Pickets support
Socialist Organiser1983 1983-05-26Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 15 →
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A PICKET line has been set up outside the Liverpool fashion store 'Lady at Lord John' , where the manageress was sacked after complaining that her co-workers were being sexually harassed by the area manager.
The manageress, Audrey White, is a member of the TGWU 6/612 branch, and the branch is picketing the store until she is reinstated.
Since the picketing started. management has first tried to pay her off (but she refused), and then offered her two other positions within the company that would mean demotion and loss of pay. Audrey has stood firm.
On 'Saturday May 14 eight pickets were arrested and charged with obstruction. One young woman was subjected to a strip search at the police station. Since then injunctions have been taken out on Audrey, her brother (who is currently on the People's March), and full-time TGWU official Bobby Lamb, to prevent them from picketing the shop.
The rest of the pickets are constantly in danger of being arrested for obstruction, too. Keva Coombes, the leader of the Labour-controlled Merseyside County Council, will defend the eight so fat arrested when the! appear in court, and both he and Labour MP Bob Parry were on the picket line last Saturday.
The picket is very successful in hitting trade, with most shoppers boycotting the store. Thousands of signatures have been collected calling for Audrey's reinstatement. As we stand on the picket line collecting signatures, many women shopworkers relate similar experiences of harassment. One woman told me that harassment had forced her to quit her job.
Over the weekend TGWL regional secretary Bill Heywood personally intervened and instructed the local full-timer to call off the picket and thereby the dispute, because he did not want to put the union funds at risk oi legal action. This message was relayed to the pickets, who decided to ignore it. The instruction was not formally issued, and was in clear breach of union policy.
This dispute is important because it shows that sexual harassment is a trade union issue: and it is also a test of the local trade union leadership.
Messages of support etc. to TGWU, Transport House, Islington, Liverpool 3.
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sexual abuse
Confer ... nOW