La mecanización

With no agreement in advance of the creation of MSF, the development of local union organisation in the amalgamated union was unpredictable. Those coming from ASTMS held to a belief in branch autonomy and an organisation where the voice of branches was heard and acted on at regional and national levels. However, they were faced with an organisation in the TASS division which adhered to centralised control as the most prized attribute of a union and which was intent on shaping MSF to that vision. The scene was set for an internecine battle over whether MSF would be ‘member-led’ or ‘leader-led’.

The ASTMS ‘bottom lines’ over branch autonomy, separate funding and branch representation in the structures of the union were enshrined in the Cardiff Principles (Carter 1991: 50). With a degree of naivety, the ASTMS side of the MSF Joint National Executive anticipated an effective resolution by incorporating them in the new rulebook, to be proposed to the Special Rules Conference. However, the orchestrated bloc vote of the TASS side, in conditions of parity of representation, only required a single vote, an abstention or an absence from the ASTMS side for the TASS position to be adopted in the rulebook. Unsurprisingly none of the Principles found their way into the recommendations to the Special Rules Conference (Carter 1991: 50). All that was evident were proposals for a weakening of the influence of regions and branches by turning them into administrative units, enhanced by the creation of larger branches with full-time officials acting as branch secretaries, a similar enlargement of regions and a reduction of the number of delegates to the Annual Conference (Carter 1991: 52).

Resisting the TASS style rulebook which emerged from the Joint National Executive was the only option if the Cardiff Principles and the ‘form and character* of ASTMS as it related to Divisional Councils and branches were to be preserved in MSF. The

immediate result was some 2,500 amendments to the rulebook from former ASTMS Divisional Councils and branches against about 100 from former TASS (MSF 1988d). As Carter remarked:

The primary explanation for this disparity rested with the difference in structures and traditions of leadership [between ASTMS and TASS] (Carter 1991: 53).

The scene was set for confrontation over the two conceptions of trade unionism.

The initial skirmishes at the Special Rules Conference reaffirmed the strength of the TASS division bloc vote. However, this action emboldened lay leaders in the ASTMS division to adopt sim ilar tactics and, with the defection of some TASS division delegates, votes in favour of separate funding for all Regional Councils and branches were won (MSF 1988c, 1988d). Commenting on the situation at the first conference an ex-TASS full-tim e official remarked that:

At the first joint Conference, ASTMS were all over the place. They were voting different ways and doing what you do in a conference, what you’re supposed to do in a conference. ... They were meeting a block of hands that were all voting the same way. But I think that ASTMS got to find out very, very quickly that unless we play this same game we’re just going to end up [losing] (ex- TASS regional full-time official interview 1999).

The defections indicated that the hegemony of the Broad Left had its limitations and in part relied on the centralised structure of TASS. Representation at the Special Rules Conference was open to wider sections of branch delegates, as had been reluctantly conceded by TASS, and this situation fatally weakened the ability of the Broad Left to control the membership of the TASS delegation and the discipline of its voting patterns. The defections also showed that the Cardiff Principles had an appeal for certain sections of the former TASS lay leadership reflecting nascent concerns over the lack of debate inside TASS, its centralised leadership and the ‘machine politics’ of the Broad Left (ex-TASS regional full-time official interview 1999). An ex-ASTMS local lay leader saw this divide in the ex-TASS delegation as:

The craft unions within TASS didn’t seem to be able to make any headway. They weren’t able to get much from the National Executive. Everything they wanted to do, the craft unions, they were overruled, with the predominance of the staff within TASS. ... When we went to Conference, there was a ganging up to make sure that resolutions you wanted were passed. There was a better

relationship certainly amongst the craft foremen and the shop-floor people, [between the former ASTMS and the former craft section of TASS] (ex-ASTMS local lay leader interview 1999).

The craft section of TASS had originated from mergers with smaller craft unions in the 1980s (Smith 1987: 287). However, the hegemony of the Broad Left had prevented any influence from them within TASS and they became increasingly marginalised. An ex-TASS full-tim e official remarked that:

We used to joke as Metal Mechanics, well why don’t they just send us a sheet and tell us what we’ve got to vote on (ex-TASS regional full-time official interview 1999).

Within MSF, they found an affinity with the ASTMS section that could challenge the dominance of the Broad Left and foster the creation of a semi-autonomous Craft Section (ex-ASTMS local lay leader interview 1999).

With this victory, the ASTMS delegation and its new allies had every expectation of also winning the vote on branch representation at the Annual Conference but legal advice was announced to the effect that such a vote would be against the Instrument of Transfer (Carter 1991: 54). It was clear to many that this advice was as much a political manoeuvre as legal opinion. Earlier defeats had already motivated some leaders in the TASS division to question the continuation of the amalgamation and leaders in the ASTMS division began to counsel a tactical retreat until a time when TASS would find it impossible to leave (Carter 1991: 54).

