-What is the teeling amongst the men in the Coventry area?
The men were certainly ready to take militant action. A broad section of the men feel that for far too long we have just acrepted anything, and when they start to compare their conditions of work and the wages they take home, which are very much worse than in ordinary factory work, then there is the feeling that some desperate action is required to try and alter this. a further rise in productivity tied to the E3 increase. Are you opposed to this? Most certainly, the mining industry has reached the pinnacle of production under modern mining techniques. The management don't accept this, but let me elaborate on this one. One of the reasons why the NCB said they couldn't up their first offer was because of the fact that they couldn't, even with optimism, look forward to a rise in productivity of more than 1½ cwt. per man-shift; and yet now the wage rise was to be tied to a 3 cwt. target, and 2 cwt, of this had to be offset to pay for the original no-strings offer.
Pr On Wednesday, 5 January, a mass meeting of almost 800 workers at Fisher Bendix in Kirkby voted unanimously to take over the factory in face of threatened redundancies. Thom Electrical Industries, who took over the factory from Parkinson-Cown last year, had made it clear that they intended to close the works by May 1972, and the only offer they were prepared to make during talks before the occupation was a stay of execution for 28 days. By occupying, the workers now have on their side the tremendous bargaining power of over 62 million worth of plant and stock In the article below we look at Fisher Bendix as an example of 'rationalisation", interview two of the workers leading the struggle, and assess the significance of factory occupations in the struggle against redundancies.
"RATIONALISATION' AND UNEMPLOYMENT It is possible to divide the types of unemployment in Britain in three broad ways. The unemployment of a depressed area tends to relate to the declining antique industries there. More advanced industries are using the chance to rationalise or 'shake out' excess manpower prior to entry of the EEC. An industry like Steel is contracting because of continual under-invesment, low pricing (to keep costs low for private capital), and the international financial downturn. Thorn industries performance speaks for itself.
Total profits in 1961 were £4 million,by 1970 they had risen to £60.02 million. In 1971 their turnover had reached £342,581,000, while from 1962-68 they received £6.588,420 in investment grants. Thorn annexed the Parkinson-Cowan Company, which owned the Fisher Bendix factory in Kirkby, in May last year for £4 million. The object in Fisher Bendix was to close the factory and take the profitable lines elsewhere (they own 70 major factories in Britain and eight overseas with over 300 subsidaries). A breakdown of profits for 1969-70 shows that sales of durable consumer goods (of the sort made by Fisher Bendix) accounted for 67 per cent of the total. Despite this, and despite a rise in share prices from 62p in 1961 to 268p in 1970, despite a steady rise in dividends (now 15 per cent) Thorn are capable of cutting costs even further. They plan to move Fisher Bendix production to CARSA (near Madrid) in Spain, and to Newcastle-where labour is cheaper. In negotiations the Chairman for Thorn was quoted as saying, "the reason for taking our work to Newcastle was the moral obligation to the people in a depressed area".
This case study in rationalisation combined with other factors to produce an explosive situation. Kirkby is part of a depressed region. Unemployment wavers between 10-11 per cent. More than 2,000 are on the dole. Nearly 800 men and women's jobs are threatened by the closure-and they have no possible alter. native employment. Fisher Bendix is seen as the focal point of local anger. Thorn management took on the workers at Fisher Bendix in a struggle over redundancies lasting 9 weeks only last June. The pressures of keeping a high investment rating has forced Thorn to take them on again.
The Red Mole 24th Jan. 1972 Page 4 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF OCCUPATIONS The present rash of factory occupations has great significance. And there is some evidence to suppose that at least in one important respect Fisher Bendix is well aware of this.
The various workers spoken to realised clearly that they were engaged in a fight against the government. They knew that the key element in such a fight was to extend the struggle both inside Thorn Industries and outside. Workers control has no meaning inside one factory! While it is obvious that The Red Mole gives as full support to the occupation as possible, it is important to point out the problems. What these boil down to is the idea that despite the action being directed against the government, and despite the felt need to extend the strike, the action is essentially economic only. Factory occupation is a sharper weapon against the bosses economic attack. A General Strike is proposed for the same ends. But without the new industrial front being linked by militants to a new political strategy, posing a revolutionary alternative, it will fail. It will fail because these industrial actions create a political vacuum which will be filled by the Labour Party. Thus Wedgwood-Benn can make the U.C.S. a platform for his politics, and Fisher Bendix is also being used by Merseyside Labour party MP's, diverting it from the issue of who owns and controls our society to a springboard for their election. The pattern is being set for the most advanced workers to continue the see-saw between total reliance on industrial action (syndicalism) and political reliance on the Labour Party. The only alternative, however small, is the revolutionary left.
