Communist replaced as Union man
23 January 1980
Times business diary
BL's overworked industrial relations managers will breathe a sigh of relief when the news reaches them that a moderate life-long Labour Party stalwart has just replaced communist Len Brindle as senior union convenor at Leyland Vehicles, the group's truck and bus subsidiary.
He is Alec Calder, 61; a member of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers and a former chairman of Leyland town council in Lancashire. When Business Diary asked him yesterday if he would withdraw the commercial vehicle factories from the unofficial BL Combined Shop Stewards' Committee chaired by Derek Robinson, the dismissed Longbridge convenor, he said that it was not his intention to do so.
"I do not think my works committee would support such a move at present", he said. "Let's just say that my style is very different from Len's, but we both want the same objective, better pay and conditions for our members".
Giovanni Michelotti , stylist of many classic Triumph cars dies on this day from skin cancer . He was 59 years old .
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