The Peugeot bosses’ decision to close Ryton was signalled last year when they sacked 900 workers here. Now they are trying to increase their profits by shifting production to eastern Europe.

If their plans go ahead, it will mean the loss of 2,300 jobs at Ryton itself as well as many more at suppliers: over 250 firms in the UK could be affected. Rumours of redundancies remain just that: rumours. The danger is that, if Peugeot get away with their cut-and-run plan, workers at Ryton, like those last year at Longbridge, will be left high and dry.

The closure of the plant and the loss of jobs are not inevitable. But the only way to avoid this fate is to learn from the recent success of the French unions in forcing their government to take a u-turn in its attack on job security, through militant industrial action and mobilising community support. It’s great that French Peugeot workers immediately offered their solidarity – our job is to give them a fight to support!

OCCUPY THE PLANT!
The only way to stop the closure, to foil any management tricks is to occupy the factory: and sit-in! At once, not just the bosses but Blair and his ministers too will be faced with a new situation: no business as usual as they set about selling our jobs. We can seize the initiative (and millions of pounds worth of machinery!)

French workers turned the tables on their government, forcing them into an embarrassing policy u-turn. So can we.

An occupation of the plant would mean Peugeot no longer controlled the production line. It would immediately provide a rallying point to all workers threatened by redundancy, or who are being pressured to take lower pay or conditions and told the alternative is to lose their jobs.

An immediate strike and occupation would also act as a rallying cry to Peugeot workers in France, Madrid and internationally. It would show British workers as deadly serious about saving their jobs and make our demand for solidarity action much easier.

HAMMER OUT A PLAN OF ACTION
Some union leaders have been calling for industrial action to protest at the plan to close Ryton. Des Quinn, T&G, has pledged to fight the closure “with every means necessary”. In another statement he says initially it needs “a social and political campaign which might involve disruption to car sales or Peugeot’s operations”. There has even been talk about asking Peugeot workers in France to take action in protest – if the closure of Ryton goes ahead, they will be next in line.

But the nettle needs to be grasped now. Militant working class action in defence of jobs needs to be organised right away in order to bring the sort of pressure to bear which can force the government to keep Ryton working. This means we need to be sure about two things: one, that the solution we demand will secure jobs and incomes; two, that the action Ryton carworkers, their families, friends and supporters take is sufficient to win.

Unfortunately, both Derek Simpson and Tony Woodley of Amicus and the T&G have failed recently to provide such leadership. Limiting the campaign to public demos and looking for another capitalist buyer did not save Longbridge. Dragging out limited strike action and delaying ballots did not stop Rolls Royce in Filton sacking its Amicus convenor, despite offers of solidarity action from Derby.

Workers Power urges Ryton workers to democratically hammer out an action plan to secure all the jobs and future production. In the process, we believe that those, who initially doubt our ability to keep the plant open and signal some resignation to fate, can be won round. But rank and file control of the dispute is vital to achieve this.

FOR A COVENTRY-WIDE COUNCIL OF ACTION
As part of this approach, they will need to organise the groundswell of support – and disgust at the bosses – that undoubtedly exists in the city. Today, it is the Peugeot workers at the sharp end. Thousands of jobs supplying the car industry are next. While we live under a system that puts profit before people, all workers are under threat.

Peugeot stewards should call together workers from all over Coventry to plan a campaign of action to stop the closure. A Coventry-wide Council of Action could be crucial in delivering solidarity to the threatened workers and in starting a real fight back.

NATIONALISE PEUGEOT
Ryton can be kept open. But that can only happen if the plant is nationalised. Of course, everyone knows that, under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, the Labour government has never acted to act to save jobs in this way. But they have never faced a workforce united and determined to force them to do it. Union leaders have swallowed Blair’s lies that there is no alternative to finding other corporate buyers or grants for retraining.

The global search for ever cheaper workforces can be removed if we all act together. Car workers in France and Slovakia are our allies in the fight for decent wages and secure jobs, not our competitors to produce bigger profits for the bosses.

Nationalisation should be carried out under workers’ control. No compensation should be offered to Peugeot, who made 90 million euros in profits from Ryton workers last year alone. But it must not become a short-term measure simply to restore profitability by slashing the workforce and intensifying the work. We saw that sort of nationalisation in the 1970s and it didn’t work.

This time, nationalisation must mean that the workers can control – or veto – all decisions over pay, conditions, hiring and firing. It can be the launchpad for real social ownership, not only in one factory, one industry one country but spreading to create an economy that meets peoples’ needs, not the private greed of a few billionaires: i.e. socialism.