For two weeks now the Executive Committee of the AUEW has postponed the vital decision on official support and payment of strike money. The EC meeting of 28 October was cancelled to allow the Executive to join in a Common Market junket in Brussels; and the meeting of 4 November decided to 'defer' a decision until a 'fuller report' had been submitted by the Paisley district office.
The EC needed no such fuller report a few weeks ago, however, when on une acmana or goncral socretary John Boyd it perfunctorily reversed a decision by the Glasgow district committee to break off AUEW sponsorship of eight right wing Labour coun cillors who voted for the use of PAGE TWO SUPPORT was pouring tion, the 320 workers at Personna Razor Blades, Hillington (near Glasgow) have been dealt the hardest blow to their struggle for jobs since the redundancies were first announced. This threat to the occupation has come from none other than the leaders of the workers' own union, the Amalgamated Union of | troops to break the dustcart drivers' strike last March.
The present paralysis caused by the stalemate between Scanlon's "left' and the Boyd right wing on the EC is reflected in this decision to 'defer' not merely support for the occupation, but in fact its immediate prospects of victory. taken place despite the full support for Personna given by the AUEW (TASS) and the AUEW's Paisley district committee.
The entire EC is now responsbile for the present situation, in which the Personna workers have had to continue one of the most important redundancy struggles in Britain by scraping the barrel of their own savings and submitting to the mercies of seats for unemployed workers.
Readers need only compare last the Trades Council's £9 per head ticket price to see that the failure to make such a provision robs the lobby.
And this has less had to bow to pressure for a more active campaign against the Glasgow on 22 November.
Scottish Daily News Saturday 3 November 1975 NEWS EA to defeat is not matched by the sentiments of the AUEW members on be a green light for mass unemployclearly stewards and convenors on Clydeside see the way ahead in this struggle is not yet clear.
For example, a mass meeting of trade union delegates on unemployment in Glasgow a few weeks ago rejected a motion for stike action on 26 November proposed by Personna convenor and occupation leader Phil McBride.
Similarly the Trades Council, which has organised a train to the 26 November lobby, has to date sidestep* ped the question of reserving a block Nor has it made any provision to ensure a mass delegation from Personna. Red Weekly.
week's strike fund total of £274 with Personna workers of the chance to popularise their struggle at the mass immediately by:
The Trades Council has nevertheGovernment's mass unemployment policies, and call a demonstration in The office committee of John Brown Enginmeeting of shop stewards and convenors from the district in the canteen of the occupied factory on Monday, where proposals were put for the organisation of weekly levies to provide financial life-blood for the occupation. It is reckoned that £1,200 to £1,500 a week is required to build the occupation and the campaign of solidarity. The occupation leaders have been encouraged over the last week by decisions at several engineering plants in Glasgow to organise such levies, and by a donation of £500 from UCS.
DETERMINATION The Personna workers prepared for the mass meeting by covering one wall of the canteen with the management briefing charts whose contents were revealed in last week's Above them the shop stewards committee has posted up the statement: "Below is an exercise found in the conference room by the workers after the sit-in started. It makes interesting reading, and shows what life in Personna would be like if the workers gave in now The determination expressed in this statement must be backed up • Demands by all AUEW branches, shop stewards' committees, district committees etc. for immediate official recognition.
• Organisation throughout Clydeside to ensure a massive display of support on 22 November
SUPPORT
for the fight of the Personna work• Maximum donations to the strike committee funds - send to Ruby Duncan, 27 Bowfield Cres cent, Penilee, Glasgow G52 (collection sheets also available from this address).