Air India pickets begin to bite

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OVER Air Inc cave.

the lek int Cfe Lane, privike On Monday 16th over 100 strikers, along with workers from other airlines and the Indian Workers Association, marched from Hyde Park Corner to the Indian High Commission ast Monday (16th) to esent a letter of protest.

The workers are on for basic union Their demand is that the manageof Air India agreements it ady made. l. Air attempted to rosters without the union -ar. agreemeri they had signed few days previously:

When Alroy de Silva was sacked on July. 2, over 100 workers who had bee. un an overtime ban and work to rule came out on strike. Management then sacked 91 of the strikers.

Donation

Donations and messages of support should be sent to TGWU Air India branch 1/1305, c/o Transport House. 7-9 South Road. Southall. Middlesex. called on other sections of council workers to tune selective action [supported by a general levy] in solidarity with the NUPE strikers.

Latest issue of Polish Solidarity Campaign News - articles on resistance in Poland and solidarity in Britain and abroad.

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Soçialist Organiser no. 97 August 26 1982 Page 15 understand...

Susan Carlyle reports from the London Hospital workers' occupation of the admin block Pickets at tire London Hospital - determined to win reinstatement for framed-up shop steward Phil McEntee. (Photo: Morning Star)

Management have sacked Phil McEntee, a NUPE steward at the London Hospital, Whitechapel. He was suspended on August 12 and accused of fraudulently altering a control sheet Isee last week's Socialist Organiser).

After last Tuesday's vote for all out action with no emergency cover, the strike was solid with all but a handful of NUPE members out and with picketing during the day.

On Thursday 19th, a mass meeting moved to occupy the hospital administration block, forcing management to come to a decision on Phil's case.

Management had been delaying the decision, hoping that the strike would weaken. But the occupation forced a decision - they sacked Phil.

Join The stated grounds for his dismissal were that he and his trade union representative had refused to attend a second disciplinary. hearing with management to consider 'new evidence' - a typewritten, unsigned statement from an anonymous patient which, management claimed, showed that Phil had been absent from work at some time during the afternoon of May 4th.

Only management have seen this supposedly conclusive 'evidence' But management weren't even very sure about this - FOR shaky piece of evidence. In their dismissal letter to Phil they claim that the patient concerned had attended the second disciplinary hearing -which Phil had refused to attend.

But then, three days later, Kerr, the hospital administrator, admitted at an ASTMS meeting calied to discuss • Phil's case: 'The patient's recollection was hazy and didn't prove one thing or another. So much for the patient's statement!

NUPE have been attempting to spread the action to other sections of the hospital workforce. ASTMS in the computing department agreed not to cross NUPE picket lines and then on Monday 23rd voted 20-3 for a two-day strike.

The works department have voted for financial support. NUPE nurses are organising tor support and neighbouring hospitals have mass meetings planned. Local Labour Party members have helped on the picket line and have provided a megaphone.

Sympathy action will be very important to win the strike. Management have been sending out nurses in uniform to persuade lorry drivers who have agreed not to cross the picket line to offload across the road so that administration officers and nurses can carry the goods through the picket Management argue that all supplies are emergencies, which is clearly absurd. The TGWU must instruct its members not to offload to help management break the picket.

At the end of last week, management sent a letter to all the strikers, appealing to them to return to work. But a mass meeting on Monday wasn't swayed by management's pleading. There was a clear vote to continue the action.

HOSPITAL OOR OF CAL As Phil McEntee told the meeting: 'It isn't just for me that you've voted to strike, it's for everyone. The management have plans to reduce workers' jobs in this hospital - 19 in the laundry and 100 in household. You won't have a union left to defend you. You're voting for yourselves.' There is a call among the workforce for an indepenand Will Adams dent inquiry into the sacking. But management's behavi r to date has shown that they have little interest in the facts of the case - the way they have changed the charges and the evidence show this. What will win Phil McEntee 's reinstatement is strengthening of the strike with tighter picketing and a spreading of the strike to other sections and other hospitals. "TT 'We'll tell them we won't shift until we get an answer'. The proposal at the London Hospital mass meeting to occupy the administration block came from a group of women workers.

So we set off. The administrater came out shaking and said he would not give an answer until we all left.

Silence. Then two men said: 'Oh well, we'll go out' and started signalling the women out.

Before the wavering could spread though, woman spoke up. 'We're not going'. Arguments broke out. The men could not understand why the women were so determined to stay. But stay we did -for two hours.

Women started to talk about their experiences in work:

'When you go into management, they treat you really badly. They think you must be soft in the head or something to be even doing this job.

They don't seem to realise it's a job we've got to do. They consider all of us stupid to be doing cleaning and have no idea that we have no other choices. We do a job that fits in with what we have to do outside of work - looking after our homes, seeing to the family.

What else can women like us do?. We need the men money. Many of us are on our own.' "These administrators don't know what it's like to live like that. They live in other parts of London. They treat us like dirt.

One of them, she doesn't even acknowledge your presence - not a nod or a word from one year to the next. She doesn't even go through the motions of being pleasant to you.' And there were more arguments.

'I'm going to go. What's the point in staying. I'm not going to get any money for this. My husband's money won't cover this.' 'You've got a husband! I've got four children. Some of us don't have a husband bringing in a wage. If I can stay, you can too.' I've only, got a couple of years to go.

'It's easy for you to say that. I'm staying with the union.' 'Well all right. I'll stay.' Finally we got the letter confirming Phil McEntee's sacking. We left, voting to continue the strike and raise support in neighbouring hospitals.

'If we don't fight now, we won't have a union next year' Send messages of support, donations etc. to London Hospital NUPE Branch, c/o THAP Books, Whitechapel, London.

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