[Scott on Radio Times distribution in London. SOGAT…]

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Scott on Radio Times distribution in London.

SOGAT was instructed by the courts before Christmas to lift the boycott. The union executive agreed to comply - but proved unable to browbeat the powerful Central London branch into submission. The boycott remains in Last Wednesday, 11th, Maxwell (an ASTMS member and delegate to the General Committee of Oxford East Labour Party!) went back to the courts to seek a stronger injunction against the The High Court instructed the union to lift the boycott and to allow extra copies of Radio Times to be printed in other plants of Maxwell's BPCC empire.

This amounts to an instruction to union members to scab on their own fellow trade unionists.

(Manchester ASTMS Broad Left)

YOUR CAKING, sharing Co-op and USDAW are working hand in hand to ensure that a handsome dividend is reaped by a non-union private firm, Industrial Contract Cleaners.

ICC's profits will be boosted at the expense of some of the most vulnerable workers.

Cooperative Insurance Services (CIS) own the tallest building in Manchester. They contracted out the cleaning to a subsidiary of Reckitts of mustard fame - until going out to. tender a few weeks ago.

The sharks thrashed around and Reckitts lost the contract to ICC, who put in a lower bid.

Does cheaper cleaning for CiS mean better standards for the workers? Of course not. Niety women cleaners were made redundant, including one - «Emily Cupitt - who has worked at CIS for 21½ years. Half a dozen have been offered jobs by ICC - but under much worse conditions.

The cleaners who worked for Reckitts were organised in USDAW. But everything they had won over the years at CIS has come from strong : local action, with little concrete help from the USDAW full-time officials.

Their achievements are impressive, especially so for part-time workers. For instance, in 1982 Reckitts said (stop me if you've heard this one): 'We've made no profits, you get no pay rise' An immediate one-day strike brought the women 10%, an extra week's holiday... and pay for the day of action! They were now on five weeks holiday a year - ICC give only a fortnight.

Under Reckitts cleaners worked a 15 hour week - now cut by ICC to 12½ hours, with a consequent slashing of pay by up to £8 a week. Their rest breaks have vanished completely - now the workers complain that they don't even have time to talk to each other on the job. That's great for isolating and weakening workers.

The number of women employed by ICC is lower than the number Reckitts employed - so those fortunate enough to remain have to slog harder to earn a crust.

Immediately the redundancies were announced, the women began a picket which lasted only a few hours. Unfortunately the only USDAW group represented on the CIS workplace Joint Trade Union Committee is the catering staff directly employed by CIS. Nevertheless, the USDAW officials did not bring the issue to either the STUC to Co-op sponsored MPs. They did not even approach the local Cooperative Union (an administrative Co-op section which may have been able to pressurise CIS into refusing the ICC contract).

What backing was given by the USDAW officials? Step forward Duncan McBride, full-timer and runner-up to Len Murray as Flavour of the Month (ie. easel 'n' gall). Bro. McBride did step forward - right across his members' picket line, in order to try to recruit the ICC people!

Is this what his members have paid subs for year after year?

The JTUC unions' shop stewards (USDAW, ASTMS, UCATT, and ACTSS) are meeting shortly to plan a campaign to stop the Co-op conniving further with Thatcherite deals involving private sharks. But any socialist principles the Co-op once rested on are crumbling fast.

I hear unofficially that when the USDAW full-timers asked CIS to agree to a closed shop under ICC, the radical cooperators hinted this could not be done unless they complied with Tebbit's regulations by holding a workplace ballot.

USDAW failed to press the point - well, we can't break the law, can we, boys and girls?

Now the resistance seems to be over... at least, until those self same sharks begin tearing the guts out of the catering department. A sad story - not just as another: step down the Tories' yellowspine i road to industrial serfdom, but as an example of a union disgracefully failing to save its members - its lifeblood - like Emily Cupitt.

organised by Labour CND. Saturday January 28, from 10am at Sheffir

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