OVER EIGHTY WORKERS. most of them Asians, have been on strike at Delta Mouldings in Leicester for over tive weeks. The strike was originally called over a wage dispute, but the threat of lay-offs and the role of the Transport & General Workers Union in the wake of the Imperial Typewriters strike are also issues now.
The workers originally put in for a £3.25 increase on their [22.25 a weck basic. They wanted this as a six-month interim peyment until negotiations could take place on an annual claim.
But the final offer made by the directors amounted to only E2.85 for eight months. As the firm were in any case due to make a threshold payment of t1.20, this simply meant an increase of £1.65, So the management were given seven days notice that labour would be withdrawn unicas their offer was impduring the seven days the workers set up pickets. The strike has now by the T&GWU, However, the skilled workers, most of whom are members of the Amalgamated Union of Eng incering Workers, are crossing the picket line. What particularly inc enses the strikers is that a number of the skilled workers are doing jobs normally done by the strikers.
The other unions claim that until the strike pets approval at national level it does not have proper official status.
LAY-OFFS management recently announced that they were losing orders because of the dispute, and that even if the strike ended they could not take back all the labuur force immediately. The strikers, on the other land, correctly insist that whatever the outcome of the wage dispute there will be no return to work unless everybody poes back.
need to lay off workers because of falling orders are in any case blown sky high by their attempts to recruit labout for their Mellon been made official at district level death, This is very serious, since the icial, fed that racism.
Management'& claims about the strike.
Mowbray factory. A rocent circular a number of different shift systBut the TGWU official responsible for the dispute, Ken Hampstead, has boosted management's manoeuvres by telling the workers that if they stay out on the issue of reinstatement, while accepting a wages offer, then official hacking will be withdrawn.
This fits in with the T&GWU's general reluctance to campaign in support of the strike, No collections have been organised by the district office. No real attempt has been made to ger the other unions to act. In fact, the T&GWU has bestowed its official blessing rather like a benevolent kiss of IMPERIAL STRIKE A number of the workers at Delta feel this indifference is the pay-off from the bitter feelings aroused by the strike earlier this year al Imperial Typewriters, where the workers had to light not just the management but also against racism on the shop Boor. Reg Weaver, the T&GWU convenor at Imperial and an important figure in the union both nationally and locally, along with George Bromley, the district full-time offThe militant Asian workers at Delta gave considerable support to their brothers and sisters af Imperial, This caused tremendous embarrassment to the T&GWU burcaucrats, who did everything they could to weaken the Imperial The local T&GWU has tried to to which the Delta workers being. On one occasion they suggested to the convenor of HJV Plastics, whose workers are also in 5/323 branch, that he could take out the HJV workers to form another branch with himself as branch secretary. The convenor rejected this proposal, recognising that it was a manoeuvre which would weaken all militants in the area Over the past period it has been the Asian workers in the Leicester area who have been at the fore front of militant struggles on issues such as wages and conditions This has jolted the local T&GWU -a number of whom are left-overs from the old Deakinite regimeand upset the cosy relacions that they have enjoyed with the local employers.
PICKETS Pickets have nevertheless been held each day, with the support of a number of members of Leicester Trades Council. Each Friday there is a mass picket of all the workers on strike at Delta, and this has also been supported by workers from other factories.
A weck ago a mass picket was also held at the now Delta factory at Melton Mowhray. A number of workers there refused to cross the picket line and stayed out.
But unless the support of the skilled worker is won, there is a danger that the strike will be defcated. Financial aid is also urgently needed. Please send all donations to: P.J. Patel, 113 Canon Street, Leicester,
The Railway Tavern in London's