Nevertheless, the overall outcome of the Conference was re-affirmation of the ‘member-led’ form of unionism captured by the Cardiff Principles. For workplaces and branches, MSF was inexorably moving in the direction of the ASTMS principles of branch autonomy, separate funding and wide branch representation at regional and national levels (MSF 1989a, 1989b). These principles carried with them issues of ‘character’ to facilitate debate and dissent and a ‘bottom-up’ approach to the development of policy. An ex-TASS full-time official, who applauded these principles, maintained that:

I think the pyramid’s the right way up. TASS was everything I thought a trade union shouldn’t be. It should have been [the members] driving the policy

rather than it being driven from the top. I think we’ve got it just right inside MSF (ex-TASS regional full-time official interview 1999).

Subsequently the 1989 Annual Conference decided that branches with over 600 members should have an automatic right to representation at the Conference moving toward the Cardiff Principle for all branches to be represented. This stance also favoured the former ASTMS branches, which were generally larger than branches from former TASS (Carter 1991: 61).

Leaders, both lay and full-tim e officials, played a pivotal role in the post­ amalgamation period. The different relationships of full-time officials as employees of the union and lay leaders as elected representatives applied to MSF, except in one respect. The close affinity between full-time officials in TASS and the Broad Left faction that effectively controlled and directed the union’s activities was distinct in its political reference. It seemed that many of these individuals were employed, not just based on their skills and competence to bargain and represent the interests of members, but also their political allegiance and loyalty to the Broad Left. An ex- ASTMS full-tim e official saw the relationship in these terms:

[In TASS] the decisions were taken centrally. ... That system would set the policies of the union and the full-time officials were then employed to promulgate those policies amongst the members (ex-ASTMS regional full-time official interview 1999).

With their proportionally greater presence in TASS as compared with their equivalents in ASTMS (Fairbrother 2000a. 44) these full-time officials were able to wield political (Broad Left) leadership throughout the structures of TASS.

Post-amalgamation local union organisation

The post-amalgamation decisions in MSF re-affirmed an ASTMS ‘form and character’ of local union organisation in relation to the presence and influence of branches at Regional Councils and Annual Conference. However, it did little to complement this situation at local level. There was no framework or agreements:

• To establish branches based on common boundaries such as geographical area, single employers and/or workplaces.

• To merge existing branches based on these or any other common boundaries. • To have a common framework of branch practice.

Although there was some acknowledgement of the desirability of achieving a coherent model of local union organisation that had a clear place in the structures of the union there had been only faltering progress on a voluntary basis toward such an objective. An ex-TASS full-time official described the difficulties in advancing such an objective as:

Where we could get the two unions to immediately come together at workplace we did. That meant instead of two different bargaining units with the employer we were able to bargain as one unit on behalf of the new union, MSF, and that obviously strengthened our position with the employer. In some areas that took a longer time to do and people still bargain separately as ASTMS and TASS. ... It’s a question of learning to trust each other and I know it’s took ten years and we still haven’t got that. But there were big political differences between the two unions. ... There are still some areas where we’ve been unable to [bring groups together] because activists have been steeped in the political dogma that’s existed for the last ten years. ... I think it’s starting to get a bit better. One would hope after ten years, it would actually have resolved itself. But it’s starting to get a bit better (ex-TASS regional full-tim e official interview 1999).

This description highlights three issues for the local level that arose from the amalgamation. First, that merging previously ASTMS and TASS workplace groups produced benefits in bargaining strength. Second, that the continuing internal divide within MSF, stemming from the initial confrontation over control of the union, frustrated some mergers of workplace groups. Third, that familiarity with the amalgamation was progressively weakening the historic divisions and bringing workplace groups together. The overall assessment was that the benefits in bargaining strength progressively encouraged many workplace groups to merge. However, former ASTMS and TASS branches were mostly peripheral to the bargaining activity of workplace groups. With no policy directive toward merger and no obvious benefit from merger, many branches continued in unchanged form.

It did appear that a combination of the debilitating effect of the early infighting and a stifling of debate in order to avoid any return to it (Carter 1997: 14, 16), militated against any definite decisions being taken on fundamental issues concerning branches and workplace organisation. The result at local level was that the division

between union activity in branches and with employers in workplaces, already evident before the amalgamation, became even more accentuated (Carter & Poynter 1999: 509; Fairbrother 2000a: 115). An ex-ASTMS full-time official commented that:

What the branch is seen as is not an industrial force but an administration force. But it equally has tagged on to it a sort of political, union political that is, sort of role (ex-ASTMS regional full-time official interview 1999).

The bargaining and representational autonomy of workplace groups continued in MSF, as described by an ex-TASS local lay leader:

[The merger] didn't make any changes because, as I say, the number of people who wanted to be stewards has always been small. As long as we covered the areas, it doesn't really matter if it was an old ASTMS rep or it was an old TASS rep. ... W e'd always got together for the Joint Trade Unions, so as a staff area we'd always acted together (ex-TASS local lay leader interview 1999).

Effectively the amalgamation consolidated and legitimised an extant situation for bargaining and representational activity. Branch autonomy complemented by independent funding also continued (Fairbrother 2000a: 45), as confirmed by an ex- ASTMS lay leader commenting that:

There hasn’t been any change whatsoever as far as that’s concerned. As far as the merger is concerned, there’s been no sort of change at all (ex-ASTMS local lay leader interview 1999).

