Class-wide Far too often this or that occupation has demanded 'special case treatment — as at Meriden and the Scottish Daily News - cutting them off from the launching of a common struggle against unemployment. It is only through campaigning for common class-wide policies — such as the nationalisation of all firms declaring redundancies, and the development of workers' control over production - that occ upations can become the spear-head of the Lies.
Despite such successes, however, the Bri labour movement still lags far behind many its European conterparts when it comes to organising real solidarity with key struggles against unemployment. Even at the height the UCS struggle, which forced the Tories reverse their "lame duck' policy, solidarity not developed in an organised way beyond the holding of meetings, a few demonstrati and collections. This was sufficient to wir some gains in the struggle, but it was still quite small compared to what occurred in France, for example, over the struggle by workers at the Lip watch factory.
In this struggle, at Besancon in eastern France, 1,100 workers occupied against re undancies in June 1973. As well as restart production to sell watches to finance their struggle, the workers saw developing worki class solidarity as the key to winning their struggle, This wasn't just a case of money raising The 'publicity committee of the occupati saw as its aim the popularisation of the pol ical demands of the workers. Immediately support committee was established in the 1 with representatives from all the major fac Soon Lip support committees sprang in all the major industrial centres in France