- Brian Heron This interview took place in the administration block of the Fisher Bendix Factory, with Jack Spriggs, A.U.E.W. Factory Convenor; and Stan Ely, shop steward, A.U.E.W. - What Unions are involved?
J.S. There are 6 Unions, the A.U.E.W., the E.T. U., the T. & G. engineering section, the C.A.W.U., the A.S.T.M.S., and the E.E.P.T.U. All of the membership of these unions support the strike-in. The strike committee members are formed out of all the Unions in the plant. There is complete unity in the factory between the staff unions and the production workers over this question, of the fight against redundancies and the right to work. - What other Union support have you got? J.S. Well, so far we have had meetings with the dockers to get goods blacked, and have got the support of the National Docks Shop Stewards Cmt. The Merseyside District Branch of the Amalgamated Engineers have moved in to support the take over with a decision to-call for a one day stoppage of all Merseyside members. We've held two mass meetings so far; one in London and the other in a conference of Trade Unionists in Newcastle where the response was very favourable. We've even had resolutions of support for our actions from Trade Unionists in Paris. We intend holding meetings up and down the country. At the moment the Executive Councils of the Staff Unions concerned are discussing the payment of dispute benefit. We don't think there will be any problem over that.
S.E. There is also a meeting today of the joint Shop Stewards Committee of Kirkby Industrial Estate ... to discuss action over the strike in. -Any support from Thorn workers nationally? S.E. Although we're the newest addition to the Thorn industries we have tried to set up a Joint Shop Stewards Committee, representing 25% of the 75,000 work force. The last meeting passed this resolution, that "determined to resist unemployment, the Committee will not allow any movement of plant or machinery out of any factories within the Thorn group, unless sanc tioned by their Committee." We are now calling for another emergency meeting of this body through Jack Spriggs-one of the joint chairmen of the Committee. We have had hur dreds of resolutions and letters of support.
-What is support like in the factory?
J.S. Unanimous support at the mass meeting with growing enthusiasm by the workers. They come in on a rota basis to the factory. We haven't decided whether to run 8 or 12 hour shifts yet. We have some administrative problems but we are overcoming them.
- What about the reaction of the management?
J.S. So far not much reaction. They have made no offer except to say that they will pay us half a week's money if we leave the factory. They have since said that they are considering ways of protecting their interests.
We are ready to meet any legal attack. Any attempt to move us will meet a mass picket mounted at these gates by our supporters on Merseyside and in Kirkby. The door will always be open to sensible negotiations, however, to talk about jobs for people-we will maintain the machinery in good condition until such talks.
— We understand you visited U.C.S. and Plesseys in preparation for this occupation, what did you learn?
J.S. We decided that U.C.S. type operation of a work-in was impractical for us. Plesseys was more effective. A work-in involves pre':
lems of supply to keep production going, sales of products and payment of workers.
At Plesseys a strike-in is tying up the movement of machinery, breaking the company's contracts and causing wide spread disruption -it is a more effective weapon. - The struggle against unemployment includes the struggle against productivity deals and measured day work-what's the situation at Fisher Bendix?
S.E. The factory was always under a productivity deal. This made the fight against unemployment more difficult. It reduces the power of the shop steward on the shop floor. We are stuck to nationally negotiated agreements-but there are many differences in wages for the same job throughout the industry. That is why it is important to strengthen the National Combine Committee.
Interviewers: Patrick Hickey
Willy Cook Brian Heron SOLIDARITY FROM KIRKBY ESTATE STEWARDS The Kirkby Industrial Estate Shop Stewards Committee met and passed the following resolution: "That we call on Merseyside Trades Council to organise a mass demonstration on Wednesday, 19 January, in Liverpool in support of the Fisher Bendix struggle and the right to work. That all workers be called to leave their factories on that date to participate in the demo. That we demand of the T.U. leaders of MINERS and ENGINEERS to unite workers in struggle on wages, the right to work, and the defence of Unions into one movement of industrial action to bring down the Tory Government"
There is little doubt that this resolution will be passed by the Trades Council. The meeting also set up an Action Committee: Harry Shult, its secretary, said his aim was "to involve the Estate in sympathy strike action and build a general strike against unemployment throughout Merseyside".
OCLUPATION AT ALISS-CHALMERS One hundred and twenty workers have now been occupying the Aliss-Chalmers factory in Mold, North Wales, since January 3rd.
Like the other occupations so far they took this action in face of a threat of immediate and wholesale redundancies:
and as at Plesseys and Fisher Bendix the tactic of a work-in" was rejected. As Hugh Hughes, AUEW Convenor at the plant, pointed out to us, "By working in we would be subsidising the company.
whereas the best way is to hit them in the pocket where it hurts, by occupying"
The firm of Aliss-Chalmers is an important subsidiary of a large American corporation which manufactures agricultural machinery. The plant manufactures 36 machines a week and exports to such countries as Japan. In the period leading up to the present dispute the work-force was reduced from 230 workers to the present 120. Now the workers are faced with a complete shut-down of the factory.
