Lancaster is probably best known as the pateway to the Lake District. What is not known & that It Is also one of Britain's industrial backwaters with an extremely low level of wages and high unemployment. Despite the efforts of local industrialists, efforts are being made today to chu Last year one of Lancaster's major firms, Ltd., had its first big strike in thirty years marked a tuming point not the firm involved but for Lancaster as The workers insisted that unless all the markers in the plant were unionised, they would not retura to wotk, and their victory leaves only onies plant in the city which has yet to be Linel employs nearly 2,000 workers who are involved in producing a variety of products, in cluding bleach cotton, cellulose acetate, carpet • underlay and i variety of yarns. For several ears it has been owned an a subsidiary by th lant Mensato Organisation, a chemical combin which extracts surplus value from workers in most parts of the capitalist world, Monato hal twenty British subsidiaries worth well over C35 million and controls 665 of the shares. A bulk of the extracted profit therefore goes back to the United States.
The wages paid prior to the strike were 6/1 d per hour to male workers, 4/5d to female workE2 32 4d and es 175 td topectely every 40- which amounted to the princely sum of hour week. If was possible to carn more by working overtime, and many wotkers did.so, but the alienation of workers who were forced to work a seven-day week simply multiplied. The pre-tax profits of Lansil Lid. in the three years prior. to the strike were over E2% million, an average of L440 per worker per annum.
The attitude of the management had created an unsetiled atmosphere in the factory, and eight weeks before the strike commenced the workers in the spinning department banned overtime in protest against the bosses, After dis cussions on a new bonus scheme, the manage ment refused to negotiate any further and an nounced that they were going to bring in work study consultants to study the structure of the entire factory and that pending the report made by these consultants, the statos quo would be preserved. On October 17. 1969, the spinning shop sewards met the management and in formed them that they were going to withdraw their labour. The same day a mass meeting of workers voted unanimously to back the strikers and decided to shut the entire plant down by 10 p.m. the same evening. The main demand was that the entire shop floor be unionised.
During the last three weeks of the strike we received support from the dockers, lorry drivers (many of whom were regular callers) and last but not least from the students, The Press found it difficult to attack the strikers because of the "Zionism wants immigrants, of course! it needs them particularly for the colorisation of the areas taken in the June war' (Workers Press. Jan. 24th.).
Doubtiess there are Jews in the Soviet Union who wish to emigrate (and non Jewish Russiaas too come to think of it"), just as there are black poople in this country who react in a deleatist way to Powellite racism and think in Usopian terns of solving the problem by returning to their native countries in Africa and Asia. But to elevate this particular aspect of Rustan Jewish protest to a place of major prominense in a campaign against Soviet anti-Semitism cor stitutes a calculated attempt to divert the issue into the convenient lap of "welcoming Isne?" and to publicise caly the caser of would-be emigres (rach as liya Ripps). All this under the banner of humanitarianism, democracy and froedom of movement, which rights naturally are inapplicable as far as the Palestinian Diaspora" is concemed!
Anti-semitism, like any other racism, is a product of its social, economic and political environment and cannot be solvod in isolation from it. It is only by striking at the roots of any unanimity of the workers and also the demands we were making. Instead they concentrated their attack on the students. Our Branch Secre tary was instructed to send a letter to the Press making it clear that we were extremely picased with the support we had received from the students and thanking them for the same, The traditional imp irtiality of the police was also on display as they escorted blacklegs inside the factory and provided them with protection.
After three weeks a settlement was reached and we returned to work and inmediately hesan discussions on wages. A back-dared wage increase was agreed to as were the demands for unionisation. One of the main cates of the trouble, the attitude of the management. bas however changed little, In departments with no tradition of militancy, shop stewards and work. ers are regularly harassed, but the lessons of the strike have been learnt by the workers and this has increased their solidarity with cach other and they have begun to realise that this is where their strength lies. All the shop stewards have heen trealed to what was laughingly referred to as a "works study appreciation course". What it amounied to was two days of brainwashing. Six of us were suhjected to a further two weeks of Hudy on the subject. All of us told the bosses that we were grateful for the lectures etc., but we preferred to remain shop stewards. They appesteil to he somewbut taken aback at this ingratitude.
