Phillips Strikers Occupy

Scan page 14

THE strikers at Phillips Rubber in Manchester occupied the factory on Monday 20th.

Two weeks ago management threatened to sack the strikers if they did not return to work. By an overwhelming majority, the workers voted to stay out. The 103 strikers were then şacked.

Last week the Manchester Evening News started to carry advertisements for their jobs. It was made clear that to get a job you had to be prepared to cross a picket line.

Management had started to recruit scabs to cross the picket line and reopen the factory.

To defeat this attempt to AS this issue of Socialist Organiser goes to press, the future of the six month long fight for union recognition and reinstatement at THE NUR abandoned any idea of fighting Mercury (privatisation of part of the telephone service) because of the Appeal Court instruction to the POEU to call off its fight. Now the NUR has gone on to abandon its own fight against having private contractors install the fibre optic cables.

The union leaders found themselves in a strong bargaining position suddenly when Sheffield and Chesterfield District Council of the NUR organised to take action against privatisation. They extracted from the BR Board an agreement that Signal and Telecoms (S&T) staff and not contractors should fault and maintain the cables. Only the NUR demund that S&T staff should install the cable rather than contractors remained to be won.

We prevented the trains from smash the strike, the workers occupied the factory.

To back up this action, the print unions at the Manchester Evening News must refuse to publish adverts for the workers' jobs in future editions.

The occupation is the latest stage in the seven week-old strike for an increase on the £48 basic wage. Up till now, management have played a waiting game. They had hoped that as time goes by, hardship and fear of losing their jobs would force the strikers back to work.

The initial threat of mass sackings failed to weaken the strike, and now the occupation has created a further setback Carousel in Glasgow's East End hangs in the balance.

Following on from the decision of the last quarterly There are lessons for us in this and, unfortunately, for management also.

Next time they will know that if any part of the union is getting a bit awkward and taking union policy a bit too seriously, they can always call in the NEC.

in management's attempt to defeat the strike by strong-arm tactics, using scabs. * Management have taken legal advice and they are applying for an injunction to evict the occupying workers.

Solidarity action by the workers at the company's sister factory at Stranraer is needed to back up the Manchester workers.

The stepping up of the dispute and the publicity that the strike has been given have to be used to build wider support among the local labour movement.

Morale in the occupation is high as they prepare for the next attempt by management to break the strike.

meeting of the IGWU Scottish Regional Committee, the strikers appeared before the Union's Scottish Finance and General Purposes Committee on February 17, to discuss whether or not to maintain official recognition of the dispute.

In the run-up to the meeting. however, local TGWU officials had been active in attempting to undermine local support.

TGWU officer David Spark visited local union branches, decrying the content of a Broadsheet on the history of the dispute (recently produced by the strike support committee) as an unjustified and untrue attack on the union.

And the same official has also written to signatories of a recent statement of support for the strikers, claiming that they'd been conned into signing it and that the broadsheet on the dispute "quite frankly distorts some of the facts to say the least, criticises the TGWU and abuses the signatures obtained"

The purpose of Spark's letter is "to afford you an opportunity to dissociate with the way in which your name has been used in an attempt to give credence to this broadsheet, which was circulated by unknown persons."

In fact, the real purpose of Spark's letter is to undermine support for the strike, misrepresent the work of the strike support committee and pave the way for the union to ditch a dispute which he himself has stated cannot, in his opinion, be won.

Backlash

In fairness to Spark, it should be pointed out that he is only a puppet in this affair. His strings are pulled by Hugh Wyper, Scottish secretary of the TGWU and a well-known Communist Party member. It is Wyper who wants the dispute called off and who effectively runs the Finance and General Purposes Committee.

The Finance and General Purposes Committee's verdict on the future of this dispute was decided in private after the strikers had left the meeting. The question now is whether the local union bureaucracy feels confident enough to withdraw support from the dispute, or whether it believes the backlash against such a scabbing decision would be so great that they maintain official recugnition. back to consult with the councils over the offer.

Council building craftsmen have already refused an informal offer of about 4% and gone to arbitration.

Buses offered BUS workers are considering national strike action because the wage rise they've been offered is a miserable £3 a week.

London and Metropolitan counties bus workers have already turned down a 3% offer made by their employers. Workers from the National Bus Company and Scottish Bus Group have rejected a 3.6% increase.

Unions are looking for 'an early and substantially improved offer.

School meals

ABOUT 2,500 NUPE women school meals staff met in Birmingham last week and voted unanimously to reject a city council attempt to tear up longstanding nationally negotiated pay and conditions agreements.

Birmingham's Tory controlled council is attempting to push through a package of cuts totalling £1.5 million at the expense of the city's lowest paid workers. They are trying to force the school meals workers into abandoning their agreed right to receive half pay during school holidays.

The women are being offered payments ranging from £14 to £100 to surrender their negotiated rights. They are threatened with dismissal if they refuse.

TUC women