On The Track

This book gives a glimpse of the confrontations that took place in massive well-organised unionised car plants and the wider struggles of industrial workers with firstly a Tory government, attempting to act as the agency for the bosses. The Tory prime minister, Edward Heath, had brought in anti-union legislation in the form of the Industrial Relations Bill. The ‘Kill the Bill’ slogan has been revived by the National Shop Stewards Network in the campaign against Cameron’s ‘anti’-Trade Union Bill. Union activists would do well to study the lessons of the struggles of the early 1970s to arm themselves for the battles against the Tories now.

The book also deals with the developments around the succeeding Labour government nationalising the companies that made up the state-owned British Leyland. Bill and other Militant stewards along with leading supporters of the Militant, worked out a socialist programme of the car industry to fight back against the attacks on BL workers’ jobs and conditions mainly under a Labour government.

From the foreword