Carousel: build support
Socialist Organiser1984 1984-03-08Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 15 →
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THE Carousel strikers in Glasgow are still waiting for a reply from the Scottish Finance and General Purposes Committee of the TGWU.
They met the committee a fortnight ago to ask for support for their fight for union recognition, reinstatement, and better working conditions. .. But TGWU officials have not been inactive since the committee meeting. The Glasgow District Officer David Stark continues his tour of local TGWU branches, denouncing the broadsheet-history of the dispute produced by the strike support committee as a gross misrepresentation of the "trun" facts [though also insisting that the TGWU will continue formal support for the strikers].
It looks as if TGWU officials will continue to recognise the dispute as official, but do nothing to mobilise support for it.
So the strikers' own East End Support Committee is more important than ever.
We are not seeking contlict with the TGWU officials for the sake of conflict. To break the strikers' isolation we have no choice but to reply to the accusations being levelled against the EESC broadsheet-history of the dispute and to mobilise active support in the face of the indifference or hostility of TGWU full-timers.
A Glasgow-wide labour movement conference called by the EESC is needed - and long overdue. regularly be done by craft workers, but the firm's lorries still cross the picket line unimpeded.
The local Evening Press has weighed in on the side of the bosses. Last week it printed a front page article entitled • 'Lust' Millions at Rowntrees" It was little more than free space to let the Rowntree management argue that maintenance staff should be made the scapegoats for the company's current sales problems. The paper has assisted management in its attempts to split the strikers by publishing unsubstantiated claims that strikers are being bought off by voluntary redundancy and internal transfers.
Despite all this, the strikers fight on. What they most desperately need is the spreading of strike action to all sections of the factory