which included a courageous 14week factory occupation, workers at Maclaren Controls in Glasgow will start work again on Monday having won some major concessions, but without the total victory which was possible had they not been left to fight alone.
The management of Maclaren's, a subsidiary of International Telephone and Telegraphs, has granted in full the pay claim which initiated the dispute. Labourers and semi-skilled workers will receive a L2.25 increase: skilled men £2.50; and of the labour force, will actually receive a penny more than the claim $S.28. The claim was designed to bring equal pay for women neurer.
All agreements on union organisattion within the factory will be maintained, and workers made redundant will receive 3 weeks severance pay was reflected in warm reception given to IMG campaign After ncarly twenty weeks of struggle,| plus 1 week in lieu of notice. But there will be major redundancies, the extent of which has not yet been determined. "UNION BASHING' The shop stewards believe that the management will press for about 50 per cent, and although the stewards will try to limit the extent of the sackings-they estimate that only about 65 per cent of the original • labour force still seek re-instatementit seems inevitable that some workers will be pushed out John Morrison, the shop stewards convenor, sums up the position as foliows: As far as I'm concerned it's women, who constitute three quarters not a defeat; it's not a victory either.
But we've saved our union organisation, and we've got the money we wanted, though it took a long tight. This struggle was not over money, but over union bashing.
To these gains can be added the nucleus of an ITT Combine Committee, which will prove of long term Maclaren's convenor Jahn Morrison rightl with IMG election candidate Bob Purdie left) and campaign manager Erf Wilkie - important politicisation achieved during occupation ers facing the ruthless ITT bosses, still dripping with blood from their sabotage apainst the Allende government in Chile.
TRAIL-BLAZER From every standpoint, the Macfaren's dispute was significant, It involved a monopoly which employs 70,000 workers in Britain, and 4,000 in Ireland. Given the proportion of women in the factory, the claim represented an important test for the Engineering Union's policy on equal pay The dispute was a trail-blazer for the AUEW national claim in the West of Scotland, and it involved advanced and militant forms of struggle which contain valuable lessons for the entire trade union movement.
Yet the Maciaren's workers were Isolated for nearly 17 weeks, when full backing from the other cogueering workers in the Glasgow area, and the immediate setting up of an ITT Combine Committee could bave won a victory in as many days The proot of this is the rapidity with which the management gave in on the two vital points negotiating during the siten, and a guarantee on severance pay. This occurred immediately after the second meeting of the ITT Combine Committee, which discussed a blacking campaign, and a few days after a mecting of 300 engineering shop stewards from the Glasgow area had pledged their support for the strugple.
At the shop stewards" meeting, Alec Ferry, the AUEW Glasgow district secretary, explained that the struggle had reached a point at which outside support was necessary. He said that what was initially a wage after the first three weeks, a struggle over the right to work and redundancies, against the multi-national ITT corporation.
He told the meeting that the other dispute, distributed appeal every fortnight. Over the last five no press statements, no extension of the dispute. Their reason for this ment under the auspices of the Department of Employment.
made a series of major concessions, which Ferry motivated as being necessary because of the 'isolation"
trying simply to get a say in the exout of the gate. They were prepared to discuss the inevitabshty of ending the sit-in.
MAJOR CONCESSIONS dispute in a small factory had become.
AUEW had initially played it like any Pay. sheets and paid union dispute benefit weeks they had played it very cool';
the beginning. was tbe negotiations with the manageAt these negotiations the union of the Maclaren's workers. They gave in on the principle of no redundancies, two minares! tent of the sackings, and in who went But the manapement refused to discuss anything until the sit-in was ended, production had started again. and the redundancies were finalised.
a full settlement of the wage claim, and refused to give more than two weeks severance pay to workers with less than two years service, The union wis claiming a minimum guarantee of three weeks severance At this point the AUEW had told the management to get stuffed', A voice from the back of the hall told Ferry: You should have done that at Ferry's version of events is riddled with inconsistencies. It was obvious from the start that the management would not make a single concession as long as bey only faced the Mac laren's workers, They had already rejected a compromise proposed by the shop stewards before the strike started, after considering if for al of The negotiations' at the DEP consisted of peremptory orders to the workers to get back to work, and accept swingeing redundancies, The fact that they started to move out production indicated their contempt for the AUEW and their determination to either break the power of the union inside the factory, or close it down altogetber.
SHIFTING SANDS
Despite appearances, Ferry 15лог a fool. You do not get to he Glasgow district secretary of the AUEW with out at least a certain flair for judging the shifting sands between Catbolic Action and the Communist Party, The isolation' which necessitated the AUEW concessions was a result of his delay in organising support, The ease with which he summoned a mecting of 300 shop stewards indicates that he could have mobilised outside solidarity at any time, but he chose to wait until heari four ownhs of struggle had plunged the Maclaren's workers to the nadir of despair.
