Lyons Maid us redundant

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AS THE right wing trade union officials, through block votes, put in a women's NEC section guaranteed to fight against real power for socialist women in the Labour Party, women from Lyons Maid in Liverpool stood outside and showed the bankrupt bureaucrats how to fight.

With placards saying 'Lyons Maid flavour of the month - redundancies' and 'Lyons Maid us redundant' Pickets from the factory, scheduled to close on December 3, brought their fight to Labour Party conference.

The story is by now a familiar one. Lyons Maid [owned by Allied Lyons] put a new extension on a factory in London. They now say it will be cheaper to produce in London [i.e. more profitable].

The women have been given 90 days notice. 350 permanent jobs and 150 seasonal jobs will 80. The company is 'offering' only fourteen jobs in London - and that with no guarantee of job security.

But the workers are fighting back. The trade union support locally has been good. The TGWU have been supportive 80 far.

Eunice Downs, a T&G member, said: "The Liverpool factory makes the most profits. We pulled them out of a lot of difficulty. They plead for output, and then three months later we are on 90 days' notice. Pam Miao says that, 'Relations with local management have always been good. But today is our first day's strike since 1947' This kind of manipulation by large conglomerates must be fought, and fought by the whole labour movement. The demands to open the books to the workers would soon show the truth.

Janice Thompson summed it up when she told me that, 'We have to fight. If we lose these jobs there is no chance of another job in Liverpool.' The message from the women was loud and clear. That will fioht and ther «MEJ тал лівии ами кобу: won't accept a sell-out. Lyone Maid are in for a long