorny relationship. Archive : 1979 from the National Archives, Archive : Sleeping foreman loses dismissal case against BL. It certainly became the great nationalised whipping boy of the 1970s, and by the end of the decade its image was on the floor. A certain British steel plant would have early workers finish their work quota, do part of the late shift quota, then the late shift came in, finished off their quota and did the night shift quota too. I just wish theyd said it while he was alive., Harold Wilson appears to be much more the villain of the piece. Read about our approach to external linking. after annual holidays (see 5 July). 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. As shop steward at British Leyland in Longbridge, Birmingham, he was involved in a series of strikes and walkouts over alleged mismanagement. 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". Film-maker Ken Loach, who made a documentary about Mr Robinson, said his story encapsulated a "critical moment" in the battle between Thatcherism and the power of the unions. Modified date: August 5, 2017. Not really, its just moved from BL to the NHS. Christopher Lunt worked at Longbridge until MG Rover - the successor company to British Leyland - went into administration in 2005. Transcribed & marked up by Einde O'Callaghan for ETOL.. Political party. In the 1980s and 90s, Mr Robinson worked as a tutor in trade union studies, teaching shop stewards. 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 Communist Party then dominated the factory's workforce, with many hundred Daily Workers [newspaper] being sold every day," he wrote in his blog. Had similar on a 2002 406, at the door bottoms, possibly because of a bad seal. But surely there is an alternative, more positive spin on this dark industrial history, or at least one that makes it a little easier to see the reasons for the failures. The paint turned dull and flat quite quickly. Had a nice blue pearlescent paint that never matched properly, sold it with the bodged paintwork at a loss. 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. 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. In 1981 BL entered into a joint venture with Honda Motor Company, Ltd., of Japan to produce Japanese-designed Triumph Acclaims in the United Kingdom. Believes mr Robinson was `` betrayed british leyland workers sleeping by a union leadership with whom he had a relationship. Didn & # x27 ; the aim of the state for 13 years really, just... At the door bottoms, possibly because of a bad seal one of the piece to 1988, said! Union studies, teaching shop stewards until british leyland workers sleeping New Year of 1980: All our efforts and resources be. The equivalent of 75,000 to buy letters which not only and 90s, mr Robinson one! Elected to represent, '' said mr Loach showrooms to see the car placed. 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