Glencroft women solid

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with Polish Solidarity's reduced overtime, increased SOCHAST FOR six weeks now, 15 women workers sacked from the Glencroft Knitwear firm in Glasgow have been picketing the firm's premises every weekday from 7.30 am to 5 pm.

The dispute began when their boss, Leon Newman, refused to i meet the women in connection with the sacking of their supervisor on the grounds that he did not recognise the union. The women walked out and Newman sacked the lot of them.

The women are demanding their reinstatement and recognition of the union to which they belong, the National Union of Hosiery and Knitwear Workers. But as yet Newman, who clearly fancies himself as Glasgow's answer to George Ward of Grunwick infamy, shows no sign of budging.

Victorian Glencroft Knitwear is a sweat-shop run by a tinpot dictator. The discipline which Newman tries to impose on the workforce is reminiscent of a Victorian workhouse, and so too are the rates of pay: many of the women are lucky to clear £50 a week.

In the last week Newman has called in the police for help in trying to beat the strike. Although in general a rather dull-witted individual, he displays remarkably fertile imagination when it comes to inventing crimes (obstruction, breach of the peace, assault, to name but a few) which the pickets have allegedly committed and for which they should therefore be arrested.

Excuse But not even the Glasgow police have been able to find an excuse for arresting any of the women, although the heavy presence they periodically display on the picket lines, especially at clocking on and off times, is an obvious encouargement to the scabs and an attempt to intimidate the pickets.

Police have also harassed supporters on the picket line, threatening them with arrest unless they 'move along'. And Newman himself has helped out in trying to intimidate the pickets by appearing one afternoon with a camera and photographing everyone on the picket line.

The six weeks of picketing have had an impact on supplies to the firm but not on the 40-odd scabs who daily cross and shout abuse at the picket line. They have torn up leaflets appealing for their support and countered the impact of picketing on deliveries by picking , up supplies of thread, buttons, etc., themselves.

Official

The union has made the strike official and is paying strike pay. Union officials have regularly turned up to the picket lines and are also trying to get Glencroft products blacked by TGWU workers at the airport (most Glencroft products are for export).

But the union has dropped any attempt to get Glencroft products blacked by workers at the washing plant they go to before being ready for sale. Management at the plant has said that they would have to make workers redundant through lack of work if the Glencroft products were blacked.

The union has therefore withdrawn the appeal for blacking. But the logic behind this retreat is a logic which means that workers would never strike, since management always warns about "redundancies' or "closure' whenever the strike is in the offing.

The STUC has mailed its affiliated organisations about the dispute. But the mailing explains nothing and calls for even less. The STUC letter, signed by Jimmy Milne, merely states his "hope that you can extend to the NUHKW workers the normal support given in such circumstances"

The accompanying letter from the NUHKW says no more than that "members of my union are engaged in a dispute with Glencroft Knitwear" , that "the dispute nas been declared official" • and that "I would be most grateful if this letter could be distributed to unions affiliated to the STUC."

"Normal"

Hardly the kind

correspondence to whip up support for the stril throughout the Scot sh labour movement. And "normal support" means the kind of support given to the Lee Jeans occupation by the STUC, then the Glencroft women would probably be better off without it.

Ignored

But members of other unions are already taking steps in support of the women. SOGAT members are trying to get Newman's adverts for scab labour in the local papers blacked, and NUJ members are trying to get reports about the strike into the Glasgow press, which has ignored it completely.

The dispute was due to be brought up at an ACAS tribunal on September 2, but was in fact never disWORKERS at Bridgeport Textiles, Leicester, are beginning to refuse overtime in response to 150 redundancies in the last three months and a threat to 220 other jobs.

The Leicester factory is one of the biggest milling machine producers in Britain, along with another in Bridlington.

The AUEW plant convenor has signed forms to ask the Government for three day week working to save jobs. A previous move avoided 90 redundancies, but this must be the wrong tactics.

Aiding

While most sections are working the normal five days cussed. Newman's lawyer brought up a technicality about procedure which resulted in the case being postponed for another month at least.

And even if the tribunal were to find in favour of the 15 women, it has no powers to force Newman to take them back on.

So the dispute looks like being a long drawn-out one, which makes active support more essential than ever, especially in terms of building physical support for the picket lines so as to start making an impact on the scabs.

Donations to/collection sheets from: Glencroft Knitwear Dispute, c/o NUHKW, 44 Kelvingrove St., Glasgow G3 7RZ.

* An overtime ban, * Work-sharing with loss of pay * Continuous production to build stocks to meet deadlines.

A parallel was drawn Advertisement

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orders, rather than order-by- order production to meet