SACKINGS AT OMES FAULKNERS CASE HISTORY OF REFORMISM

By lan Yeats. Part 1 Omes Faulkners Ltd, Colnbrook, Slough, factory was known as one of the best organized in SE England. But at 4 p.m. on Friday, March 24, 66 people, including an EPTU shop steward and an AUEW convenor, were sacked without anything being done to prevent it.

Communist Party members in the factory and on the AUEW Slough District Committee claimed that nothing could . be done about the redundancies without endangering the entire works.

The CP's scare campaign finally paid off when, after one department at the factory staged a strike against the redundancies, the shop stewards' committee voted for a CP resolution and refused to back them.

Redundancies had been on the cards for some time and they formed part of a continuous drive by the firm for production efficiency spurred by sharp recent falls in profits.

As late as 1970 union negotiators at the factory were able to sign an agreement with the employer they claimed was 'the best ever'.

Suddenly everything changed. As sacked EPTU steward Sam Roe put it to me: 'What we were getting from management was one big "No""

Omes Faulkners fitted into the national pattern. From Clydeside to Coventry economic crisis and recession was and is forcing the bosses-backed to the hilt by the Tories-on to the offensive against the trade unions and the working class.

The employers will now negotiate only on their terms and therefore the clear demand must be for the overturning of all the old forms of dealing and compromise and the substitution of a revolutionary approach to trade union problems.

At this point of great crisis in the leadership of the working class, the insidious treachery of the principles and practice of the Stalinists' 'British Road to Socialism', with all its reverence for bourgeois democratic processes, is exposed for all to see.

At Upper Clyde Shipbuilders the Stalinists met uncompromising force with fawning belly crawling to the Tories. Result: hundreds of jobs lost, hundreds if not all the remainder likely to be lost and an opportunity lost to mobilize the working class against the Tory government and all its policies, cluding mass unemployment.

At Sheffield, instead of maximizing the strength of engineers fighting : for a £6-a-week pay claim, the Stalinist-dominated AUEW district committee recommended plant action.

And at Omes Faulkners, instead of halting the employer in his tracks, the Stalinists preached the risk and ultimate futility of any fight against redundancies—result 66 people sacked.

Sacked AUEW convenor Frank Tomany led the fight in his factory against Stalinism. Because it shows graphically the betrayal constituted by principles and policies of the 'British Road to Socialism', we publish a detailed, step-by-step account of how the redundancies came about.

Mr Tomany claims that CP policy, through its members on the factory. shop stewards' committee and Slough District Committee (DC) of the AUEW, stifled opposition to Omes Faulkners' policies over a considerable period leading up to the sacking of 66 men by:

Stressing the firm's shaky financial position and the danger of a total shutdown. • Stressing the futility of opposing management where the company's trading position left it no other choice.

CP members of both committees do not deny they urged caution in view of the alleged danger that the firm could close if pressed too hard by their workforce.

Mr Tomany levels three major charges against Slough DC. • Failure to lead a fight against 66 redundancies at the factory effective from March 24. • Failure to oppose work previously done by some of the redundant men being sent out to a largely non-union firm. • Failure to lead a fight against what he alleges was the victimization of a convenor.

Mr Tomany accuses Omes Faulkners management of singling him out because of his consistent tough line in negotiations about pay and conditions.

Spokesmen for the firm and for Slough AUEW district committee deny the allegations.

In fact the management refused to comment on whether or not Mr Tomany had been victimized, but personnel manager Mr S. Eden told me he did not think the company was taking a tough line with trade unions.

At least once before the company has felt obliged to defend itself from charges of hostility to trade unions.

In October 1970 AUEW members at the firm's Barnes factory (now closed) staged three weeks' strike after they agreement reached during the year I was convenor [1969-1970] was disastrous for the company and I cost them at least £21,000 in legal aid settlements. *When Omes Faulkner announced the 66 redundancies on March 13 the names were selected indiscriminately-not on the basis of last-in, first-out or of all those over 65, or any principle at all. *Although management deny it, in my opinion it was an act of victimization to put my name as AUEW convenor on the list.' Mr Tomany's dismissal came only days after he was re-elected convenor by the Il-man factory shop stewards' committee after an absence of over a year from the job.

CP members hold three of the I1 seats and may influence one more. knew would fight tooth and nail against the redundancies made him a candidate for the He had established his reputation as a hard bargainer in 1971. 'In the two years 1 was not convenor, things were sliding back ... What we had gained in 1970 such as the agreements on holidays at Christmas and throughout the year, on orange juice and on a suggestions scheme, were being knocked on the head by management. "The CP line has been that the company could not afford these agreements, but the maintenance department fought alone to get them back and we did.' At least since 1970 Omes Faulkners has been noted throughout the SE as a highlyorganized factory with some of the best pay and conditions in the area. had to be done to slash their costs, which they said had risen steeply in the past four years. On March 10 they met the factory shop stewards and AUEW district secretary George Currell telling them outright there had to be up to 80 redundancies or a 17-per-cent wage-cut.

Their hand was almost certainly forced by the fact that from January 24 AUEW convenor Frank Tomany enforced in his shop the AUEW Slough District Committee rule that because of the high level of unemployment no man should work more than 40 hours a week.

Mr Tomany claims overtime became an issue in his shop after Omes Faulkners shut their Barnes factory in the summer of last year and moved a number of machines to Colnbrook.

He pressed for more men and improved facilities but instead the management began sending work out to Gay's of Hampton— also a member of the Pratt on February 2 was that ... 'in view of union members • being out of work and short of work we would have to insist that this work would have to go to a union firm ..!

KNIFE-EDGE Although Currell would specifically not comment on the allegation, Frank Tomany claims he was told by DC not to make trouble about work going out because of the knife-edge state of the company.

Even with work beginning to go out of the factory to Gay's, there was still a substantial amount of overtime-in some cases up to 20 hours a week— when the DC clamped down. Left: Omes Faulkners Ltd. Above, sacked AUEW convenor Frank Tomany, who led the fight against Stalinism in the factory.

to make me very unpopular with management,' he told me. His daily requests for overtime estimates eventually drew management's fire and he alleges he was told they couldn't spend all day acting as an. office boy for him.

With the overtime ban biting faced With Fair with an urgent need to rationalize and at the same time find a way round opposition from the trade unions.

Talk of sacking was rife and Mr Tomany's insistence that this could be avoided by work-sharing served only to fix management's eye firmly on his department as the first victim of their emerging re-organization On March 7 at a meeting factory shop stewards, a vote of