nine months after the struggle broke out, the Lip workers were able to win a settlement with no redundancies - although some concessions, such as the re-deployment of labour and partial division of the plant, were forced on them due to the scabbing of the CP and SP leaderships.
Thanks to Lip, occupation became almost a reflex action by the French working class when raced wu recuncancies saw a new factory occupation almost every day! What is more, there has been an increasingly systematic development of support committees throughout the country.
For example, last December 86 workers occupied the Piron factory at Bretoncelles, a tiny French town of only 1,000 people in Normandy. After opening the books, they declared the bosses useless and sacked them. But the workers immediately recognised the importance of turning interest in their struggle into active support.
By the beginning of January two support committees existed. Ten days later there were fifteen. A central meeting of delegates from support committees alongside the strugau démantèlemen No to redundancies, no to closure. The demand the Gilly workers fought for - and won.
Following this, the workers put out leaflets to all the factories in the area facing redundancies, calling for a common struggle: •We denounce the chronic inability of the capitalist system to satisfy our elementary needs. The workers of Bretoncelles want to make contact with you - we must co-ordinate our struggles. depends on it."
Last month Workers at Radiac in Briare and Fils Latex agreed at once was taken towards building a united struggle against unemployment in the region. further decided that the support committees should also attempt to co-ordinate struggles. These support committees are for the most part still functioning today as the Piron workers enter their twelfth month of struggle.
Other workers in France have shown a similar consciousness of the need for political popularisation of their struggle. ing the Caron-Ozanne printworks -printed the newspaper Ouest France - produced their own paper, (West Sackings), to explain their struggle and develop links with other workers fighting the Caron-Ozanne.
ket places, etc.
Pentonville Five.
Tories and Scottish Nationalists closure.
into outright struggle.
The victory of the workers Thus the first concrete step BSN in defence of their jobs It was Those occupywhich response.
Ouest Licenciements in support of the Gilly workers.
Part of the gigantic 'march on Besancon, 29 September 1973. Over 100,000 workers from all over France turned out to demonstrate their solidarity with the workers of Lip in their fight for jobs Printworkers at the occupied Parisien Libere plant have since followed the example of They have used the boss's presses to run off a million copies of a 16-page paper popularising their struggle; and six special teams financed by their union have spent the last fortnight travelling through France to distribute it at factory gates, office entrances, marThe only workers in Britain who have taken similar action were those occupying Briant Colour Printing in July 1972, who played an invaluable role in producing posters and leaflets for the struggle to free the The workers at the Scott ish Daily News had the same opportunity, to convert the paper into a weapon for the whole Scottish working class in the struggle against unemployment. Instead they relied on the Labour Government, maverick capitalist Robert Maxwell, and an assortment of Liberals, which more or less guaranteed that the venture would end with new threats of redundancies. and The SDN could have played a vital role not simply in generating solidarity but in promoting the centralisation of demands and action which is necessary to turn sympathy Belgium The importance of this was shown at the beginning of 1975, when a few hundred Belgian glassworkers at the Glaverbel plant in Gilly took on the might of the French-based multinational -and won.
Conference through the The Glaverbel workers occupied in early January as soon as they heard of the company's closure plans. Earlier regional struggles against victimisation and around wage involving ten simultaneous occup ations and a regional strike committee - had prepared the way for a regional and national The local region of the Belgian TUC was forced to call a delegate action conference to discuss the Gilly situation.
This was attended by 500 delegates, many of whom pledged themselves to strike action