union approval

[SprintMWU773V]

Speaking to my dad the other day and he told me he's been invited on a trip to the Peugeot factory in Coventry. As I sell the nasty little french cars for a living he asked if i'd ever been there, which I have and recommended that he went on the trip. He then told me he's visited Cowley in the early 70's.<br>
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My grandfather had organised a trip there and my Dad was there as a minder for the school kids. What he described shouldn't have come as a great shock but nevertheless got me thinking if anyone else had been to any BL factories in the dark times?<br>
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He described how all the members of production staff effectively had a "spare mate" sitting behind them doing nothing. Seems a little odd. He also described how at the end of the Marina production line cars came off and seemed to be labled scrap and it wasn't just 1 or 2 cars but 10's.<br>
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What really amused me though was how he decribed the events that followed the school party visiting one part of the factory. Now it wasn't a top secret room or anything like that but it would seem the party nearly caused a production stoppage because they had entered the room (guided of course) without "Union Approval". They were all hustled into another room whilst the situation was calmed down.<br>
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Of course this would seem unthinkable today. Anyone had similar experiences?

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[KLJ895W]

I went round Cowley in 1989 when they were making 800s there. While they didn't exactly look rushed off their feet, it looked pretty normal to me. <br>
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I used to work in an aluminium plate factory. On the rolling mill a big billet would come out of the soaking oven and enter the mill. It took about ten minutes of rolling backwards and forwards to get to the approximate thickness required. After the final pass, things would go quiet, at which point a bloke near the mill who had been reading his paper would get up and measure the thickness with a big micrometer. He would signal up to the mill operator whether it was right or needed more rolling. If it was right, the plate would pass on to the next stage in production and he would resume reading his paper while another billet was taken out of the oven and rolled. Must have done about 30 seconds work every 10 minutes!<br>
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David

<p><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.triumphowners.com/570" target="top">1980 Sprint</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br>
<!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.triumphowners.com/569" target="top">1980 1850HL with Sprint gearbox, propshaft and axle</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br>
1972 VW Camper Van</p><i></i>

[george]

i was there in the seventies on one of the many factory courses was on the first for the introduction for the sd1 we had a walk around and sitting in the corner <br>
as yet unused the 2.600/2.300 eng we wern't suposed to have sight of them it was the same line used for dolomites they did runs of the sd1 /dolly models<br>
they looked realy stressed out <!--EZCODE EMOTICON START :lol --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/intl/aenglish/im ... /laugh.gif ALT=":lol"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END-->

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