Indeed it almost looks like Corsas, Combos and Vectras had a salmon pink colour option! British Leyland's Truck and Tractor Plant, Bathgate, 1980. "These words are a suitable epithet for a stalwart of the trade union movement, whose passing we mourn.". Leyland Dozers Sacked. British Leyland was an automotive engineering and manufacturing conglomerate formed in the United Kingdom in 1968 asBritish Leyland Motor Corporation Ltd . The former British Leyland worker and trade unionist Derek Robinson has died, aged 90. See thats the part that confuses me. Had a nice blue pearlescent paint that never matched properly, sold it with the bodged paintwork at a loss. This support saved brands such as Jaguar, Land Rover and Mini from . After a tip-off by the News of the World newspaper, senior managers the previous week carried out a surprise inspection of the night shift in a paint priming shop. Only three men, none of them Mr Yates, had gone to the clocking point before 6.45 am, the end of the shift. Robinson was born in Cradley Heath, near Birmingham, in 1927, to a family of chainmakers. A further confrontation with the Transport and General Workers Union over BLs imposition of new working practices in April saw market share slump further to 13 per centin June 1980. 2023 BBC. Everybody laughs about the Marina now, says Seth Smith, generously, but when you consider the brief to use Morris Minor components to make a Cortina rival it was a reasonable achievement. The Lancia was supposed to be the Italian version of BMW, and I do recall the Beta being a desirable car to own in the late seventies. Mr Robinson led the fight back, organising hundreds of disputes. The tabloid paid the equivalent of 75,000 to buy letters which not only . Family Cottage near Leyland, Lancashire. The size, militancy and determination felt on the pickets, demos and rallies show that the sleeping giant, the British working class, has stirred. Salary: 24,000 - 28,000 per annum including sleep-in allowance. Where can you get cheap classic car insurance? Similar incidents had occurred before and appropriate action had been taken. From Our Correspondent Birmingham. Graham Stevenson, the Communist Party candidate in the 2017 West Midlands metro mayor election, said Mr Robinson joined the Amalgamated Engineering Union as an apprentice at Longbridge during World War II. It was a merger promoted by the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation set up by the 1964-70 Labour government of Harold Wilson. Yesterday they faced a disciplinary hearing. The story first hit the headlines on 12 November 1979 when it was revealed that 14 night shift workers had been caught sleeping at a British Leyland plant. A spokesman said that they would consider taking action against anyone found dozing at work. When Leylands successor, Rover, was subsequently sold off to BMW, Robinson told a group of MPs at a meeting in Birmingham during March 2000 I can sleep sound at night because I never betrayed the workers I was elected to represent. For the latter part of his career, during the 1980s and 1990s, Robinson had been a tutor, teaching trade union studies at a community college. 1983 Cowley Moles. When former Triumph and Leyland Special Tuning man Richard Seth Smith arrives, proffering a rare Rover SD1 press pack, all concerned nod sagely at the suggestion that this was yet another brilliantly conceived but indifferently executed car. Ray Horrocks (right), the head of BL Cars, told Chairman Michael Edwardes: We talk of regaining management control and applying proper discipline. He was accessible to all, cogent and a listener! He was a lovely guy, recalls Greenhill, when you werent in a meeting with him. Was he a communist infiltrator? Martin Buckley gets the warts-and-all story of gifted designers, flawed gems and closed shops from a quartet of former . Video, Record numbers of guide dog volunteers after BBC story, Prince Andrew offered Frogmore Cottage - reports, Ed Sheeran says wife developed tumour in pregnancy, Man survives 31 days in jungle by eating worms, China and Belarus call for peace in Ukraine, Bieber cancels remaining Justice world tour dates, Kobe Bryant widow wins $29m settlement from LA, Trump lashes out at Murdoch over vote fraud case. Whether or not unions in the UK took industrial action more than unions in Europe and North America is a moot point, much of the rubbish produced by the NoW, Daily Mail etc is treated as if it was historical fact nowdays where it should be regarded as propaganda. Currently he owns a Jaguar and two classic Minis. Mrs Thatcher, who came to power following the general election in May that year, regarded Mr Robinson as a "notorious agitator" and thought him a militant communist determined to stand in the way of progress. For Mr Stevenson, the dismissal of Red Robbo was "the first shot in the war that Thatcher began against working people and their families". The men were found tucked up in sleeping bags when management swooped on the priming shop at the Range Rover plant in Solihull, near Birmingham. ( Somehow an orchestra trying to perform a punk record would be comical). As shop steward at British Leyland in Longbridge, Birmingham, he was involved in a series of strikes and walkouts over alleged mismanagement. It was about two oclock in the afternoon. The number of strikes was incredible., On the subject of closed shops, Greenhill says: There was a discussion as to whether the sales