VS Over the next few weeks Red Weekly will be investigating some of the most important of these struggles. This week we look at how the workers at the NEFIL factory are fighting hack ngainst their bosses" sahotage.
NEFIL is a middle-sized fumiture factory in the northern part of Portugal. At the beginning of December the workers blocked an attempt by management to victimise a worker. Management then replied by refusing to pay any wages for the mouth and dragging their heels in the negotiations over The workers held a general assembly of the whole plant and decided, in view of these problems, lo take over the factory and run it themselves. They found about £4000 in the company's sale, which they promptly divided up equally among the workers to compensate for the Joss of past wages. They then sent a picket squad into the nearby city commission, divided into N sub-cor mittees and assisted in technical matters by sympathetic outsiders (most technical and office staff having left). The workers commis sion does not make policy or major decisions, but takes all such ques tions to the general assembly wiuch meets almost every day The assembly can recall its ropreser tatives on the commission wheneve it wants The payment of wages is being organised according to the particul needs of individual workers-so tho with the largest families will receive the bigliest wages.
The fact that business has been going well has not blinded the wor Kers to the limitations of their actic As one member of the workers commission put it: 5. we do not have any illusions in workers" management under capitalism. We are using it as a weapon, as an emergency solution, We started ro run the factory because we had to in order to survive after the manage ment had abandoned the factory or 27 December ... we are chinking about demanding that che Government nationalise the firm-under workers control. We do not want a phony nationalisation which only helps the bosses.