The original argurhent for the closure put forward by the management was that it was an inevitable result of a decline in the demand for agricultural machinery. On 4th October, however, the workers were then hold that an agreement had been signed subcontracting the manufacture of the machinery ade in the plant to a firm in Uttoxeter;
Using this they anticipated raising prodachines a week. On hearing nely demanded discat and inion chich had a well as a great apport. On December 3lig, they were given notice to galf-and it was caly on the following day that the union were at last notified of'a date for a meeting with the Nation, met did to take decisions. they sold the workers, who were in 1s on as ical, to dismantle the factory nes for transportation to the Uttoxeter dant, It was at this point that the workers decided to occupy immediately. Just to strike would have allowed the management simply to lock the plant gates for the remainder of the notice to quit. And by occupying they are also in control not only of the machinery which was to have been transported to Untoxeter, but also of the supplies of spare parts for both home and abroad.
The factory is a 100 per cent unionised plant, Government's talk about nationalising Rollsall the workers being members of the AUEW, and the occupation demonstrates once again the necessity for strong union organisation. Here the union was so well organised that it was able to act immediately when faced with a threatened closure. This position contrasts very strongly with that in the other Aliss-Chalmers plant at Essendene in Lincolnshire, which is only a partly unionised plant and so is unable or unwilling to carry out industrial action in support of their fellow workers. The Mold workers have arranged a three hourly shift system which operates 24 hours a day, so that there are always a number of workers in the plant and all the workers are involved. They have taken the initiative and set up a fighting fund, and have organised collection sheets with the help of the Welsh Nationalist Party (Plaid Cymru). Further donations should be sent to: A.C.G.B. had failed to get an increased offer. Campaign Fund, c/o AUEW Office, Ash Grove Shotton, Deeside.
The workers at Aliss-Chalmers are in a strong position. It is clear that the management want management has refused to increase its offer to get production going again and keep up their profit margins, but there is the strength of organised labour to resist their manipulation. others may get 13 per cent, which eventually Workers at Aliss-Chalmers are demanding the right to work on their terms; a demand which is attracting increasing militant support from other sections of the labour movement. In this lies its chief significance.
1. Karl Sue Lindsay Thomas Mechan THE STRIKE AT ROLLS ROYCE ENDS The strike by 6,800 manual workers at RollsRoyce, Bristol, ended on Monday, 3 January after nite weeks of struggle. The strike had been over a £5 cost of living pay claim. Management had offered £1.50 with strings which included: productivity clauses, an offset clause which would discount 50p of the claim against any national award, and a no claims for 12 months clause. The settlement recommended by AUEW area executive member Bill John was accepted by a mass meeting last week. The settlement accepted was a £1.50 a week cost of living increase backdated to October. Although John guaranteed that the 50p would not be offset, in fact the settlement states that negotiations will start on the offsetting of the 50p as soon as work is resumed. The other strings have been dropped.
Although the R-R strikers have not got the ES they came out for, they made the company drop the conditions they had insisted on. R-R central management working very closely with the Government were determined to defeat this claim. However a solid strike for nine weeks that has cost a t6 million loss of output along with rusted up machinery forced them to change their minds. For the fiest time, it was the company who asked for the talks which settled the strike. If the trade union officials had not been in such a hurry to settle the strike, a much larger award was well on the way.
The question of the offset clause is important.
It l the intention both of the company and de EEF to force offer clauses on all local wage claims to prevent leap frogging pay clima. And this is one of the reasons why management refused to negotiate seriously with the strike committee until late December. It had other reasons for sticking so hard to its original offer -Rolls-Royce Bristol is the only Rolls-Royce factory without a productivity deal and it hoped that, with strong government backing, it could defeat the workers and then move in quickly with its productivity deal, with all the redundancies that would mean.
This strategy shows the hollowness of all the Royce to prevent hardship'. It also shows the futility of any union policy based on cooperation with the management. The struggle at Rolls-Royce is to organise rank and file opposition to both company and government policy. The coming shop stewards elections will be vital in this respect.
-Andy Metcalf COOPERATIVE WORKERS STRIKE At the moment workers at the Co-Operative Insurance Society in Manchester, all members of ASTMS, are engaged in a wages struggle; negotiations were broken off last Monday, January 10th, after discussions between Clive Jenkins, lan Mikardo and the management ASTMS are demanding 15 per cent which will simply gain parity for CIS workers with those in other insurance firms, while the beyond 9 per cent on the wages bill, i.e. some sections may only get per percent rise while averages out at 9 per cent.
