Moving in for battle at Timex

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THE single storey Timex factory in Dundee was built just after the war on an industrial estate a short bus ride from the town centre. A notice at the froht gate tells all visitors to check in with security before entering. These days they check in with a member of the factory's occupation committee before the padlock on the front gate is unlocked. Company notices are overshadowed by large placards proclaiming the factory to be under new management.

Inside, narrow corridors lead to the main production shop floor where rows of machines sit like dead insects. If the company has Peter Melntyre visited its way they will soon be silent for ever. the occupied factory as Round another corner and part of a NUJ delegation into the canteen. It was the spring fair when we visited and the during his union's recent local Labour Club had provided workforce was 'on holiday'. A conference in Dundee* indoor bowls, pool and miniature snooker. Children had come with their parents into the factory to sustain the first stage of their The occupation committee battle. says there is plenty of work in It was the phony war. The hand and they blame unfair management had not yet reacted French inducement to the multito the occupation. The workers national firm (headed by the were waiting for the following shipping magnate Olsen) to transMonday when the management fer production to their Besancon were due to reopen after the factory. holiday. lan Ramsay said: "We have Shop steward lan Ramsay evidence that there is work here said: "We will ask them if they for the whole of this year. We got will participate in the occupa- hold of documents which prove tion and if they don't, they will that the work was being transbe turned away." ferred to France. The French are The occupation started - with subsidising the firm in the region only five votes against - on the of 40 million francs. last nightshift before the holiday "The French convenor came break. The company had announ- across in January. They say they ced. the end of watch and com- sympathise and give us support puter production and the trans- but cannot jeopardise ther own fer of work on the modern flat jobs. They have sent us piles of tube TV. documents"

The AUEW convenor and There are four factories in the chair of the occupation commit- Dundee area, the stricken plant at tee, Gordon Samson, had just left Milton complex, a home comfor a journey to London to cam- puter production and assembly paign for support. The atmos- plant at Camperdown, and two phere inside the plant was calm blocks in between. The company and confident. With 17,000 has always done its best to keep people registered unemployed in the plants separate and doubled the Dundee area and only 300 up on components between facvacancies, a final walk out of tories in Scotland and France to Timex could be a final walk out weaken union control. of a job. The other three Scottish RICK RICK MATTHEWS (IFL)

plants have been exempted from action. Ian Ramsay said: "We will be producing as normal at other of the Milton complex they claimed that more than 1,700 workers had volunteered and that than men. There are five women stewards and two women on the eight strong occupation committee.

The occupation committee is now seeking support. It has been made official and 70,000 leaflets & 70,000 emergency issues of the AUEW paper have been printed.

The notice board in the canteen is given over to letters• of support, mainly from Labour MPs and trade union branches. But amongst them is a letter from Thatcher, sent in February, when the unions first raised the allegations of unfair French competition.

The letter says: "We have received assurances from Timex that no production has been transferred to France, more specifically the 3-D camera, presently made in Dundee will be made in Japan."

A TGWU convenor and a national organiser gave a High Court undertakings to call off secondary picketing in a dispute near BradINDREW WIARD (REPORT)

After a reference to a worldwide decline in demand, Thatcher writes: "There is clearly a great deal of public concern about this question." She said that the British government was* raising with the EEC the £12 million grants to the Besancon factories.

But already the EEC has said that there does not appear to be any breach of its regulations.

The workforce at Dundee needs more than crocodile tears from Thatcher. It needs a sustained and developing programme of industrial action. It will not achieve that without the active support of trade unions and Labour Party organisations. Messages of support and moncy to: Gordon Samson, chair of Occupation Committee, Timex, Milton of Graigie Road, Dundee.

Editorial, page ford - and thus staved off possible injunction.

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