Failure

In this source Lord Rootes describes the problems which faced the car factory at Linwood, as seen by the managers. Reasons for failure, he reckons, were the need to train workers in new ways of work on car production lines, quite different from what they were used to in the shipyards and engineering works, and the fact that parts had to be supplied from hundreds of miles away. He agrees that the smooth running of the car production lines was affected by difficult trades unions, but rejects the accusation that the very fabric of Linwood was riddled with industrial disputes.

BBC Radio 'The Linwood story.' Broadcast 1981

Lord Rootes

"I don't think I would go as far as that. I think one had to deal with a large multiplicity of unions and that is one of the problems. At least in excess of a dozen unions and some of them of course were infiltrated by rather extreme elements, and undoubtedly, a lot of interruptions to production for comparatively petty reasons. And the motor industry above all others depends on a smooth and continuous flow of production and that was one of the things which undermined the economics of the operation."