Bennie Bunsee addresses a mass meeting of strikers last week THE STRIKERS at Imperial Typewriters in Leicester are now 900 strong-a majority of the workers force at this factory, which employs 1,100 Asians out of a total workforce of 1,600.
The grievance which sparked off the strike on 1 May was the recently introduced Measured Day Work scheme, But the workers are also complaining of cheating and discrimination by the company.
They had been told that to earn the bonus rate they had to produce 200 machines per day, but they discovered that the schedule in fact called for 168 machines. One worker calculated that, as a result, he had been cheated out of £546 in his 18 months of employment there.
The strikers also state that white workers employed at the factory for a few months have been promoted over the heads of black workers who TYPEWRITERS have worked at Imperial for 8 or 10 years.
They also cite instances of petty discrimination, such as an Indian girl who was reprimanded for clocking two cards, while a white girl behind her clocked five cards with impunity.
"WHITE BACKLASH'
The factory's T&GWU branch met last Friday (10 May), attended by over 300 members, although not by the branch officers. The meeting unanimously adopted a seven point programme, including opposition to victimisation and the bonus system, a cut in the differential between men and women of 50% by the end of the year, and the election-Bot nomination-of shop stewards. (There is only one-non-elected-Asian shop stewand in the factory.)
The strikers are abo organising i special 'grievance meeting" of the branch, at which they are trying to get the attendance of the District Official, Mr Bromley, and the factory Both of these men are hostile to the strike. Bromley has said that the strikers are under the influence of an alien ideology, a statement which