Since the strike an Action Committee has been formed in the town. The Lancaster and Morecambe District Committee for the Defence of Trade Unionism, as it is called, consists of sweaty one maillants, who are largely shop stewards from the town's three largest factories Its purpose as its same sugpests is to struggle to dofend the right of collective bargaining in the face of attacks fram the capitalists. This we de by providing information (leaflels), education (day schools, lecturest and, where necossury. practical advice to workers engaged in day-to day struggles.
At the moment a draping fire has sacked six such phenomenon that it can be abolished once and for all. 3 The organisers should also take note that, while pretending to demand equal rights for Soviet Jews, they in fact demand extra special rights with the slogar, 'Let My People Go"; for the Kremlin bureaucracy does not allow anyone to leave the 'socialist fatherland'. Uzbeks or Letts, Tartars or /zorbayanis! Is it a case there fore of putting the rights of Jews above those of Soviet citizens of otber nationalities? One sincerely hopes not 4. As to the deliberately distorted "quote" from Matzpen's publication The Other Israel", aprop os freedom to emigrate to Israel, the refereno was cleacly to the position to be taken in the context of a de-Zionised, socialist Palestine, and as for the sheer gail involved in the invoeation of Lenin on the national question. we challenge the Universities Coromittee for Soviet Jewery to debate us on this question (if they will not accept, we will at least ask them to read Lanis before they misquote him!). Moreover, to suggest that we read Trotsky and Deutscher is to add insult to injury, it is precisely because you have failed to draw the lessoas of what eniployces for joining a trade union put out a call to all trade uninnists in th to boycott the firm till the workers a stated and till the firm displays sig that it only employs union labour Thii m sound exciting to people who live in th ally militant areas, but for Lancaster it B ference between the ox-cart and the jot There is a great deal of interest ami sleward» in Lansi in setting up a come shop stewards thraughout the Monsato l sation. We would be gratefut if any rea Jive near any of their factories or su companies would make an effort to shop ste wards and give them our (AGEROS, 81 Keswick Road, Lancast P. Ageros (T&GWU) these two anti Zicaist socialists stood for, abo all in relation to asti-Semitism, that you can quite shamelessly throw their wards at revol ionaries who seek to apply their theory in pre ice and not use tiem as a figlear for an incre ible lack of analysis and a cowardly, diversion ary nationalism!
WESAY:
Your independence' does cet sponto enable you to oupe from the clutches of the pro-Zionist and viciously anti-leftist Jewi Chronicle', nor fran those of tho Isreli Tele Vision Service.
Te refuse support to theis who word yesterday making agreoments with fascinte (Haavara, Kastner) and blowing up synagigo wes in Beycad, the day befose yesterday negotiating with Czarium Herd - Von Plehve and who will tomorrow be forging actinoes with new reactionaries (V. Carmany?).
We refuse support to thoms who, while making nevetending roles about and-Semiti hers, there and everywhure, do nothing lad w never do anything about It.
THE UNIVERSITIES COMMITTEE FAI SOVIETNEWRY' We demand thatif the Committee wishes to be taken seriously. it dissociates itself fion its wel-wishers in the Icaed goremment, al shows itself interestad in gonuinely combatt the oppression of the jews and all the orac National minorities of the Soviet Unica by actively participating in the revala sionis struggle to overturn the chauvinist bureaco whic husurped the red flag of October Down with anti-Semitim!
Down with Zlotiam Down with al froms of racis and ration opportion!
Forward to the workert polluest neolit it Eastern Europe!
COMBAT BUREAUCRAOY R. Bansy