LAB@R

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By WILLIAM POMEROY

LONDON — Setting an example for
Other British workers, Timex Cor-
poration’s workers in Dundee, Scotland
Occupied their plant to force the U.S.-
based multi-national to cancel plans to
fire the bulk of its Scottish workforce and
shift operations to France. :

The struggle took place last April and
May at Timex’s huge Milton and
Camperdown plants in Dundee where,
for the last 36 years, Timex has been the
largest, mass watch-making manufac-
turer in Britain, and a key industry

is employing thousands of skilled workers
~ In a city that is a centre of engineering

industries.

In January, this year, the company
Suddenly announced a ‘‘job redundan-
cy’’ program aimed at cutting the Milton
Plant workforce by 1,900. It soon be-
Came known that this was part of an
Overall multi-national shifting by Timex
of its production operations from higher
to lower wage areas, with the planned

transfer of watch-making, the revolu-

tionary Nimslo 3-D camera and other ac-
tivities to Portugal, Mexico, Japan,
France and eventually to developing
countries.

Preparations were already well-
advanced for the transfer of Milton
Watch-making to Besancon in France,
and it was reported that agreement had
already been obtained from the Mitter-
Tand government for a $4.5-million
French subsidy for a new Besancon
Timex plant.

Workers at the Milton plant fought
hard to stop the company’s plans, espe-
Cially the job-cutting program. The plant
Is solidly organized by the Amalgamated
Union of Engineering Workers (AUEW)
and its Technical, Administration and
Supervisory Section (TASS), and the

unions struggled to negotiate job reten-
tion.

It was believed that the Timex aim was
to fire up to 2,500 workers and close the
Milton plant which has the largest auto-
screw machine department in Europe
and machinery valued at up to $90-mil-
lion.

At the beginning of April the Timex
management, brushing aside the union
protests, ordered the first 197 dismissals.
On April 8, at a mass meeting of 700 of
the Milton workers, there was unanim-
ous approval for drastic action to resist
the firings — it was decided to occupy the
plant for a sit-in until the management
orders were reversed.

A volunteer group of 100 workers
stormed the plant entrance, then bolted
and welded shut the gates. They took
over the assembly lines and the tool-
making departments. The plant con-
venor, Gordon Samson, said: “‘With our
backs to the wall we have no other option
to taking the present industrial action.”’

Deputy convenor John Kydd de-
clared: ‘‘We are occupying for the right
to work and we won't be leaving until we
win a negotiated settlement. With the
support of the movement nationally,
there is no way we can be beaten.”

The British trade union movement re-
sponded promptly to the Timex workers’
appeal for support. Donations of cash
and resolutions backing the action
poured in from all over Britain. The
AUEW national executive gave total
support.

Similar backing came from the Scot-
tish Trades Union Council Congress and
the Scottish section of the Labour Party.

As the issue developed, worker
denunciation fell as heavily on the
Thatcher government as on the Timex
multi-national directors. Timex is not the

Sit-in saves doomed British plant

first case of a U.S.-based multi-national
scrapping the jobs of British workers to
shift operations, in the interests of more
profit, to other areas of their empires.

Singer sewing machine plants were
closed in Britain a couple of years ago
and transferred to the continent.

At the same time as the Dundee Timex
occupation, the U.S. Kraft company
said it will be closing its cheese plant in

‘the Liverpool area, axing 930 jobs, and

shifting it to Belgium. As these incidents
of multi-national disregard for British
workers occur, the Thatcher govern-
ment does nothing to halt them.

Instead of waning, the Timex sit-in
grew. After two weeks, over 500 workers
had entered the plant to swell the occupy-
ing force. They defied threats of the com-
pany, which fired 200 more in retaliation.
Restitution of their jobs was added to
workers’ demands.

The Timex sit-in lasted for nearly six
weeks. Finally the company gave in and
negotiated a settlement that preserves all
jobs in the Dundee plants. The original
197 dismissals were returned to work, as

THE MULTI‘S HAVE THE
COUNTRY LOCKED UP

c

were the 200 fired during the Milton plant
occupation. The only demand that was
not won was in regard to the watch-
making transfer to France; this had al-
ready gone ahead with Thatcher
government approval and the workers
blamed the government for the watch-
making loss. Camera and TV produc-
tion, however, were saved from transfer.

Following the Timex victory, shop
stewards from the Milton plant have paid
solidarity visits to other industries where
workers are fighting against compulsory
redundancy plans by companies.

As Milton’s John Kydd said, ‘“‘We can
only hope that the labor movement will
be able to follow up our initiative and
oppose closures and compulsory re-
dundancies wherever they occur.”’

