O n the Wednesday, 12 July, meeting of the Manchester Building Action Committee (consisting of representatives from the T&GWU and UCATT, stewards from each of the sites in dispute, and an observer on the Social Security) it was decided to effectively implemeht the national overtime ban by organising a flying picket in the area About 60 building workers turned up for the first picket on the Thursday afternoon and supported by local officials stopped five sites from working overtime in only an hour. On the Friday it was the turn of four sites in the centre of Manchester, on the Saturday of another six sites, and another site on the Sunday morning. By Monday, 17 July, the city centre had been cleared of overtime and so the pickets started working further afield and stopped three sites in the Openshaw area.
A number of these sites include lump extremely effective say of sharpening the effect of the dispute. The fact that the stewards are now meeting at least once every two days has also greatly improved co-ordination not only on the overtime ban but on collecting finance, fighting the Social Security, producing the weekly bulletir for the area and also working out general strategy for the dispute. It has also resulted in good local publicity.
There are now 28 sites in the North-West region on strike, including all 13 sites of William Hall on Mersey side (Hall is the chairman of the Merseyside Building Empl oyers and has been bragging about how easily they will smash the strike), and also the two sites (Murphy and Monks) at Shell, Carrington, which have been on an overtime ban for nearly two years because of rising unemployment.
Manchester IMG.
completely successful in defeating MDW