From Monday the Union began to bring out selected offices to join the 44 workers already on strike, as a result of the management's attempt to force the workers to either sign a clause giving them the right to lay off anyone made idle by the strike, or else be sacked. All 1800 workers at CIS now regard themselves as officially sacked but are still going in to work, while maintaining a "black' on all work normally done by the strikers.
The next issue of The Red Mole will carry a fuller report of this strike examining its implications for workers elsewhere.
CWMBRAN WORKERS ORGANISE AGAINST UNEMPLOYMENT italist system better than the development of the to be a way of providing better housing and jobs out merely to create the conditions for worse oppression. An example of this is occurring in the new town of Cwmbran Like most new towns Cwmbran was built around Last Friday, a ship from Rotterdam, turned a relatively small number of firms looking for a workforce which would be more docile and "co-operative" than in the old industrial centres.
In Cwmbran the situation was slightly different in that the firm of Guest Keen and Nettlefold have been established since the early nineteenth century, and have always been the centre of the old town's industry. In 1971 they had three foundries there producing cylinder blocks for heavy trucks, camshafts, and soft iron motor components, employing some 1,500 men. On September 18 without any prior warning or consultation the management distributed notices that GN Cwmbran would be "ceasing to trade" on December 31. They said that losses sustained in past working and the collapse of the heavy truck market forced the closure. Yet the GN group reported a profit of 542 million last year.
This was the last straw for the workers of Cambran. An action committee was established by the shop stewards to fight the closure. This committee brought together the stewards, union officials, the Trades Council, Cwmbran Council, and the New Town Development Corporation, and all the councils of the Valley. GN carried out a campaign of threats and intimidation. Sir Raymond Brooks, chairman of the GN combine delcared that if the closure at wmbran was contested there "may be repercussions in other plants in the South Wales area". Eventually the redundancies were forced through. Thirteen hundred men were sacked. Unemployment jumped to 15 per cent of the workforce.
To try to prevent similar redundancies and to fight a political battle against unemployment the stewards of the sacked workers have now turned to organising the sacked men and the other 1,500 on the dole. By ensuring the solidarity of unemployed and employed workers a more effective struggle can-be waged against unemployment. Despite a severe defeat the workers of Cwmbran show that the struggle against unemployment can go on even in a town being systematically murdered by the workings of the capitalist system. Similar actions must be launched in other areas, not with the aim simply of organising the unemployed for securing their maximum benefits from the Social Security but for waging. a political campaign to prevent redundancy in the first place.
news in brief SCABBING IN COLCHESTER The 142 power stations in England and Wales that depend on coal to generate electricity have by now dug very deeply into the mountains of coal that were carefully built up in their yards over the summer. The supplies for industry are in a similar state. Based on average consumpuon needs, things would appear fairly satisfactory for the NCB at least for the next six or seven weeks. In reality, the situation is made far worse than this by the uneven distribution of stocks. We can expect therefore, a concerted effort by the whole of British industry to effect the movement of coal by employing scab labour not subject to union discipline.
Nothing could show up the absurdities of the cap It is thus hardly surprising to hear of attempts to use the East Anglian coastline, and Essex in so-called 'new towns". These were originally claim particular, an area not far from the major European ports and well-known for its general for hundreds of thousands. Now, like most of the lack of unionisation and industrial militancy. attempts to "improve' capitalism, they are turning Moreover, a whole series of very small docks in the area employ only casual labour which makes them rather more flexible in terms of the cargoes which they handle away by dockers at Dagenham in Greater London, soon found its way to Rowhedge, one such small, non-unionized quay near Colchester.
Socialists in the area were quick to react. A united front in defence of the miners' strike was formed involving members of IMG, IS, the Spartacus League, the CP, and Colchester Claimants and Unemployed Workers Union, in an attempt to mobilise people in the areaworkers, the unemployed, students- to stop the movement of coal. The NUM, at the request of the united front, sent four representatives from Barnsley with the promise of a "flying squad' of a hundred more at five hours' notice should the need arise for a mass picket. This is almost certain to be the case-already further evidence has been uncovered of coal movements up the coast at Mistley. And it doesn't end there: Ipswich Power Station, it seems, is fed with coal direct from the ships' by conveyor belt. More information is being assembled everyday by the united front which plans meetings in the town, at the university and at the technical college: Contact should be made via: Defence of the Miners' Strike, 16 Church Hill, Rowhedge, Colchester C05 7ED (Tel: 026-28-308).
Jonathan Silberman Tim Hall.
STUDENTS BACK MINERS Following a recommendation from the Liaison Committee Conference, at least two students unions have voted money to the miners as 'expenses' for a speaker. York University students union voted E250 and Norwich students voted £100 at union meetings on Monday night. In both cases it was posed clearly as a challenge to the Government's attempt to muffle such political activity by students.
Students at the University of Kent, Canterbury have been helping with picketing at Dover. Transport from the University is being provided by the NUM.