GEC strikers angry over plant

THREE HUNDRED workers at two GEC factories made a blistering attack at the weekend on the engineering union executive's decision to abandon a fight on their national pay claim in favour of plant-bargaining.

At GEC Osram, Erith, Kent, the leaders of if the AUEW national claim are demanding a strıke throughout the GEC empire in a bid And at GEC (Elliotts) Lewisham, South East at work in other GEC plants are scabbing on them.

GEC Osram AUEW convenor Mr Len Foley said:

'The employers can do what they like with one factory at a time, but we have put up a resolution to Erith AUEW district committee calling on our 'I think there is a fair chance they will because there is trouble in GEC all over Britain at the moment.' BBC 1 8.00 9.00 9.20 10.40 11.15 11.40 200 mainly women workers locked out for three weeks for working-to-rule in support THE SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE Fill in the form below and send to NATIONAL SECRETARY, SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE, 186A CLAPHAM HIGH ST, LONDON, SW4 7UG. to strengthen their position. London, 20 machine-shop workers on strike for three months in support of the £6-a-week claim say that one effect of plant-bargaining is that men still members at all GEC factories to come out.

He added: 'We would not be in this position if the AUEW avanstirra mnt taban nurns executive udu nut laken away our collective fight for the national wage claim.' Mr Foley said acidly: 'With plant bargaining Scanlon [AUEW president] has just left us to get on with it and we are sitting ducks.' Men earn about £18.40 and women £14 a week at the streetlight components factory where unere nas not been a strike tor two decades.

Said Mr Foley: 'GEC are making fantastic profits out.of our pockets- £80m last year compared to about £l6m • three years ago--and none of it is being ploughed back to us workers.

I think it is wrong where a few people exploit the majority and keep all that money to themselves. Why shouldn't it be ploughed back to the workers?' GEC management has refused to even negotiate on the £6-aweek claim. But, said Mr Foley:

'Our people are on the breadline. Yet the vote at last Thursday's mass meeting again was Ascalon.

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Weather. would like information about Name Address 6.20 6.40 7.30 8.00 8.30 9.00 10.00 10.30 11.55 AUEW convenor at Foley unanimous - after three weeks. We will see it out now until the management make an offer.' Trouble flared in the town on Thursday when the entire work force marched to the local offices of the Department of Social Security to try and obtain cash.

Said Mr Foley: 'Our members were insulted. When they asked how they could be expected to live on thin air, they were told to get overdrafts from their banks.' The Osram workers have been one of the first sections of MCMILLAN Husbands, Killers.

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Wives and Those dastardly French have been selling guns to the Boers! Gaunt's sergeant. Northern weather. British industry to feel some of the less well publicized affects of the Common Market. Mr Foley told me that components they normally supplied to a GEC factory in Birmingham were being brought in from the continent.

He said: 'We are sending a delegation to Birmingham this week to ask them to black components if they come in from abroad or other GEC factories.

•I think we will go back victorious, but we will need assistance from other GEC factories.

told the Engineering Employers' Federation has issued instructions to all their members not to negotiate on the national wage claim and the government is behind them. We are fighting the companies and the Tories.

'There is only one way workers can win these days. As I see it, all the trouble in this country is leading up a to General Strike and then this government will have no option but to resign.

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Life EA PROFITS UP WAGES DOWN 'We've been out for almost 15 weeks now and i we it out,' says machine shop worker Fred Chapman (second at the Lewisham picket line.

AT LEWISHAM, EPTU branch secretary Phil Howlett told me: 'We have been told they are sending our work up to Leicester. They are taking the bread and butter from our mouths to try and frighten us.

Mr Howlett said that abandoning a collective fight on the national pay claim meant that one section of workers in GEC was scabbing on another.

He added: 'The unions should get on to Leicester and tell them not to take any of our work up And machine shop worker Fred Chapman told me: It is GEC policy to threaten you with redundancies to try to keep the wages down, but this time they have come unstuck.

We have been out almost 15 weeks now and we will stick it to the end. We are stopping as much as we can going in and out of the factory and eventually BBC 2 11.00 Play University. 7.

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Thirty wire room have already been laid off and about 50 others struck in sympathy.

Communist Party AUEW convenor Harry Johnson has refused to call out the 1,000-strong workforce on the grounds that the action of the machine shop men will eventually force the works to a halt.

Mr Chapman told me: 'We would have been stronger in numbers and got a settlement a lot quicker if the AUEW executive had not decided on plant'It has put firms like ours which are not 100 per cent unionized out on a limb. We have complained to AUEW local officials about it, but they just tell us they have got to carry out national executive policy' school. 5.35 Open 15 Children growing NEWSROOM, Weather.

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