Union threat over Leyland cuts

DAILY EXPRESS
UNION THREAT OVER LEYLAND CUTS
By Barry Devney

Britain's biggest union is drawing up battle plans to prevent the "surgery " which British Leyland's chief Sir Michael Edwardes believes is vital to save the company. The rank-and-file executive council of the two million strong Transport and General Workers Union issued a decisive "drop the plans-or else" reply to the Leyland boss.

The plans entails the scrapping of 25,000 jobs and the partial or total closure of 13 plants. But Mr Moss Evans, general secretary of the TGWU, is to demand a meeting with Sir Michael to tell him that his ideas are not acceptable. And he will have with him the union's number two, Mr Harry Urwin, who is a member of the National Enterprise Board which controls Leyland's purse-strings.

Mr Evans revealed that it had been decided that the union will back any action considered necessary to secure the livelihood and future of its members in BL plants. The TGWU's executive council will support any plant that resists closure and members will be told to ensure that no plant takes work transferred from factories due to be shut down.