office where I worked should become a closed shop. Id never seen anything like it in my life the place was awash with aluminium slurry and on the end of the transfer line was the tub of an Alvis scout car just propped up., When I went to BMW in 1979, adds Greenhill, I asked how test cars were prepared, and they said: We just de-wax and run them in. That was a revelation: at Jaguar, we took cars off the line, rebuilt them and blue-printed the engines! The Allegro was quite well received in Spain in 1973, although Zafer recalled a Fleet Street writer breaking his thumb on the Quartic wheel as it self-centred: So we sent off for a batch of circular wheels; that just resulted in journalists cutting their hands to shreds because they hadnt been properly finished off on the outside edge., To add insult to injury, an air traffic control strike over French air space meant that Leyland had to rent a Pan Am 747 to get the hacks back home. Robinson was involved in some 500 walkouts at the British Leyland plant in Longbridge, Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in, Please refresh your browser to be logged in, Fats Domino: rock n roll legend who faced down Hurricane Katrina, Dennis Banks: founder of the American Indian Movement, Jane Juska: memoirist who broke taboo of older women having sex, Paul Weitz: Nasa Skylab and space shuttle astronaut, Derek Robinson: Giant of the trades union movement in the Seventies, Extra 20% off selected fashion and sportswear at Very, Up to 20% off & extra perks with Booking.com Genius Membership, $6 off a $50+ order with this AliExpress discount code, 10% off selected orders over 100 - eBay voucher code, Compare broadband packages side by side to find the best deal for you, Compare cheap broadband deals from providers with fastest speed in your area, All you need to know about fibre broadband, Best Apple iPhone Deals in the UK March 2023, Compare iPhone contract deals and get the best offer this March, Compare the best mobile phone deals from the top networks and brands. 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Rugeley man apprehended with crack and heroin in Staffordshire town, Human error to blame for deadly train crash, says Greek PM, At the crash site of 'no hope' - BBC reporter in Greece. document.getElementById("ak_js_1").setAttribute("value",(new Date()).getTime()); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. As a young man, his first job was selling the newly launched Maestro at a BL dealership in his native Cumbria. The former British Leyland worker and trade unionist Derek Robinson has died, aged 90. VideoRecord numbers of guide dog volunteers after BBC story. This was after he opposed Edwardes' plant closure plans in a pamphlet published on the authority of the combine committee. The response was:Theyve been doing it for years., Wed been establishing targets, establishing line rates and achieving 60 per cent of the target, which meant that the track stopped for 40 per cent of the day. Even today, there are certain professions where . But taking a bed to work was a deliberate act of anticipation.. By the winter of 1979, as 1.5 million public sector workers were on strike across the UK, the Labour government was in its final throes. The men at Drews Lane had worked to rule for several weeks in protest at management attempts to stop them leaving early. Robinson was not reinstated. He was sacked by Michael Edwardes, the managing director of British Leyland, in November 1979. But if the SD1 receives a vote of confidence, what about the great unmentionables the likes of the Allegro, Marina and Princess? Yet surely using cheap steel on what was classed as an upmarket product was a big mistake and the Lancia joined the lesser Fiat Strada on the list of cars to avoid due to premature rust. Union convenor Derek Robinson had been dismissed months earlier by British Leyland's chairman Michael Edwardes. Kearsley has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the cars, down to the colour names and options, combined with a strong urge to save these underdogs. British Leyland was an automotive engineering and manufacturing conglomerate formed in the United Kingdom in 1968 as British Leyland Motor . Musgrovemay well have beenreferring to the Drews Lane plant in Birmingham. Security officers kept watch from behind an extractor fan in a paint shop from where they could see a clocking point. Five minutes afterwards Mr Yates came out. Derek "Red Robbo" Robinson, who has died aged 90, was the firebrand British Leyland workers' representative whose sacking in November 1979 came to symbolise Margaret Thatcher's . Unite general secretary Len McCluskey said: "History will show that Derek was unfairly maligned by the media as he aimed to find solutions to British Leyland's industrial disputes and turn around the car company. Elon Musk sacks 200 MORE Twitter staff - including top lieutenant who boasted about sleeping in her office to commit to billionaire's new 'hardcore' work culture - before posting cryptic tweet The paint turned dull and flat quite quickly. On unveiling day, the company boasted, 100,000 Britons packed into showrooms to see the car and placed orders worth . I am worried sick." The case against me was brought following publicity and not on the facts.. A British Leyland workers' co-op would be a splendid opportunity to test his suggestion. On 10 January 1980 night-shift workers were given a wake-up warning by British Leyland management. 