House of Holland New Mass Picket Call

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Communists' December 11 has now been named by the House of Holland Strike Committee as the day for the next mass picket of the firm's strike-hit warehouse.

The success of the first such action two weeks ago has given the strikers much needed encouragement following week after week of bureaucratic evasion and duplicity by their TGWU full-time officials since the dispute began over two months ago.

Although such treatment of recognition strikes is typical within the TGWU, the bureaucracy's manoeuvres around this one take some beating.

•Following the usual pledges of all out support beforehand once the strike started and the workers sacked, this turned into outright hostility to the strikers and their demands.

The company's recognition "agreement' with USDAW, at one time correctly derided and dismissed by Geoff Hulett (the union's Oxford District Officer) as a ploy to keep out union organisation, was subsequently siezed on as a reason for now saying the issue was an "inter-union dispute"

The shopworkers union, however, could produce no evidence of any members in the company.

Another tactic has been to deliberately confuse the question of which of the union's • districts is responsible, leaving the strikers stranded between the Northampton and Oxford offices.

In addition, the officials have instructed the workers' union branch secretary to resist calls to convene a meeting, isolating them further from the union machinery.

A strike committee delegation confronted Regional Secretary Mathers a month ago but his reassurances have proved to be worthless.

Meanwhile, his officials bitterly oppose the mass pickets call.

Owner

House of Holland's owner, Mrs van der Ploeg, challenged by pickets last week, said she would rather join them on the dole than give in, a phrase familiar to many involved in recognition strikes over the past few years.

If she is to be made to eat those words the campaign for blacking must be stepped up.

Support for the next mass picket can improve the conditions for such a campaign.

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