The following is an interview with Terry Jaques, the shop stewards convenor at the Hoe-Crabtree engineering plant in Leeds. The workers at the plant decided to occupy the factory on Monday, 17 April, following the suspension of nix men after a work to rule was imposed in support of the engincen claim for better pay and conditions. At the rime of writing the factory in still under Terry Jogues is abso a member of the Leeds District Committee of the AUEW.
-Can you outline the origins and the details of the engineers" claim in Leeds.
The origins of the claim data back tothe 1970 National Committee of the AUEW, which decided to submit a claim for a basic rate of £25 for skilled engineering workers and £20 for labourers with varying amounts for intermediate grades. This was to be the basis of the new wages application after the termination of the three year package deal in December 1971. There was a whole host of other details such as the reduction of the working week from fourty to thirty-five hours, the abolition of penalty clauses for weeks extra holiday with averand a third-whichever is the I pay for women -What do you think of the decision of the National Committee to refer the claim back to the districts? 1 disagree with this decin 1 disagreed the The engineering dispute in Greater Manchester is almost deadlocked. Since the report in the last Red Mole was written there have been several new occupations. There has also been one settlement - at Davies, Metcalfe in Romily, the second plant to be occupied.
But the general pattern is one of about equal moves on either side. About 30 firms, including a lot of firms in the Engineering Employers Federation, have settled. Most of the agreements reached include concessions on the four points - pay, hours, holidays and equal pay for women (in the cases in which women are affected), Agreements that do not include something on all points are not being ratified by the AUEW engineering district committee. Also those which include concessions on hours contain a 'no publicity clause as the individual firms involved don't want to follow in the footsteps of Scrages and be thrown out of the E.E.F.
An example of the role of the E.E.F. is the case of a large engineering firm in East Manchester, Mather and Platt. One of the directors - Morton - is the chairman of the local E.E.F. A very bad settlement, involving only money, nothing on hours and conditsons, was accepted by the stewards on Monday, 17 April. The next day, at a national level, the E.E.F. announced the sending of El million plus to its member firms in this area to help them fight the claim. And on the same day, locally, an offer of concessions on all three points at one Openshaw factory was withdrawn by management after a phone-call from the management at Mather and Platt. This is concrete evidence that, given the way the unions are fighting the claim, some firms are bound to breach the solidarity of the E.E.F.. especially because the E.E.F. position is a negotiating one. But on the union side weaknesses in particular factories, and a lack that we in Leeds and other districts have adopted we could have crippled the country in a very short space of time.
-How did the present dispute at Hoe-Crabtree start?
He gave notice to the management that we vete going to work to rule in support of our daim and we made clear that this meant one num one job, that is, we would only expect people to do the work they were set on to do When the work to rule started the fitters gave notice that they were no longer prepared to carry on doing slinging work, which is recog nised throughout the industry as a specialised job for slingers. The management claimed that custom had established that slinging was part of a fitter's job and that they expected them to continue doing this work. Our local District Secretary suggested that the fitters should in fact continue to do this work but the fitters shop stewards disagreed and refused to accept this suggestion. The management then issued six men with written suspensions. I immediately called a meeting of all the shop stewards in the establishment and we agreed that we had to support the six suspended men. The shop stewards then asked the men in their departments to stop work and not resume until the suspension had been lifted. Thirty minutes later we were all informed that payment of wages had been stopped and that if we weren't prepared to start work again we might as well all go home. We regarded this as meaning we were all suspended.
What is the situation at the factory now? Thene are approximately 800 men altogether employed at the factory but only 515 come Or claim for better wages and condid this in the number actually invo d-out and taking part in the occup -What has the attitude of the men been to the idea of using occupations as a tactic? Well, the whole situation that has developed this week took everybody by surprise, cven of information, are causing discontent among the men.
Besides its unevenness, and other limits on the way the claim is being fought, has been the fact that the sit-ins are being conducted "tactfully and diplomatically". Given the confrontation between the State and the unions - NIRC vs TGWU and the railway workers - one of the best things that could have happened in Greater Manchester would have been for a similar confrontation to be fought through to the end by the workers. A defence of Sharstons when the Court gave an injunction against the sitters-in as trespassers, a decisive ejection of the management from the factory, would have had a powerful effect in putting pressure on the mail unions to also defy the NIRC. Unfortunately this hasn't happened,and in one or two cases - such as Hawker Siddeley Aviation in Woodford - after there was an effective move by a section of the workers to lock out the management, a leading union official hurried down to the factory to speak against it and the decision was reversed.
