[THE strike by Air India their immediate employer…]
Socialist Organiser1982 1982-10-14Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 15 →
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THE strike by Air India their immediate employer. workers at New Bond Street The TGWU won't be swayed and Heathrow Airport nas TT received support from British Airways workers at the airport. BA engineers have agreed to black work on Air India planes. And BA staff have stopped Air India's attempts to link into Travicom, the computerised reservation system iun by BA. This is important since Air India's own reservation system is not functioning because of the strike.
The regional director of Air India has written to Moss Evans, threatening to sue the TGWU, the strikers' union.
He claims there is no dispute and that the siogans on the pickets' placards are detrimental to Air India's business, There seems to be little chance of ' the actions succeeding - the workers are picketing their own place of work over a dispute with THE struggle at Coventry's Sandhar and Kang cash and carry against redundancies and victimisation of TGWU members was continued with another picket last Saturday.
As before, the success of the picketing was reduced by the police keeping. pickets away from the entrance. Nevertheless customers were turned away.
An important development was the presence of several Birmingham S&K black workers on the picket line. This first concrete act of support from the Birmingham workers and the promise of more support next Saturday have increased the confidence the strikers and the solidarity pickets. by this feeble threat.
The deputy convenor of the shop -stewards' committee, C.B. Madhavan, left this week for India. He took with him a petition signed by British MPs and trade union leaders to the Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi asking her to intervene in the dispute (Air India is owned by the Indian government).
Questions have been asked about the dispute in both houses of the Indian parliament and there are signs that Air India management's claim that they are backed by the Indian government is false.
The strikers are picketing the Indian High Commission at Aldwych in London from am on Monday 18 October. Support would be welcome.
Aly Mir