British Leyland workers call off unofficial strike at Cowley

By Our Industrial Staff

The 80 maintenance workers on strike at British Leyland's Cowley plant met yesterday and obeyed union instructions to call off their unofficial stoppage from Monday. The company is recalling 2,258 assembly workers laid off at Cowley and 1,350 laid off at the Swindon body plant The strike stopped all car production at Cowley.

At Coventry production of the Jaguar XJ6 and Daimler Sovereign saloons was halted by a strike of 50 welders who objected to a new piece work rate. Another 1000 workers were laid off at the Browns Lane assembly plant, and 200 at Radford.

A hold-up in pay talks at Cowley yesterday, where the group has switched from piece work to a flat rate payment, is a major setback as negotiations have been going ahead to extend the system to the remainder of Cowley, and later to the Longbridge plant. Austin Morris management last night made no attempt to disguise its disappointment at the delay and in a strongly worded statement warned the 1,670 men involved in the north works at Cowley that their decision, taken at a meeting earlier in the day, to delay negotiations by insisting on a further works conference would not lead to concessions.