at Ideal Casements.
A recent strike over the sacking of 13 workers at the Ideal Casements (Reading) Ltd. factory. which employs some 500 workers in all, has important if basic lessons for trade unionists, especially in view of the new legislation now at the disposal of the bosses, namely the Tories' Industrial Relations Act. Significantly, Mr. J. Wallace, the managing director of the firm, has gone on record as welcoming this blatantly anti-working class law, and stating his intention of using it.
The strike began in the afternoon of Friday 17th September, when 13 workers at Ideal Tubes, a subsidiary company of Ideal Casements, were sacked at only 4% hours notice for absolutely no reason whatever. This followed a breakdown in negotiations for a 15% cost of Iving pay rise, but was almost certainly a deliberate attempt to provoke a strike over the question of reinstatement (i.e. a return to the matur quo) in order to divert attention away from other issues such as poor toilet, washing and heating facilities, and the men's demand for protective industrial gloves to be provided by the firm for those who work with acids.
As soon as the 13 were sacked, the other 50-60 workers of Ideal Tubes came out in support of their reinstatement, and on Monday morning the sympathy strike spread throughout the works. The initial strike in the Tubes division had been made official by the Transport and General Workers Union (the only manual workers' union in the factory) straight away on the Friday afternoon, and the rest of the strike was tecognised on Tuesday.
A strong and militant picket of the factory gates was organised, and production inside. mainly of metal window frames, was rapidly bring brought to a complete standstill. As time went on, in addition to merely the reinstatement of the 13, other demards which had to be satisfied before they would return to work were raised by the men at the picket. Not only were the demands for improvements in working conditions revived, but the slogan "Wallace Most Go" appeared painted on the nearby railway bridge and on placards and was quickly taken up by the picket as a whole.
Thus, towards the end of the week the management of Ideal realised that they had badly miscalculated the solidity and determination of the strikers-even despite the fact that there were still some scabs working-and Were under considerable pressure to open angotiations for a return to work. On the Wednesday they had refused to talk to the shop stewards, and would only have dealings with the Transport and General officials, in particular the local district officer, Tom Hibberd, and Chapman from the regional office at Southampton. (Hibberd has a certain reputation locally for militancy as a trade union official). But by Friday the strike was obviously biting hard, and the stewards were invited in to talk-though only two at a time.
(This "divide and rule" approach to the shop EDITORIAL BOARD: Tariq Ali, Dave Bailey, Robin stewards relates to the internal organisation of Ideal Casements, whereby there are nine companies all in one factory. This is advantageous to the management on two counts: firstly, for taxation purposes, and secondly in trying to divide the workers. Wallace, the chairman of the board of directors, who was installed in that post by the banking financiers of the firm in 1968 to oversee their interests, uses this device of company law to pretend that each of the "companies" has to negotiate separately with its workers, thus attempting to play off one section against another. In fact, they have had some success in this, in that workers in different shops are often paid at considerably different rates, and in one case this happens even within one company.
THE SELL-OUT On the Friday of the first full week of the strike, therefore, the first two stewards went in with the T&G officials to talk with Wallace, and an "offer" of a SOp per week pay-rise plus reinstatement of the 13 was made. This derisory offer was turned down by the stewards and their men, and no more went in.
By Monday the management was in even more trouble, because the picket had succeeded in preventing crucial supplies of oil from getting through, and the following day Hibberd, the local T&G official, announced that he'd another offer from the management. This turned out to be 50p plus reinstatement-the same as the one rejected by the stewards on the previous Friday. However, backed up with a threat of no more strike pay if the strike were continued, Hibberd pushed through a recommendation to accept the offer and call off the strike at a mass meeting with practically no discussion, and got a vote for a teturn to work on Thursday.