Thus, the branches in the amalgamated union became the site for playing out the divisions encapsulated by the amalgamation.

The MSF workplace

As described in Chapter 5 the MSF workplace study was located on a large tyre manufacturer in the West Midlands. Before the amalgamation, both ASTMS and TASS had roughly equivalent memberships in the plant and the previous boundaries between their occupations and membership of one or the other union were increasingly breaking down. The employer had also gone through a long period of restructuring and massive technological change, which had visited intensive periods of job change and job losses on both ASTMS and TASS members. Against this background, the two unions had developed a joint position for bargaining, representation and recruitment in the plant involving lay leaders from both unions. Alongside the workplace, ASTMS had a branch that was based on the workplace

whereas the equivalent TASS branch covered a geographical area that included a number of other TASS organised workplaces. At the time of the study, some eleven years after the MSF amalgamation, this structure remained essentially the same.

An ex-TASS branch secretary commented that.

When the merger came along it consolidated something at national level that was already happening with us at local level. But we had the peculiarity that you were all members of one union on the same site but you were still polarised into these two branches (ex-TASS local lay leader interview 1999).

For bargaining activity, the amalgamation had removed any remaining encumbrances to joint working between the former ASTMS and TASS workplace groups. It had produced a more effective voice with the employer and a merged MSF workplace group with a considerable level of autonomy over its bargaining position (ex-TASS local lay leader interview 1999). However, there had been no equivalent merging of the former ASTMS and TASS branches. In effect the decision from the amalgamation not to rationalise workplace and branch organisation on a common basis had resulted in a well organised and effective ‘MSF’ workplace group and two branches from the former unions, neither of which had any close connection with industrial relations activity in the workplace.

It was apparent that for this workplace, rationalising the structures of the workplace group on a single MSF basis was not only a sensible simplification of what was already a high level of joint working but also a necessity in the context of grappling with continuing issues of industrial change and job losses being instigated by the employer. An ex-TASS lay leader remarked that:

We seem to go through restructuring every two or three years. Through all this process there's been constant change, the jobs we did became more the same. TASS would cross areas that were solely ASTMS; the areas of influence became blurred. Basically, we changed and evolved coincidental with the union's change and evolvement (ex-TASS local lay leader interview

1999).

This rationalisation was a process handled by lay leaders in the workplace and achieved through a history of mutual respect and joint working, and the imperative of confronting the employer with a single voice. Job change and retirement eased any

possible competition for leadership positions. An ex-TASS lay leader described the process as:

Outside of the branch activity, we worked together on the site and it worked very well. In some large departments, you'd have an ASTMS rep and a TASS rep but the company only wanted to talk to one. We got round that eventually by people leaving. Really, it was natural wastage, a senior rep would leave and you wouldn't replace him. It was fairly amicable over the years. Came out right in the end (ex-TASS local lay leader interview 1999).

However, without either the imperative of facing up to the employer or any national decision within the union over rationalising branch structures, the two branches from the partner unions continued to operate with little change from their previous practice. The same ex-TASS lay leader went on to describe the situation for the branches:

We became members of one union but the peculiarity ... was that we were still in two different branches. ASTMS had a site branch so all the branch members worked [there], whereas TASS was an open branch for all members within a certain geographical area. There was no way that they were going to agree to merge with us and become part of an open branch and we didn't really want to merge with them because we didn't agree with the way their finances were run (ex-TASS local lay leader interview 1999).

In MSF, only recognised branches had their own funds and had representation at Regional Council and Annual Conference. However, in practice there was a growing gap between the unified workplace group and the separate branches. The distancing of lay activity within the union from that experienced in the workplace was becoming a problem. Local lay leaders were extolling the benefits of a single voice with the employer and the autonomy of action they had through the single workplace group, whilst recognising the problem of influencing policy within MSF in a situation where two individual branches were recognised in the rulebook. The same ex-TASS lay leader described these difficulties as:

Workplace organisation could be improved by bringing together the branches because they are two separate groups of members even though they work together. It would give members a sense of being one group and that would improve the workplace organisation (ex-TASS local lay leader interview 1999).

Full-time officials at national and regional level also recognised the problem. An explanation for it, advanced by an ex-ASTMS national full-time official, was that the initial division into two sections led to a concentration on issues of internal democracy and representation in the early form ative period, whilst structures in workplaces were allowed to develop of their own volition. This official commented that:

The structures went apart, democratic and workplace organisation. I think it is largely the result of decisions taken and the concentration on political issues and the democratic part of the structure. The industrial structures were part of the industrial work and left to develop themselves (ex-ASTMS national full­ time official interview 1999).

At the workplace, via the workplace group and the two branches, MSF was shaped as a ‘member-led’ union for negotiation and a disembodied branch for representation within the union. In this way, a ‘member-led’ basis for representation was laid, to be formally realised some time in the future.

The Wider Union

The role played by full-time officials in the post-amalgamation period, particularly at