Northern bakers win full claim

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The Bakers Union strike stands poised, as we go to press, between disaster and major victory.

The campaign by the Bakers Federation, aided and abetted by the industrial reporters of Fleet Street, to prove that support for the strike has been crumbling is a gross lie.

And the capitulation by some of the smaller bakers in the Bakers Federation to the demands of the Bakers Union 1979. For this we must accept "parity" and all that goes with it.

What are the "parity" proposals?

They propose that the "parity" money be paid in three stages.

Stage 1: Final parity rates, plus 5%, minus £4 payable on November 1, 1978.

Stage 2v£2.00 May 1979 Stage 3: £2.00 November 1979.

These amounts will only be paid if the following conditions are met:

If the five grade structure is accepted and everyone accepts where they are slotted into it.

WORKEKS has put new heart back workers.

The big two of the Bakers Federation-Rank Hovis McDougall and Allied Bakeriesare prepared to up the stakes to include breaking the closed shop agreements with the Bakers Union. Should the strike fail then the union could be broken in many bakeries up and down the country.

Should they win, the strength of the union will be dramatically increased and the Hands go up to reject Leyland's 'offer' If this highly contentious grading structure is accepted in full in everyone of Leyland Cars 33 plants.

If the cash to pay for "parity" is raised through productivity. This means 869 people out of this plant with the rest pulling the work on existing programmes.

If you accept a £19 differential between top and bottom grades.

If this whole, highly, contentious parity scheme ever gets off the ground, since it is bitterly disputed by various grades in virtually every plant.

Remember last November's broken promises!"

bakery workers will have blazed a trail against the 5% limit for other workers to follow.

Sam Maddox, the maverick general secretary of the Bakers Union is a bureaucrat bent on making a left reputation.

The employers offer this year, billed in the national press as 11%, included a major attack on bakery workers' gains.

It included demands for permanent night shifts and complete mobility of labour, and that the gains made last year over bank holiday working should be handed back.

Maddox did not call mass meetings or communicate with the membership in any way. He called a national strike on no strike pay and then sat back to wait for the employers to crumble.

In many areas there were no pickets on the bakeries and no mass meetings of the workers.

It was not until the middle of the week that it became clear that Rank Hovis and Allied Bakeries had laid plans to continue production.

They agreed plans with the stewards to bake bread for local hospitals and then simply carried on baking, completing up to 50% of their orders with staff and management shifts.

There has been nothing like the level of scabbing by union members that the Federation has claimed.

Had the strike been crumbling as the Federation claimed then everything would have been over by the end of the week. As it was, three smaller bakery firms in the Federation, unable to hold out any longer, capitulated on Friday.

Warburton's in Preston, Knightsbridge Cake in Manchester and Jackson's from Yorkshire agreed to the £10 pay demand in full. That means that 6,000 of the 26,000 in the dispute have already won.

This boost to the remainder has been backed up by a union statement that only 1,018 of the 26,000 membars on strike were working.

Even the employers only claim 2,000 back at work despite their contident statements.

Bakery workers have shown in some areas their willingness to set up picket lines and stop supplies getting through. The arrests made in many parts of the country bear testimony to their determination.

The national executive of the union has now called for a delegate special conference on Saturday.

Bakery workers must ensure that the opportunity is now taken to strengthen the strike. Pickets on the bakeries must be strengthened. Blacking should be demanded from the TGWU. Pickets shoula be set up at mills supplying strike bound plants.

The Bakers Federation handed letters to strikers as they picked up their pay packets last week telling them that their jobs will be protected if they agree to scab-in other words the closed shop will be broken. This is a dispute the bakery workers cannot afford to lose.

A fund must be opened to provide hardship support for workers whose pay is too low to save and who are receiving no strike pay.

Maddox must be compelled become responsible directly to the strikers who should set their own strike committees.

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