Print workers sit-in to save jobs

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THE workers at Barnes Cheetham Hill, in North Manchester, have occupied their factory in an attempt to save 236 jobs.Barnes manufactures plastic wrappings and containers and is part of the multinational Smurfit group:

Alan Grounds, FoC of the NGA chapel, explains the background to the sit-in. «Earlier this year management came to us with a "revival package" which included productivity measures, staggered meal breaks and 40 redundancies.

This was supposed to keep the firm going for at least the next 12 months, so the unions reluctantly accepted the proposals.

Imagine how we felt when the management came back to us in April demanding even more redundancies throughout the plant, wage cuts and demanning, this time as part of a so-called "survival plan'.

Funnily enough, investment on the part of the company never figured in either of the redundancy packages. As these new proposals meant breaking natiónal agreements there were three months protracted negotiations, but it became incresingly obvious that management wanted Barnes Flexible Packaging to close altogether. In fact we received our redundancy notices even before talks finally broke down.

On August 28 the factory was taken over by all the unions involved - NGA, SOGAT, EETPU and AUEW. Since then we have kept up a 24 hour presence. NGA and SOGAT have made the sit-in official. Now we are very strong and we hold mass meetings every Friday and support from other factories and unions coming in now.

Profits So far there has been no attempt to get us out or move plant, stock or machinery, but obviously we are waiting for them to try.

We are intent on saving our jobs. Smurfit is a multinational corporation making huge profits and this particular firm had £1¼ million of orders at the time of closure.

If we take this lying down it will have repurcussions throughout the Smurfit group."

Another worker picket duty said:

"It's ridiculous closing down this factory when there's £1¼ million worth of orders on the books. It's a case of divide and rule. They will use us as an example to clobber other Smurfit factories who try and fight back. They'll say 'look what happened at Barnes's. They lost all their jobs so you'd better agree to these proposals for your own good.' In that way they can force redundancies and wage cuts on them."

Another picket said:

"I feel so bitter when we agreed to what they wanted at first and then they came back and kicked us in the teeth. Whole families have got the sack. Most of us have been here for 10-20 years."

"We'll stand and fight until we've saved our jobs. The more of us that's on the dole, the more it drives wages down. That's what Thatcher's up to."• Donations. and messages of support to: Len Hughes, 163 Argyl Street, Heywood, Lancs.