Component Strikes Affect BLMC

Elsewhere in the motor industry, production of saloon and sports cars is still stopped at British Leyland's Jaguar plant in Coventry,with 2,000 workers laid off. This results from a strike at the Adwest group's factory near Reading, which makes power steering units. Jaguar's Brown Lane plant in Coventry was also hit yesterday by a 50 per cent reduction in electricity power supply, after damage to a sub-station by lightning during the weekend.

Jaguar still has 3,500 staff and shopfloor employees at work in Coventry, although no finished cars are being built. With no sign of a settlement of the Adwest dispute, there will be more lay-offs during this week. Rover and Jensen also are affected by a shortage of power steering units, but so far no workers have been laid off.

Plants that ran out of components were building incomplete vehicles for most of last week and on Friday British Leyland had to stop production of Marinas at Cowley, Oxford, because it could not stockpile any more. The Cowley management laid off 2,800 workers. The Triumph plant in Coventry, which has also been building unfinished cars, was about to lay off its assembly workers when the Wilmot Breeden settlement was announced.