DINING CAR STRIKE

RAILWAY workers can draw important lessons from the strike started early this week by B.R. dining car staff in Manchester, Bro Ken Wiggett, Chairman of the Restaurant Cars L.D.C. (Local Department Committee) summed up the strike by saying ‘we are not striking for or against anything but in support of official policy as decided by the Annual General Meeting of the NUR earlier this year.’

This policy stated the Union’s total opposition to the introduction of Pullman Car Services on BR. The basis of this objection lay in the fact that the Pullman Car Co. was a semiprivate concern and lucrative profits to be made from the type of service it operates would fall into the laps of preference shareholders. It also stated that the Pullman Car staff should be integrated into BR.

Bro Oliver Bates, Secretary of the LDC, speaking on this point, said ‘we have no fight with the Pullman car lads and we say, if the BTC want to introduce luxury trains then we will work them alongside the Pullman Jads who should, in our opinion, be working for the BTC.’

Earlier this month the NUR NEC decided to change this policy, decided at the AGM, after the Pullman Car Co. had refused to bring the conditions and pay of their workers into line with BR staff unless objections to their trains were removed, Last Friday it was announced that these pay increases had been granted and would cost the Pullman Car Co. £25,000. This is the price they are prepared to pay to buy off union opposition.

The price the NUR, NEC will have to pay could well be much greater. Railway workers are sich of being fobbed off with the excuses and delays in getting claims settled and dissatisfaction is spreading through lack of leadership. It has taken the strike of the dining car staff to expose the bankruptcy of this leadership. They are determined and will use every possible means to ensure the NEC are brought to heel on this The most significant factor in the strike is the speedy support given by the newly formed Rank and File C/W and Shops Committee in Manchester. Railway workers must learn that the real strength of the union lies in their hands and to leave their futures in the hands of such leaders will be a luxury they cannot afford.

The only safeguard against recurrences of such betrayals on a much wider scale, is the building of real unity on the railways around a programme which will defend jobs and improve The task of building such unity lies with the rank and file of the railway unions.

The October-November LABOUR REVIEW includes:

The Full Story of the Shell Mex Strike (‘The Politics of South Bank’ by R. PENNINGTON)

Socialists and the Summit Marxism in Britain—1881-1920 Special eight-page autumn book supplement price 2s. 5d. post paid. Order from New Park Publications, 186 Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4.