PAISLEY STRIKERS NEED SOLIDARITY ACTION NOW
1959The NewsletterEdward Knight Read the scan at ETOL (PDF) →Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: headlines and words can be misread, and a caption or advert can run into the text. For anything you quote, read the scan.
THE greatest working-class demonstration Paisley has seen took place last Sunday, when 1,200 millworkers marched to the Town Hall for a mass meeting in support of their three-weeks struggle.
Determination to carry through their fight against speed-ups and reduced working conditions was clearly shown by the men, women, young girls and boys as they marched through the streets.
Yet the meeting revealed two weaknesses which—if the strikers do not take steps to remove them—could lead to the collapse of the struggle:
(1) Leading officials of the National Union of Dyers, Bleachers and Textile Workers have been conducting secret negotiations with representatives of J. and P. Coats.
(2) The leaders have made no serious preparations to campaign for the ‘blacking’ of all goods, at the docks and elsewhere, entering or leaving the mills.
Solidarity could cripple them Solidarity action by dockers, railwaymen and_ transport workers could soon cripple Coats’s. But it needs direct contact with rank-and-file workers to carry it through.
Failure to accomplish this by the fourth week of the strike is obviously connected with the secret negotiations with the employers, which lasted for about two weeks.
What reason can there be to keep anything hidden from the strikers?
First the employers raised the union officials’ hopes with a statement that a settlement could be arrived at. Then they blew these hopes to pieces.
Obviously the officials have been reasoning along these lines: if there is a possibility of a negotiated settlement, then why seek support from other sections for the strike?
The employers’ tactics were designed to hold back the officials from developing the necessary campaign to mobilize the maximum pressure on J. and P. Coats. And these tactics succeeded.
Socialist Labour League proposals Now the campaign must be got under way. In a leaflet addressed to the strikers, and to other workers in the Glasgow area, the Glasgow branch of the Socialist Labour League puts forward the following proposals:
(5) There should be an end to all secret negotiations.
(6) A broad strike committee, elected by the strikers themselves, should be set up.
By Our Industrial Correspondent