This vote was noticeably greeted with murmurings of discontent, not surprising since many of the workers remembered a previous sell-out at the hands s of Hibberd last April, when he "secured" the reinstatement of only 10 out of 16 sacked workers and persuaded the men not to take the planned strike action on the basis of this "victory"
SUPPORT FOR THE STRIKE During the course of the strike the Social Security office dutifully played its role of strike breaking by not paying out the supplementary benefits that the strikers were entitled to for their wives and children. The intervention of the Reading Claimants Union early on in the strike, to inform the strikers of their rights, to organise "mass visits" to the Social Security, and to lodge appeals against decisions, gave considerable potential economic strength to the strike (T&G pay is only £4 a week), but unfortunately the strike was sold out and over before this had its full effect, though appeals are'still going ahead and will be fought.
A recurring theme of the trade union situation at Ideal is disillusionment with the Union" for its continual backing down and playing into the hands of the bosses. But this time, hopefully, things will be different, for in conjunction with some of the shop stewards, the Reading Socialist Trade Unionists Group (S.T.U.G.) is now producing a regular factory bulletin. This has already analysed the lessons of the strike-especially concerning the part played by the union officials, the role of the local press whose coverage of the strike gave support to the management, the need for 3 shop stewards committee to be organised on a functioning basis throughout the firm so as to strengthen the hand of the stewards, and the question of the Industrial Relations Act.
This latter point is very important, because a sympathy strike such as this is actually outlawed by this piece of legislation as an "unfair industrial practice". In this respect the strike at Ideal was, locally at least, something of a "testcase", in showing not only the necessity for militancy and solidarity on the picket line but also the crucial need for trade union democracy and political understanding in the fight against the Act.
POSTSCRIPT The day after the first S.T.U.G. factory bulletin was distributed in the factory, Mr. Tom Hibberd, the local T&G district officer, felt obliged to publish an official Transport and General Workers Union Statement, addressed to all the workers at Ideal Casements, attacking the bulletin, in particular the Lessons of the Strike part. He said: "These people are mainly communist inspired and they are trying to create Disputes in Industry for their own ends and the Statements they have made to you are in many cases very far removed from the truth." He tried to prove that "we have achieved reasonable results" and suggested that "it might be the Communist Job to close your Firm down in order to obtain Ultimate Power through Disruption and the breakdown of Law and order.
This anti-communist rubbish was pushed out by Hibberd in company time with prior management permission. This shows how far Hibberd is prepared to go on collaborating with the bosses in order to thwart the very purposes for which trade unions were founded and fought for-hamely, the defence of the interests of their members. It also shows how much he fears those who simply tell the truth about the treacherous role of class-collaborationist trade union officials like himself in workers' struggles -Nigel Brown -Lawrie White BRISTOL CLAIMANTS UNION SIT-IN On the 24th September some 40 members of the Bristol Claimants and Unemployed Workers Union occupied St. Catherine's House-one of the main Social Security Offices in Bristol-for about three hours.
The Union was staging a protest against the slowness and inefficiency shown by the Dept. of Health and Social Security in dealing with. claims. This complaint is, in fact, no more than the tip of an iceberg of abuses of claimants' rights by the Dept., but it was a complaint which could be substantiated with documented evidence and one which was causing immediate hardship to many people.
A statement was prepared and distributed to the press and public, whilst a worried manager made unsuccessful attempts to intimidate members into leaving the office. Eventually the manager, suitably and predictably baffled by a Union that refused to nominate a spokesman to negotiate its surrender, called in members of that other noble institution noted for its abuse of people's rights-the police.
Having already achieved the publicity we wanted-coverage was given by BBC television and radio, The Bristol Evening Post and The Western Daily Press-and faced with the probability of jail for the weekend, and a fine no members, as claimants, could afford, we decided to vacate the office-almost two hours after it was officially closed.
We are now looking to see some improvement in the service offered by the Dept. If there is none, as seems likely, then we'll be back, but next time we won't be walking out.
In the long run we would hope to see such action escalating into the fulfilment of one of the points of our Charter: —A Free Welfare State for all, with its services controlled by the people who use it.
The other points of the Claimants Union Charter are as follows: -The right to an adequate income, without means test, for all people; —No secrets and the right to full information; -No distinguishing between so-called "deserving and "undeserving" -A Bristol C.U. member
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Bristol Claimants Union Sit-in.