Esso strikers seek 7%

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OVER 2,500 sub-contract workers at the giant Esso (Fawley) oil refinery, Southampton, walked off the job on September 5 after an early mass meeting had decisively backed a call for strike action.

The strikers are demanding a seven per cent pay increase plus a 38 hour working week and noncontributing pension scheme. The main contractor on the Fawley site, Bechtel UK, had offered a straight 4.9%.

Senior shop steward Bob Stevens (GMWU) pointed to wage differentials between contract labour and Esso's retained workers (also AUEW, EETPU & Other stewards spoke out against many years of wage cuts that pushed earnings right down the table.

Speakers from the floor of the mass meeting demanded that any strike action be made official so as to preclude any union-inspired sellout.

Total support was given for indefinite strike action on a simple show of hands. As a result a 24hour picket is now on duty at all the refinery's main gates.

Strong picketing throughout the first day, 'Monday, proved very effective with up to 90% of all refinery traffic being turned away.

The response from transport drivers. though has been mixed and confused, doubtless due to the fact that (at the time of going to press the Confed Executive had still to concede official backing to this dispute. This also explains why Esso retained staff are still working.

Workers' fears were realised by the second day when the discovery was made that TGWU officials and management were actively collaborating to break the picket.

• Tanker drivers had been issued with signed written instructions by Esso Senior Steward D. Buck-. ley (TGWU/2/326) authorising them to bust the picket line. Protests from angry pickets soon forced the strike committee to countermand this scab directive, though it is still a problem.

Mass pickets!

Though the cops have restricted their numbers to six it remains clear to many workers that only through mass picketing and blacking of Esso can they hope to secure a rapid victory.

The Confed must be forced to make this strike official. It is crucial to any further escalation of this company-inspired conflict. and other racists to re-inforce their myth that blacks are social security scroungers, when in fact we put more into the state than we claim.

Hopefully the CPSA will decide not to co-operate with these racist plans and force the government to withdraw them. These plans must be fully publicised so that if they do take place people are well aware of what is going on.

Prejudice in Schools

A BLACK headmaster claims that prejudiced whites are growing up to be teachers and spreading myths about black people.

The headmaster says that a survey has shown that many white teenagers believe that people in the West Indies live in Shanty Towns and eat coconuts all day.

Further he says that teachers often express the view that West Indians are only good at sports and dancing, and nothing else.

It is already well known that blacks are over-represented in educationally sub-normal schools (ESN) and there is a very good book which covers this area: How the West Indian child is made educationally sub-normal in the British system' , by Bernard Coard.

School curricula should also be looked at closely as they are more than often too Eurocentred, ignoring the achievements of black authors, thus giving an impression that black people have not achieved anything.

Racism in Medicine

THE British Medical Association, at its AGM in June, passed a resolution calling for a racist control over the number of overseas doctors entering the country!

Again we see the case where black people are welcomed with open arms when there is a shortage and when the going gets tough it's blacks who are used as the scapegoats.