Derek Robinson ("Red Robbo")
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Derek Robinson, known popularly as Red Robbo, was a well known Trade Union spokesman and shop steward within the British Leyland (BL) company for much of the 1970s.
BL itself was the result of a series of mergers between a multitude of different British automobile manufacturers. However, the resulting company, the British Leyland Motor Corporation (BLMC), proved to be an unmanageable behemoth, crippled by ineffectual management and product duplication.
Robinson, as union convener of the Longbridge plant in Birmingham, had become the most powerful shop steward on the British shop floor. With his network of representatives in the 42 different BL plants around the country, he led a long running campaign of strikes around the BL empire which were supposedly in protest at the apparent mismanagement which was driving the company to the brink of financial ruin.
It became apparent that Robinson's actions were in fact eroding Britain's state-owned motor industry's chances of survival (in 1975, BL went bankrupt and was nationalised by the Government). From 1977 the new managing director, Sir Michael Edwardes, made it his business to end the strikes and turn the ailing company around. Robinson was being turned into a hate figure by the tabloid press, who dubbed him "Red Robbo" - a nickname which reflected his communist style of leadership. According to the BBC, "between 1978 and 1979 Mr Robinson was credited with causing 523 walk-outs at Longbridge, costing an estimated £200m in lost production". Robinson was eventually sacked by BL for putting his name to a pamphlet that criticised the inept management in November 1979. A ballot on a strike in sympathy of the dismissal went 14,000 to 600 against.
