is now in its fifth month. of the occupation.
they Ing.
pute was over wages.
dancies, struggle Two hundred shop stewards representing every major engineering and shipbuilding company in Glasgow attended a meeting at the occupied Maclarens factory on Wednesday to hear about the circumstances surrounding the occupation of this subsidiary of the giant multinational ITT, which They unanimously pledged full and unconditional support, and will be holding a meeting of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions, in order to consider forms of industrial action in support At the beginning of the week, the Maclaren's shopstewards realised that would cither have to recom mend ending the strugale-or extending it. They appreciated the urgent necessity of involving the rost of the trade union movement, and decided to hurriediy call Wednesday's meetAt the meeting, Alex Ferry, AUEW district secretary, described the basis of the strugale, and the latest develop- gow especially. ments. Initially, he said, this disBut within a few weeks it was apparent that the strugele was over much more: redunand the right to work. A not against the local MacLaren's factory, but against the multiPart of the occupying force-women workers have bean active throughout the struggle national International Telephone and Telegraph corporation.
*In the past five weeks the workers were willing to do anything to reach a settlement, and the management begin. demanded that the union must accept the inevitability of redundancies. They were aware of the lack of struggle sold support from the trade union movement as a whole, and from Glas He went on to say that the workcis had been prepared to talk about redundancies, provided that all work ers were first reinstated. The management had started by demanding that 50 per cent of the workforce -165 workers-would have to po. Thea they raised the figure to 70 percent. Finally, at a meeting last Monday. the management added that the sit-in must end before negotiations could It was then chat the shop stewards decided in favour of extending the The convenor of the Standard Telephone & Cables factory in East Kilbride-also part of the ITT empire& calling a meeting early next week to discuss strike action in support of the Maclaren's occupation, and there is likely to be sympathy action taken at an STC plant in the north of Ireland.