and then at Fisher Bendix in Liverpool.
Plessey bought the Dumbartonshire factory in May 1970 with the help of a government grant of £3 million, given to help provide jobs in a depressed area. But less than 18 months later Plessey decided to pull out. In September 1971 closure was announced. Six hundred dismissed workers immediately occupied to prevent Plessey moving out machinery for resale or re-siting in the cheaper labour zones of South Africa or Portugal.
Barbed wire entanglements were set up to ensure that no personnel unauthorised by the workers gained admittance, and management were forced to leave the factory. After an occupation lasting five months, during which the other factories in the Plessey group blacked all work normally carried out in Dumbartonshire, the company negotiated. A substitute company was set up and the Plessey site is now being developed as a new industrial estate.
However, it was Fisher Bendix that showed some of the great potential of a militant occuwork-in could in fact be used to subsidise the employer, and so decided on occupation as the best way to hit the machinery, breaking the company's contracts and causing widespread disruption → it is a more effective weapon.
As closure became imminent, the shop stewards made preparations for resistance. Links were established with other factories in the Thorn Electrical combine, and attempts were made to set up a combine committee to ensure the necessary blacking. The support of Merseyside dockers and other workers was sought and given. Plans were laid for preventing the movement of machinery. responsibility to take it. An active campaign was to be waged in the whole of the labour movement.
The crucial response was from the docks The shop stewards committee published and circulated a list of every firm in the Thorn empire so that all Thorn products entering or leaving the country were blacked. Thorn had a simple choice - • settle Fisher Bendix, or halt production nationally.
The blacking appeal had stressed that Fisher Bendix was a battle for the right to work, and as such concerned the whole labour movement. Support in the Merseyside area grew. Spurred into action, the Liverpool Trades Council organised mass mobilisations of pickets to counter any possible attempts and also began to prepare a local general strike against redundancies. in the spring or 19/4, occupation strikes took place in engineering tactores through out the Manchester area-a struggle tactic learnt from workers fighting redundancies announced that only 450 jobs could be guaranteed. A mass meeting the following day voted to expel the receiver and start a work-in. In an atmosphere contrasting sharply with the emotion of the previous occupation, the workers coolly marched to the manager's office and escorted the receiver to the gates.
Stewards
Because the stewards were already involved in discussing how best to keep the company as a going concern, it now seemed perfectly consistent and logical to work-in rather than Sworn woule demonstrate bre res ponsibility of the workers and their ability to continue production. Ins arutude was shown in the organisation of the work-in, when mass meetings were cancelled to allow senior stewards to travel to condon for con sultations with Benn and the Department of
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W Part Ill of our series Many workers learnt very quickly from the mistakes and failures of the UCS work-in. These groups saw that a
company. The first and most important occupations followed closely on the decision by the UCS yards to work- in. These were at Plessey in Dumbartonshire - very close to UCS and in the same area of high unemployment -