If we were to judge by the reports of the newspapers and television, the occupation of U.C.S. is something of a type which has never been seen before. Workers taking over and running their own factories, docks, mines or shipyards is something which is supposed to be new and unusual.
In fact, the first great factory occupation of modern times occurred in December, 1906 at the General Motors plant at Schenectady, New York. The workers of U.C.S. have revitalised a tradition which is almost as old as mass trade unionism itself and which exists in every single country in the world in which there are powerful workers' organisations. Even in Britain, very backward in this respect, a small history of occupations, although none as big as U.C.S., can be found.
Occupations of work places in Britain began to appear during the Great Depression of 19291930s were those in the mines. These were the defeating the attempt of the mine owners to destroy the Miners Federation by setting up compThe first strike of this type took place at the Welsh Nine Mile Point colliery when mine owners tried to replace Miners Federation owners had always won as they had brought in police or even threatened troops in order to break the picket lines and smash the strike.
action would serve as a rallying point for the enPlease send me THE RED MOLE for the next 6/12 months. I enclose cheque/P.O./cash for THE RED MOLE, 182 Pentonville Road, London N.1. 01-837 6954, 01-278 2616.
Foreign subs: Asia/Africa/Australia/N & S America: £5 per year (airmail); E3 per year EDITORIAL BOARD: Tarig Ali, Dave Bailey, Robin Blackburn, Peter Gowan, Brian Grogan, Teresa Hayter Alan Jones, Pat Jordan, Dave Kendall, Branka Magas, 182 Pentonville Road, London N. 1. 01.837 998sent food, drink, blankets, etc. down the mine. When the company tried to send blacklegs down to one part of the mine it was occupied by Miners Federation men as well. In solidarity with the Nine Mile Point men, 11 other mines were occupied, and the local railway union branches gave support by refusing to transport blacklegs. After just over a week of the occupation, the miners won all their demands for recognition of the union and a guarantee of no redundancy.
An even more bitter struggle of the same type occurred in the Parc and Dare collieries in the Rhondda where 1,500 men were involved in a 13 food being sent down the mines. To prevent this the union declared that if the management carried out its threat, it would mobilise miners from. other collieries and the wives of strikers to attack tactic of occupation could be put into effect. the pit head, and would hold safety-officials underground as hostages. Eventually t he company was forced to accept the demands of the men.
It was only through these two great occupations that trade unionism was safeguarded in the Since the Second World War it appeared for a time that the technique of occupation by the workers was disappearing. There was one important occupation of a mine in Britain in the late 1940s, but since then most occupations have been minor ones. Perhaps the longest was one by workers at the Injection Mouldings Company in North London. Other significant factory occupations were at M. and L. Goldstein in London in 1950 and Austin Longbridge in Birmingham in 1962.
out against a lock out imposed by the managemOne hundred workers seized the factory and uted directly to factories at cost price. barricaded themselves in. They were only removed by a full scale assault across the roof tops by the police. The strike only really failed because not enough support had been gained from other The trade union bureaucrats are notably absent from the struggle so far.
This is explained, in part, by the lack of demands arising out of the struggle to date. Unless the Government backs down in the immediate future (possible, demands are raised, then the question of who negotiates with whom has to be confronted. This is the cue for the It is absolutely imperative that the struggle extends beyond its confinement to a narrow base, and beyond its trade union limits. Only by extending sections of the working class and at the same time making the shop stewards committees the sole organ of negotiation (themselves directly accountable danger of containment and a sellout by the bureaucrats be avoided. It is one thing to have the support of the Labour Party, the Scottish TUC, and trade union leaders, but it would be quite another to allow these forces to do the negotiating. The old division between "trade unionism" and "politics" raises its ugly head. The danger is vacuum which exists at present will be filled by Feather, the Labour Party & The Labour Party will offer its services to the workers in exchange for a surrender of workers' control. The trade union bureaucrats will offer their services in exchange for the workers "recognising" their "natural" position of "leadership". What they are asking for is a free hand to sell out the struggle and to do deals freed from the scrutiny At Longbridge 3,000 workers were involved in an occupation which lasted for a week. This occupation was sucessfully concluded. Other minor skirmishes which have developed in the motor industry were the entry and almost starting of an occupation of company offices of the Ford plant at Halewood earlier this year.