The secretary-general »of AUEW-
TASS, Ken Gill, who is a Communist,
identified one of the central issues in-
volved in the Timex episode, one that
has increasingly endangered British
workers: By occupying the factory, the
workers are fighting against industries
that transfer operations abroad.

— Daily World

WE HAVE THE KEY, UNITY!

Joint economic and political struggle

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The Manitoba Federation of Labor Convention was
first in a series of provincial federation conventions
across Canada which will end with the Alberta Conven-
tion in February. It will be followed by the Canadian
Labor Congress Convention in May 1984.
In most of the legislatures and in the House of Com-
Mons in Ottawa, the representatives of big-business hold

holding down their wages, and transferring values they
Create into the pockets of the giant corporations. —
These provincial federations and the CLC convention
Owever are labor’s parliament. Here workers are able
tO View events in light of the needs of the big majority of
Canadians. Here the elected representatives of the
argest and most effective movement in Canada indicate
how our provinces and our country should be run. And
Ney map out actions to try to make these decisions real.
It is a matter of some frustration to participants in
these conventions and those they represent, that their

decisions do not have the same weight and effect as
decisions made in provincial legislatures and the House
of Commons.
This gap, they strive to close through political action.
Ctions which will compel existing governments to pay
heed to labor’s demands, and actions which will place in
Power, governments supportive of labor’s program.
abor’s parliament this year will be faced with the
Urgent need to strengthen both sides of this process, the
€conomic and the political.
Rallying Against Concessions
The struggle against concessions and for protection of
the hard-won gains of the movement is not abating, but in
Spite of many significant victories, remains the main
Slogan around which the trade union movement must
y and unite.
__ lt is a fact however as long as mass unemployment
femains, plant shut-downs and layoffs continue, work-
£ts on the job will be haunted by insecurity and demands
Or giveaways. Alongside their fight against concessions,

Court and pass legislation restricting workers’ rights, -

Labor in action

‘as | William Stewart

demands for new economic policies to end unemploy-
ment, inflation and cutbacks, must go hand in hand.

These are demands which cannot, of course, be
negotiated across the bargaining table. They are also
demands, however, which are clearly becoming as in-
dispensable as traditional bargaining issues. The political
struggle is joining the economic struggle as a bread and
butter matter for all working people.

From this standpoint, the deliberations and decisions
of provincial labor federations, and of the Canadian
Labor Congress are most vital elements of the entire
fightback by Canadian people against the offensive on

their living standards. It is here that labor will, at its most

significant level, lay out the program which will be the
core of its political action. It is here that it will work out
much of the strategy that must go into winning these
demands. :

It behooves political parties, whether the New Demo-
cratic Party or the Communist Party, to pay attention to,
and give support to the demands of the trade union
movement. Without its support no political party of the
working people can expect to ever come to power. Nor
can any political party claiming to represent the working
people, avoid giving support to demands which are es-
sential to the well being of the workers.

Labor’s Key Role

Very influential sections of the Canadian people are
coming to recognize the inequities of Canadian society,
and that the needs and interests of the working people
are being placed second to those of big financial institu-

tions. These bodies, including important forces in the
churches, are joining together with organized
labor to change the priorities of governments to recog-
nize the primacy of labor over capital in the sphere of
daily existence.

It remains for labor to find a way to extend to the
political arena the growing cooperation developing be-
tween these supportive movements and labor. The
NDP, by itself, and as presently constituted, does not
provide a sufficiently broad-based movement to harness
these forces. And while it will undoubtably be a major
element in any such movement, it is not and cannot be
the movement by itslef.

This is not an abstract question for the trade unions. It
is clear that the NDP does not by itself constitute the
political alternative through which extended labor in-
fluence can bring about fundamental change in govern-
ment policies. In the first place the NDP is not electable
at such levels in most areas of Canada.

No Time to Wait

It is equally clear that the present crisis will not allow
for waiting until such time as the NDP might be elected.
Furthermore the current policies of the NDP fall far
short of organized labor’s program on a whole range of
basic economic issues. Their present programs would
not overcome the deep-going crisis gripping our country.
Their definition of the problem, for example trails that of
the bishops in many areas.

The crucial role in the political process must be
played, not by the NPD, but by the trade union move-
ment moving into the centre of the political struggle to
bring about an alliance of all those forces opposed to the
monopolies and the present direction of government
policy.

With this approach to labor political action the trade
union movement can become the centre of a political
fightback which will not only strengthen NDP positions
but will bring about alliances at the political level that can
win a new direction for Canada.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCTOBER 5, 1983—Page 7

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