At other places the workers have been in a less militant mood, and nothing along these lines would have been possible.
On the Social Security front (the biggest strike fund of all) there is also deadlock. A number of claims committees have, on our recommendation, been set up in individual plants to organise claiming. These have been very successful in winning claims and putting pressure on the Social Security to pay out more than their "E4 maximum" for single strikers, as well as reverse their blunt refusal to pay out for married men as well as their de pendants. Following a deputation organised by ourselves and the Gorton and Openshaw Joint Shop Stewards Liaison Committee, appeals against these decisions have been flooding into the Social Security offices. As the regional office in Manchester I suggested to the workers that we ought to occupy the factory the lads were a bit perplexed and wondering what it was all about. It's only now, after nearly a week of the occupation, that they are beginning to organise themselves and some of the shop stewards are beginning to realise that there is some merit to this type of industrial action as against the orthodox strike situation where we would all go down and man picket lines in the cold and wet.
Factory occupations seem to be becoming an increasingly popular tactic amongst workers generally, yet a few years ago the idea of factory occupations would have been regarded as ridiculous. Why do you think there has been this change of attitude?
I think there has been a gradual change in the attitude of workers generally over the last ten years. Workers are far more militant now than they ever were and are refusing to tolerate things which a few years ago they took as the natural course of events. I see the trend towards factory occupations as just one more step in the direction of the general increase in militancy and workers insisting on a far greater say in the running of the industries in which they work.
Do you think that the victory of the miners strike had a big impact amongst other sections of the working class?
Oh yes, without a doubt the miners strike was a corner stone in this general trend. There was a danger that with the advent of the Industrial Relations Bill and the defeat of the Post Office workers that this militant trend could have been reversed. The miners put a stop to this and I think that they gave a lot of confidence to worke g a bit dewas now n other way and that the employers were getting the upper hand with the help of their Tory government and the Industrial Relations Act.
-The government have taken their time in ming the Industrial Relations Act bat the reclaims that it can only deal with around 60 appeas a week, up to 20,000 appeals could prove rather embarrassing.
Given about 30 settlements, 25 sit-ins, and the extension of the struggle to other areas -to Leeds, Oxford and other areas by the attack on the Trade Unions and continue their policy of a direct confrontation? Well, the government's whole philosophy is to attack the working class movement, so I don't think there has been any change in that respect. I think they have been a little clever and have been biding their time to find a section of the working class they think they can defeat with the Industrial Relations Act. They could have invoked the Act against the miners and there's no shadow of a doubt that they would have received an even greater defeat than they did. Quite frankly, I think they have taken a terrific gamble in trying to use it against a section of the T&GWU in the Liverpool docksbecause I don't think they can defeat the dockers. The question of the railways is a different kettle of fish. The NUR has never really been militant. We've always had a lot of midnight confrontations with Sidney Greene making noises which very rarely ever got anywhere. I feel that the government think they can use the Industrial Relations Act against the railwaymen because they have a good chance of getting the railwaymen's leaders to back down and I think they're right. It was the same with the Post Office workers. The government knew they were on a good thing in taking on the P.O. Workers Union, a union with very little history of militancy, and they defeated them overwhelmingly. -Do you think there is a danger that the ruling class will turn to people like Harold Wilson in an attempt to do a deal with the Trade Union leadership and integrate the Trade Unions instead of taking them on in a direct confrontation?
Yes, I think that this isa serious possibility. A lot of people thought that the Trade Union would be weakened by legislation. This is clearly not the case. There is more industria strife than there was before. There is certainly a strong possibility that overturned will be made to certain leaders inside the Trade Union move. ment who would be only too willing to respond.
Interview by Ron Thompson.
union, to a national level by management there is still a long fight ahead.
Manchester ING Workers occupying the Kearns-Richards engineering factory in Altrincham.
Labour from a party of protest into the norGovernment, again written by a group pri marily of the Right and Centre. 6