King Henry's Fight on
Socialist Press1980 1980-10-01Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 11 →
Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: expect misread words, and now and then a caption or a line from a neighbouring story. For anything you quote, read the scan.
Scan page 11
Over 240 trade unionists turned up for the second national mass picket of King Henry's Meat Products, Levenshulme, Manchester on 19 September.
Rows of police prevented effective picketing by keeping everyone on the pavements lining Ravenoak Avenue.
Two strikers were allowed at the gate of the factory but they were not allowed to stop or talk to the drivers.
By this stage in the strike all the supplies are being offloaded on waste ground all over Manchester into the firm's own lorries.
Scab workers are being ferried in in two ment's own cars.
Despite the fact that the manager, Derek Hollins claims to be maintaining full production with seventy workers, no more than 38 scabs have gone through the picket line on any morning this week and many of these have been recruited since the strike began on 7 July.
Now that nearly all his major orders have been blacked the manager is beginning to negotiate.
Before the last national picket Hollins offered to reinstate four of the strikers if picketing and blacking were stopped.
He claimed he couldn't reinstate more without sacking scabs. Now his latest offer is to agree to the union's demands on recognition, to reinstate the eight strikers who had worked there over six months and to pay off another ten strikers with sums from £50 to £350.
This was unanimously rejected on Tuesday 16 September. The strikers want reinstatement of all the remaining 19 strikers still on the picket line.
Mass pickets continue every Tuesday and Friday morning. Messages of support and donations to the strike fund or the defence fund should be sent to BFAWU District Offices, Room 6, George House, Dudley Road, Manchester.