A possible explanation for Ferry's foot shuffling can be guessed from the date of the meeting of 300 stewards. which was 27 February. This guaranteed that any action in support of Maclanen's would take place after the General Election. On 28 February, the day of the clection, the jobs of 600 workers in two Hampshire factories were axed by Maxwell Joseph, one of Britain's richest men, and his fellow directors of Giltspur Investments The following day the factory was given 1is hours notice that the company no longer required their labour.
Although the workers at the Hamble factory have not yet begun to fight back, the men at Eastleigh are dererWith somewhat convoluted reason- company and win. ing. Ferry himself, in commenting on the settlement, made if clear why. despite his handling of the dispute, limited gains were won: "It's hard to claim a victory when you know that some people have lost their jobs, voluntarily or otherwise, But it is a victory when a group of workers can stand up against a multi-national
It was the Maclaren's workers themselves who salvaged this limited Victory. Without their tenacious struggle the lactory would have been closed down, and ITT would have moved production elsewhereaccompanied by ineffectual bleatings from Ferry's office.
IGAVIN ROBINSON ing factory, it had no history of militancy, and was led by shop stewards very conscious of their own inexpericnoc.
mitted a wage claim within the terms of Phase 3, The management en. John Morrison, the convenor, says: "This offer was completely on their offer."
it, and gave seven days notice of strike action, which started on 6 November when the management rejected a compromise settlement proposed by the stewards. ditions for a return to work which and a 2-ycar no-strike agrecment. A mass meeting rejected the management's insulting diktat.
OCCUPYING
This was how John Morrison described the background to the decision to occupy, and the occupation itself:
'During a conciliation meeting at the Department of Employment in the fifth week of the strike I received a phone call which told me the factory by now-union labour, in fact by the office staff. It must have been done during the night as it was a big job.
Treported this to the shop ately started thinking about occupying the factory and made this recom mendation at the Saturday mass meeting.
agement seat a letter to all of us: if we were not back at work by WedI gate at them.
Last October, the stewards subresponded by offering C2 across the board, plus an extra 12.06 for womunacceptable. It was the first firm in Glasgow which did not bother to use the excuse of Phase 3 to put a ceiling STRIKE ACTION The workers unanimously rejected It was obvious from the start that the manupement was not interested in reaching a settlement. They called the shop stewards to a meeting at AUEW House in Glasgow where the astonished stewards, who had expected to be discussing some kind of offer, instead heard the management lay down con- other jobs.
included acceptance of redundancies, about the removal of a machine from so long.
The following Monday the manWe were now in occupation. The police asked me to talk to them, but the others wouldn't Ict me. The police and management talked to us through Ferry, the AUEW district secretary, and said that they wouldn't bother us so long as we did no damage."
And once the occupation had begun they had to solve a broad range of problems which threatened its continuation. They had little experierice on which to base their decisions, and had to 'cross each bridge as we came to it, as one shop steward put it.
In any strike there is a tendency for the involvement of the workers to gradually decline. In an occupation, which requires a higher level of participation, this tendency represents an even more significant problem.
After five weeks on strike, the Maclaren's workers were in financial difficulties. They eked out unemploy ment and strike benefit, with collections and donations - UCS threw them a sorely needed financial lifebelt. But economic pressure on the worst off forced a proportion of them to seek Since the majority of the workers were married women, home, children, and the economic position of their husbands increased the pressure on many of the woinen involved. The division in the family between the man as wage carner, and the woman as the person responsible for home and children could be seen here as a direct harrier to working class struggle. It was one of the failures of the occupation that no creche was set up, and no collective responsibility taken for domestic commitments, LESSONS Some lessons can be learat from other errots which were made, although it was a tribute to the leadership of the Maclaren's workers that the struggle was kept going for At the start the shop stewards wee very anxious to keep control of the struggle, They argued that they had been clected, and the members should have faith in them and in I enthusiasm."
But they still tended to see the orpanisation of the struggle in terms of themselves, as the elected representatives, taking decisions but obtaining ussistance from otber workers. Thay did not appreciate that the struggle polarised those who were willing to right, and those who would ren ein passive, In order to strengthen the struggle it was essential that the reserves of energy and initiative produced by the best workers should be tapped, by directly involving them in decision making. This would have required control of the occupation by a democrazierily elected occupation The shop stewards committee was not adequate because it was elected bejore the struggle in a period when this polarisation had not taken place. This strengthening of the leadership of the struggle would have made mass meetings more effective, and increased the general level of involvement.
The organisation of the occupation tended to reflect the organisation of the factory under the management. While the stewards debated in the downstairs offices, up on the factory floor the workers sal discussing rumours. Inevitably. an up there, and down there' annosphere developed, But despite these deficiencies the Maclaren's struggle was an immensely positive achievement. Not only did the degree of militancy increase, but there was also un importont degree of politicisation.
SOLIDARITY WITH CHILE This could be seen not only in the warm reception given to IMG members. but also in the natural identitication made with the resistance to the IT 1-backed Chilean coup. Indeed, one of the most moving experiences of the struggle was a concert at which an exiled Chilean Tolk group dedicated a song to the wotking women of Chile and to the women at Maclaren's.
But in the end they could not win 2 complete victory alone, and the