The High Court has served a writ on the Joint Chapels Committee at Briant Colour Printers, where the workers have been pursuing an occupation work-in in defence of their jobs. The writ, obtained by the liquidator, obliges the workers to hand over all the documents of the company so that he can wind it up, to leave the premises by the date of expiry -13 February - and to pay the costs incurred by the owner's court proceedings and the rates and rent over the seven months of These could come to as much as £50,000.
But at a mass meeting the workers decided unanimously neither to hand over the books nor to leave the premises voluntarily, nor to pay the costs. Instead they burnt the writ. They then called on the whole labour movement for support by sending mass pickets for a demonstration on 13 February and for 24 hour pickets after that date to prevent any attempt at seizing BCP.
RIGHT TO A JOB The workers at Briant's went into occupation because suddenly they were all told they would be made redundant. They suspected the owner, Mr D. Syder, of wanting to make a property deal whereas they felt the printing company should continue as a printing company. The decision to fight redundancies challenges the very basis of so-called "freedom' in bourgeois society, particularly the freedom of the capitalists to direct their capital into whichever avenue will maximise profit, regardless of the social consequences -in this case speculate in land and put 150 workers out on the street. To this they couterposed the right to a job - a right which no capitalist economy can guarantee. Briant workers have seen what the law thinks of workers who take their right to work' seriously. They have a writ slapped on them.
But the Briant workers are a nuisance for the liquidator's plans so he utilises the law to try to get rid of them. In this way the owner can tidy up his debts at Briant's and take his capital elsewhere.
After seven months of occupation the Briant workers have not managed to win back their jobs. But in spite of the economic hardship July 7972 Briant workers ause their control me, he plow to hele hergel to free the five. involved in the struggle, the workers there have used their control over the plant to produce masses of literature, leaflets, posters, etc., for other workers in struggle. The most important occasion was the struggle to free the five imprisoned dockers. But they also printed material for the UCS workers, the Thornycroft occupation in Basingstoke, and Rockware Glass. DECISIVE QUESTION The Briant workers have also shown an example of tremendous unity between different unions, between the men and women workers, and between the leadership and the mass of workers involved. And now they have taken up the challenge of the writ without hesitation. The decisive question is now this: the extent to which other workers and socialists will respond with massive solidarity. The defence of Briant's is not only a matter of manning the pickets and participating in future demonstrations. The capitalist class wants to stamp out the new forms of mass struggle such as the occupation tactic. Such initiatives can pose a deadly threat to the whole offensive of the Tory Government if they become generalised and take on a single political focus. It is as an integral part of the preparation for the confrontation with the Tory Government that the working class must take up the defence of the Briant John Weal BRIANT'S: STRUGGLE DECIDES NOT THE LAW A London IMG pamphlet, price 5p. Contains material on the background to the Briant's occupation, discusses the occupation tactic, and situates the fight within the general upsurge of working class struggles. Available from: London IMG, 182 Pentonville Road, London N.1.
In early December, some 25 Labour Councils past year. Then the Labour Party leadership reversed the decisions taken at the 1972 At the end of January, nearly three months after the start of the wage freeze, the Morning Star reported that the not only sabotaged the s door to the right-wing.
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BRIANT COLOUR PRINTING JOINT CHAPELS PLEDGE SOLIN SRITY TO THE DOCKERS
WANTED OUT