Strike meeting at Heysham Since February 29th, over 400 workers have been on strike at the Taylor Woodrow site at Heysham Nuclear Power Station. The dispute arose because Taylor Woodrow refused to recognise the union of the men's choice-the Constructional Engineering Union-and would not allow the senior shop steward time to carry out essential union duties. In pursuit of their demand for union recognition the 206 C.E.U. members staged a half day strike. Taylor Woodrow retaliated by selecting eighteen men and sacking them. The excuse for this action was based on an unwritten agreement that men do not leave concreting operations once started. In fact management had been told that a workers" meeting for union recog nition would be held, and it was recommended that no concreting operations should begin that day. Despite this, Taylor Woodrow carried on normal working, and the men walked out for the meeting. When they returned, eighteen (picked at random) were told they had been sacked. Then the strike began. The craft trades on the site held a mass meeting and agreed to come out in support of the C.E.U. men. This meant that the strike was 100 per cent solid. As the strike continues more men are being sacked through the pest. The total is now over 30, and likely to increase. The men's attitude to this is that they can sack as many as they like-but they won't go back until every single man is reinstated.
Support is coming in from workers and students throughout the north west. A mass meeting of the Student's Federation at Lancaster University voted unanimously to support the strike and to organise collections for the strike fund. Members of the Shop Stewards Committee at Heysham have visited building sites in the Merseyside area and have been offered support. Lancaster I.M.G. has been active in supporting the strike along with the local IS. branch, and Lancaster Socialist Woman group has produced leaflets for the strikers" wives asking them to support their husbands. It is essential that this strike is won. Not only for the Heysham workers but for trade unionism in this area as a whole, and for the development of organisation in the building trade nationally. For this they need your support.
Please send donations to: W. Hives, Intack Caravan Site, Nether Kellet, Nr. Carnforth, Lancashire.
-Owen Hockey After the other speakers had said their piece the meeting was thrown open to the body of the Hall. The C.P. ran true to style with statements such as "We don't want anybody making political capital out of this", and, "This isn't a political issue". Various other tendencies were voicing the same sentiments, amongst them the vice-president of the NUS (Scottish Area who read out a resolution which contained in it, among other things, the demand for an Independent Enquiry to be set up to look into the nature of the bill. The meeting ended about 5 p.m. and the only concrete decision taken was to hold a similar meeting the following Sunday. At the second meeting (20th March) various resolutions were taken, read out, and voted on. It was decided to form an action committee consisting of two representatives from each of the groups (political, trade union, tenants, claimants, etc.) involved and 12 people from the body of the hail. After much heated argument, the motion for a total rents strike was sadly defeated and the principle of with. holding the increase only was accepted. The meeting also decided to seek representation on SCOTA (Scottish Coundl of Tenants Associations) which is attempting to coordinate the opposition to the bill nationally, and generally employing reformist tactics, i.e., protesting to Scottish MPs, sending delegates to London to lobby MPs in Parliament. The I.M.G. comrades on the committee will be pushing, along with the IS, for a total rents strike and for holding mass racetings of strikers. Things are still a bit hazy as to what is actually going to happen and yet another meeting was called which is to be held on 23rd March. More detailed information on the nature of the opposition to the bill in Scotland will be published in The Red Mole as soon as it becomes clear what is actually going to happen.
-Colin Dougall • S.N.P.: Scottish Nationalist Party.
Engineering workers in the Manchester area in pursuit of their current wage claim. Such an event would, of course, create a crisis for the ruling class at least as great as that caused by the miners strike. This course was not adopted in 1971, neither was there any ous occasions, and the length of time spent negotiating the claim overall will be so long as to render a f4 increase meaningless from the point of view of workers' living standards. Furthermore,