Up to U.C.S. the largest threatened factory occupation in Britain since the war was that of the G.E.C. plants in Liverpool. This however failed because unfortunately the strike leaders Here the company tried to stop had not gained the full support of the men. Nevertheless this threatened occupation set a lot of people thinking, and where the shop stewards had the fuli support of the men, as at U.C.S., the The greatest of all factory occupations were in France in May-June 1968. Here a General Strike of 10 million workers led to practically every major plant in the country being occupied by in these occupations surpassed anything that has so far been seen in Britain. At Nantes and St. Nazaire, for example, the strike committees took prices and distributed food brought in from the surrounding countryside. At one point they evprevent attacks from the police and army, barricades were errected across the roads and all entry to the town controlled by strike committees. In Paris itself a mass committee of workers, students In the first of these the occupation was carried and farmers, organised food convoys supplied by mendous upheaval in France unfortunately did not lead to the seizure of power by the workers that will come later, but what the French workers have learnt from the strikes of 1968 is the THE BUREAUCRATS ARE WAITbureaucrats don't want struggles to be extended because they undermine their authority and control. As constituted at the moment, the shop stewards committee is still integrated into the existing structures of the trade union movement, and control could imperceptibly pass out of the committees' control into the hands of the bureaucracies.
raised so far, and because other sectors of workers are not yet striking and making demands on their own bosses, the shop stewards committee has been able to bury for the time being the This was very difficult to achieve. The support for the idea of a "takeover"
came only gradually from the Confederation of Ship Building and Engineering Unions, and even more slowly, of course, from the STUC. The makers Union leadership seems to have been put aside for the time being. But if the struggle is extended only after the trade union bureaucracies have regained control, then all the hostilities could be reopened, and this in turn could reactive tensions inside the shop stewards committee inside the yards.
This is why it is absolutely vital that the rank and file take and hold the initiative across whole sectors of industry, creating in the process new organs of leadership, which in turn can take the struggle beyond trade unionism in a very literal sense: housing struggles, for example. A suggestion that this should be done has been rejected by Both Reid and Airlie are in the AEF.
But the most strategically key union is history tremendous power of the factory occupation. Almost every major industrial struggle in France occupation this lesson had not been learnt in BriNow the sit in strike/factory occupation may be here to stay. Perhaps there is something to be learnt from the Common Market after all!
Perhaps the most important advantages of an occupation are on the morals and involvement of the men involved. By all being concentrated in one place, they can see visibly the massive solidarity of their fellow workers. In the same way that a mass meeting is always preferable to a secret ballot, because it stops the workers being split up so they can be influenced by the press and managements as isolated individuals, so the factory occupation is like one enormous mass meeting, and the feeling of solidarity is enormous. Nothing could be farther removed from the Tories' ideas, in the Industrial Relations Bill, of secret ballots, than occupations by thousands of workers where every viewpoint can be thrashed out and the fullest possible democracy can reign. In addition, an occupied factory is a focus for solidarity action by every surrounding area. In the occupations of mines and car factories which are described in this article, workers from miles, or lated the flow of traffic into the town, controlled even hundreds of miles, around came to give direct support, or indirect support in the form of or yard controlled by the workers appears as a base from which the workers can extend their whole struggle against capitalism. It is this that is the only real way that even a sit-in strike can be won, and it is the real lesson of all the occupations the Boilermakers Union. Shipbuilding can't exist without the Boilermakers.
The history of this union is the history of 150 years of craft sectionalism and the symbol of its past conservatism is Dan McGarvey. The. Government will have their eye on the Boilermakers in the hope that they can be used to split the committee. If the latter agree, McGarvey's expert demagogy will come in very useful to defuse the entire This explains the stress laid by the Government and mass media on the 1,000 jobs available at Scott-Lithgows on the Lower Clyde (the new berth there may well have created this number). These jobs are primarily for skills Union. Moreover, out of the 3,000 or so men left at Upper Clyde if the Tories' reorganisation goes through, 1,200 will be Boilermakers. Thus, quite Boilermakers does a deal with the Government, Reid and Airlie will be machine they have been seeking to use.
And being in the AEF they will be This kind of development-or some There is only one way to avoid this.
meetings of workers!
All negotiations to be carried out by the shop stewards committees under Extend the struggle to other sectors of the workers through elected workers' Build a general strike in Scotland!
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men with blacklegs enrolled in the companies union. In previous struggles of this type the mine
Mile Point workers saw they could break this tac- tic by occupying the mine. It would be imposs- ible for the police to go in and fight to bring the miners out from underground. In addition, their
tire Welsh minefield, and would gain enormous support. Therefore, at the end of one evening shift, the men did not come back to the surface, but occupied the mine. They were supported by a network of supporters on the surface who