Derek Robinson (1927–2017) was a British trade unionist. Formerly a convenor and
shop steward
A union representative, union steward, or shop steward is an employee of an organization or company who represents and defends the interests of their fellow employees as a labor union member and official. Rank-and-file members of the union hold ...
within car manufacturer
British Leyland
British Leyland was an automotive engineering and manufacturing conglomerate formed in the United Kingdom in 1968 as British Leyland Motor Corporation Ltd (BLMC), following the merger of Leyland Motors and British Motor Holdings. It was partl ...
for much of the 1970s, he was commonly known as "Red Robbo" in the British press.
Career
Robinson was born in Cradley, then in
Worcestershire
Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see H ...
and began work in the motor industry as an apprentice at the
Austin Motor Company in
Longbridge during the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
, training as a tool maker.
He soon became a member of the
Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU) and joined the
Communist Party of Great Britain in 1951.
He stood as a Communist candidate in four consecutive general elections in
Birmingham, Northfield between 1966 and 1974.
[
British Leyland was the result of a series of mergers between different British motor vehicle manufacturers. By 1975, Robinson was the union convener of the Longbridge plant in Birmingham, having worked his way up from the shop floor to serve as the deputy of the previous convenor, Dick Etheridge, a fellow member of the Communist Party.]
With his network of representatives in the 42 different Leyland plants around the country, he led a long-running campaign of strikes around the company, which he argued were in protest at mismanagement, leading 523 walkouts at Leyland's Birmingham plant during a 30-month period. In 1975, British Leyland became bankrupt and was nationalised by the Government. In 1977, a new managing director, Michael Edwardes
Sir Michael Owen Edwardes (11 October 1930 – 15 September 2019) was a British-South African business executive who held chairmanships at several companies including motor manufacturer British Leyland.
Education
Edwardes was born in Port Eli ...
, was appointed. He aimed to find a resolution to the ongoing industrial disputes and turn the company around. Robinson, for his part, supported the development of the policy of "participation", in which convenors and stewards would work together with company management.[
Robinson had seen the idea of "participation" as central both to his political aims and to making British Leyland a success, stating: "If we make Leyland successful, it will be a political victory. It will prove that ordinary working people have got the intelligence and determination to run industry".]
During the 1970s union organisation in British Leyland was split between the largely Communist Party-oriented stewards under Etheridge, and later Robinson, at Longbridge, and a smaller number of Trotskyist stewards based at the more militant Cowley plant
Plant Oxford located in Cowley, southeast Oxford, England, is a BMW car assembly facility where Mini cars are built. The plant forms the Mini production triangle along with Plant Hams Hall where engines are manufactured and Plant Swindon w ...
. Many of the individual workers, however, took a more militant line than that espoused by the CP officials. An article by Frank Hughes in ''Workers' Liberty
The Alliance for Workers' Liberty (AWL), also known as Workers' Liberty, is a Trotskyism, Trotskyist group in Britain and Australia, which has been identified with the theorist Sean Matgamna throughout its history. It publishes the newspaper ''So ...
'' suggests that Robinson, by supporting the introduction of the "measured day work" system in place of piecework
Piece work (or piecework) is any type of employment in which a worker is paid a fixed piece rate for each unit produced or action performed, regardless of time.
Context
When paying a worker, employers can use various methods and combinations of ...
and by encouraging the adoption of "participation", in fact destroyed the relationship between stewards and the shop floor and left them unable to control unofficial strikes.[
]
Relationship with the press, and sacking
The filmmaker Ken Loach
Kenneth Charles Loach (born 17 June 1936) is a British film director and screenwriter. His socially critical directing style and socialist ideals are evident in his film treatment of social issues such as poverty ('' Poor Cow'', 1967), homelessn ...
suggested that Robinson was unfairly smeared by the press of the time; contrary to their depiction of him controlling strikes at will, Loach claimed, he in fact spent much of his time attempting to prevent unofficial strikes. This viewpoint was examined by Loach in part of an (untransmitted) documentary film series, ''Questions of Leadership'' (1983).
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime ...
later described Robinson in her memoirs as a "notorious agitator". Many years later, Robinson commented "The pressures were immense but were it not for the ideological understanding that I had, I could very well have ended up with a nervous breakdown".
A 2002 BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
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had been attempting to undermine Robinson through an agent they had placed amongst his union officials; Edwardes stated that he had been "privileged to read minutes of meetings of the
joint committee of the Communist Party and our shop stewards", which had been passed to him via the Government.
Robinson was eventually sacked by BL in November 1979 for putting his name to a pamphlet that criticised the BL management, and refusing to withdraw his name from the pamphlet when asked to do so. A ballot on a proposed strike in sympathy with Robinson and against his dismissal was lost, with 14,000 votes against and only 600 in favour.