[This fight against closure can be won, with…]
Socialist Organiser1981 1981-11-26Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 15 →
Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: expect misread words, and now and then a caption or a line from a neighbouring story. For anything you quote, read the scan.
Scan page 15
This fight against closure can be won, with massive support from the labour movement.
Regular Build the mass picket. Get regular contingents from your trade union branch, Labour Party; or the day before the lock-out of the engineers, soon found ALL 650 TGWU production workers at Dunlop Polymer Engineering in Leicester have gone on indefinite strike in defence of a colleague sacked for alleged industrial misconduct. Pickets have been out on all gates, but office workers and staff are not being prevented from going in.
Freddy Martin, works branch secretary, has told the Leicester Mercury that the sacking is essentially a secondary issue, and that what is wanted is a discipl inary appeals procedure acceptable to both sides. ager who dismisses a work- At the moment, a maner can also hear the appeal. Further, the company is not prepared to suspend or reinstate.
The union has decided to fight this procedure, and so far management show no sign of giving way.
Forefront Throughout the engineering industry as a whole, BL is again in the forefront of the employers' offensive.
The Financial Times of 16 November says:
"Talks between National Officials of the Confed and the Engineering Employers Federation in the past week have brought agreement that the 50-100 engineering companies which intend to offset the one hour reduction mainly by cutting down rest periods will not bring in such cuts without agreement from local union officials."
How long that situation would last if the BL bosses break the Longbridge strike doesn't take much guessing.
So all engineering workers and certainly all BL workers must give the Longbridge strikers maximum support. Immediately we must:
*Spread the action to the rest of Longbridge.
*Push for other BL plants to come out as well.
*No secret deals.
*For an elected strike committee accountable to mass meetings of all strikers to control negotiations.