9 January 1980. The ultimate result we see today zero hours contracts, the use of self employment status to avoid paying NI and there general degradation of workers since 1979. Stories from those at the coalface. The odd 1m going missing (I would have paid money to see the auditors face when they found that little gem), contractors doing nothing for weeks at 100 a day because the bloke who set the administration lock password buggered off for sunnier climes without telling anyone what it was. However, someone should have really gone at Lyons (head of Jag) and put him firmly in his place. The great BL adventure started promisingly, as Tim Greenhill points out: When I began as an apprentice, the 1100/1300 had 15% of the UK market and BMC overall had 30%: when it joined Leyland, Rover and Jaguar, it had 60%!, In fact, there was never a problem selling Rovers, Jaguars or Triumphs, which didnt have the image problems of the more strategically important family models. Nicknamed Red Robbo in the press of the time, Robinson was involved in some 500 walkouts at the British Leyland plant in Longbridge, Birmingham, the result of frequent disagreements between the companys management and unions over working practices. Ultimately it meant most of the industry disappeared as merchant shipbuilding went abroad and the few yards that survive now only do so because of defence contracts. Not just the NHS government in general! DAILY MIRROR. Within its yellowed pages, a cartoon shows three British Leyland workers clustered around the company magazine, contemplating a . The result has been the opposition of senior stewards to the toolmakers' strike earlier this year, and the fiascos of the April 20 strike against the Social Contract and the Longbridge strike vote in August 1977. History will show that Derek was unfairly maligned by the media as he aimed to find solutions to British Leylands industrial disputes and turn around the car company., Derek Robinson, trade union leader, born 1927, died 31 October 2017, Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies. Martin Buckley gets the warts-and-all story of gifted designers, flawed gems and closed shops from a quartet of former colleagues. It was at Longbridge that he joined the Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU) and rose to become elected as a shop steward, shortly after completing his apprenticeship. British Leyland, Britain's largest automaker, faced bankruptcy in 1975. Exterior view of British Leyland Strandard Triumph works entrance and gatehouse at Canley, Coventry . There is a long-standing tradition known as stint and finish. Job Type: Permanent, Full-Time. Mr Robinson was elected shop steward soon after the end of his apprenticeship and by the late 1940s was a member of the Communist Party "in which he remained for the rest of his life", Mr Stevenson said. Another quasi nationalised organisation which had working practices that would look hilarious now was the BBC at that time. He was in charge of 32 men on the night shift who were dismissed, disciplined, or 'who resigned rather than be dismissed. Mr Robinson, one of the most famous trade unionists of the 1970s, was dubbed Red Robbo by the media. After two days of disciplinary hearings and appeals, BL dismissed 13 Land Rover car workers, who had been caught sleeping on the night shift. Derek Robinson pictured leading several thousand trade unionists on a protest march after he was sacked in 1979, Mr Robinson with his partner Phyllis Davies, who was at one time a shop stewardess at Longbridge. We are looking for a Children's Residential Support Worker to join an outstanding Children's Home. One of the most notorious trade unionists in recent memory has died aged 90. Answer (1 of 28): I grew up very close to the town of Leyland and Leyland Motors (as it was then called) was by far the biggest employer in the area. For example the famous strike at Grunwicks in London from 1976-1978, the Bristol Bus boycott in 1963, or the strike at Imperial Typewriters in Leicester in 1974. The company remained a ward of the state for 13 years. Where can you get quick classic car insurance quotes? Absenteeism is simply defined as an individual's frequent pattern of evasion from an obligation or duty. Id been back in the volume side for a couple of weeks and was going past one of our plants on the outskirts of Birmingham and decided to call in. Formerly a convenor and shop steward within car manufacturer British Leyland for much of the 1970s, he was commonly known as " Red Robbo " in the British press. Its just a shame that for a lot of the 70s they were rightly derided for their quality. 3. The general secretary of Unite, Len McCluskey, said: Derek Robinson was a dedicated lifelong trade unionist who fought, as convenor, for the rights and future of the then British Leyland workforce at the Longbridge plant in Birmingham during the 1970s. Bits of hardware still running off BBC B computers..! The men said that, under BLs Measured Day Work system of payment, they were entitled to leave as soon as they had completed their output target for the day. A little later, through a window, he saw two men, naked from the waist up. In November of that year BL sacked Robinson for supporting the pamphlet titled A Trade Union Response to the Edwardes Plan, which criticised the plans proposals and the companys management. 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