Sit-in backlash

OVER ing combine. weeks old. piecework.

200 Liverpool engineering workers are occupying their factory in support of a wage claim and against a management bid to drive them off Pay-grade strike by Lucas sparks piecework. The men Machines Ltd, Speke, Their dispute, one of the remaining skirmishes in the ill-fated engineering pay claim, began on June 23, when the Manesty workers struck for a substantial pay increase, shorter hours and better holiday pay.

The sit-in which began last Tuesday, is a backlash against engineers' president Hugh Scanlon's agreement with the eigia! eering employers when the Manesty strike was nine In common with many engineers involved in plant - by - plant battles throughout Britain, the Speke workers won little from the national agreeThey met management and asked for a local deal involving a general pay increase of around £6 and average pay during holidays.

It was then that management stepped up their offensive and insisted that any settlement must involve an abolition of "They played it tough all along, John McShane, a spokesman for the shop stewards' occupation committee told me:

"The group are part of Engineering plovers' Federation and they backed the Federation's stand when other UP TO 30 per cent of all production workers throughout the Birmingham group of Lucas factories have now been laid off following the strike by 230 electricians.

The electricians struck on October 5 over pay grading and have been in deadlock with management ever since. A meeting of Lucas convenors was told last Friday of the lay-offs.

John Allan, electricians' and plumbers' (EPTU) shop steward at the BW4 lamps factory, Shaftmoor Lane, told Workers Press:

•Prior to negotiations earlier this year on the national engineering claim, all skilled workers, including electricians, pipe-fitters, millwrights, and so on, were paid on a five-grade system. The electricians three grades, Occupied the top It was during these employed by Manesty of the Renold engineerlocal employers like Lucas were settling,' he said.

'When the deal was reached at national level I reckon they imagined we were in a weak state, therefore they added this element of a new payment Mr McShane told me the stewards were not opposed to ending piecework in principle. But they were insisting that this had nothing to do with the current dispute.

Manesty Manufacturing was formerly the engineering section of the pharmaceutical firm Thompson Capper Ltd of Liverpool.

In 1964 it got its current masthead when the engineering firm John Holroyd Ltd took it over. Later Holroyd merged with the Manchester-based power transmission and machinery producers Renold Chains Ltd.

Profits of the combine after tax were £3.3m in 1969; £3.8m in 1970; £4.8m in 1971 and f4.1m 'We are quite prepared to discuss the issue after this claim has been settled to our members' satisfaction, he said.

The last offer made by management was £2. 'With the saving in administrative costs the abolition of piecework involves they won't be giving anything tions that works' won the right to for the top two thing which they before.

All skilled workers had accepted the company's final ofter of £4.25, except the elecricians, who demanded that the gap between top and second BAKERY workers meeting 2,000 strong in Glasgow on Saturday rejected union officials' pleas to return to work and called for the resignation of Alex Mackie, national organizer of the Scottish Union of Bakers and Allied Workers. West of Scotland bread supplies have been shut off by the strike which began in Glasgow last Wednesday and has since spread to Edinburgh. The men came out in protest against engineers had be considered grades, somehad not had Speke men fight pay and piecework battle away with this scheme,' Mr McShane told me.

The sit-in began last Tuesday afternoon after a further meeting. Shop stewards were put in charge of their respective sections and they went to the strategic points of the factory and locked the gates.

By 7 p.m. management had vanished from the plant. They are now holfor the year ending August 1972.

Manesty, which produces pill-making machinery, has a very high rate of return on capital. Some stewards put the figure as high as 50 per cent.

Renolds has Il British subsidiaries but 66 per cent of the sales are outside the UK—31 per cent to Europe. In his latest report, chairman Sir Thomas Robson warned of the tough time ahead for the firm.

ing out in the lage of Lym.

It was a • decision • we had to take. We could not just go on picketing outside as we had done for the last four months. Some escalation was necessary to force the issue,' said Mr McShane.

Though sit-in is one :ORRESPONDENT of the most disciplined I have witnessed, the Manesty men have been subject to considerable intimidation.

On the first full day of the sit-in the 160 staff turned ! up for work with a contingent of police.

They were told they could join the occupation, but on no account would they be allowed to work,' said Mr McShane.

A chief constable warned the workers that they could not obstruct the staff. Eventually a 30strong force of police marched forward, lifted the main gates off their hinges and shut off the plant's electrical supply.

Now a car with • two occupants, either staff or plain clothes police, keeps continual watch on the factory.

The plight Manesty workers dictment of the mated Union of ing Workers' leadership.

The plant - by - plant strategy-the brain-child of Hugh Scanlon and his executive-fragmented and destroyed one of the most important charters of demands made by British workers since the war.

The result was a series of deals — some merely kept engineers up with the cost-of-living, others were grade be increased E:Then management offered 10 institute a sixth grade, £l above the previous top grade,' added Mr Allan. This was turned down at a mass meeting last Monday, despite a four-hour attempt by an EPTU councilman to persuade them to return.

the union's acceptance of a £2.50 wage offer in answer to their demand for another £5 a week.

Union officials who said they could not make the strike official were howled down by the meeting. • Between 70 and 80 Glasgow public houses were closed over the weekend because of the strike by bar staff employed by Tennent Caledonian Breweries. is an inAmalgaEngineernational SO bad that suffered a real cut in their living standards.

Scanlon crowned all this with the latest national deal—one which the EEF would have accepted without the prolonged and bitter strikes and sit-ins throughout the industry.

This had the direct effect of leaving the remaining workers in struggle-like the Manesty men and the shipyard engineers on the lower Clyde : to fight in total isolation.

The Manesty dispute is officially backed by the Liverpool AUEW district committee. And despite the overwhelming odds, the morale of the workers is extremely high. Like the men in the CAV occupation at Fazakerley, they are determined to win. 'In retrospect,' said Mr McShane, expressing. a personal opinion, I have my doubts about the plant-by-plant strategy. 'Industrial Relations Act notwithstanding, and recognizing the problems of finance, I think the feeling for a national action was there among the engineers. 'Certainly in our plant, though we explain to the men the size of the battle in front, they were ready to fight to a man. And they are still ready after four long months-which proves their spirit, said Mr McShane.

Jack Lynch, convenor of the works' engineers group throughout the Birmingham combine, is also opposed to the new grade.

'It would mean our members working their way up through six grades instead of five. We have been fighting for years to reduce the number of grades,' he said.

Skilled workers in the Lucas combine in Birmingham have been in the forefront in recent years to push up wages.

Last year the management attempted to drive a wedge between the different sections by granting electricians and toolroom men average pay for holidays, but refused it to works' After a four-week strike in September, however, they were forced to climb down 1 and pay

BRITISH-LEYLAND proposals aimed at ending the