Io Tosti-class Fighter and Trotskyist

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pamphlet on WSL, B.M Box 5277, London WCIN 3XX With the premature death of Jo Tosti, some of the lowest paid and most downtrodden sections of the working class have lost a friend and dedicated fighter for their rights.

His work in organising hotel and catering workers into trade unions against bosses determined to hang on to their conditions of super exploitation led him in turn to challenge the inaction, double-dealing and betrayals which have typified the trade union leadership's attitude to these workers and their struggles.

The insight this provided into the overall nature of the reformist bureaucracy which dominates the workers' movement and the powertul link between the defence of basic rights and the fight for socialism contributed greatly to Jo being won to revolutionary politics and Trotskyism.

Experienced

Crucial to this were his own experiences. Iwenty years spent in the hotel industry with its long hours, poor working conditions, habitual victimisations and reliance on a high proportion of immigrant labour to facilitate the imposition of pitifully low wages, had convinced him of the necessity of trade union organisation.

A combination of these conditions brought things to a head in late 1976 at the Linton Lodge Hotel, Oxford.

Jo Tosti had recruited the workers there to the TGWU and been elected shop steward.

On November 16 he was sacked on the spot. Immediately all but one of the men and women union members walked . out in his Jo Tosti defence, demanding reinstatement and union recognition.

Soon after (as part of what was to become an increasingly common sight throughout the late 1970s of low paid workers such as at Grunwicks pressing for similar demands) the Linton Lodge strikers were to be joined by workers in the later by women from the Night Out theatre-restaurant in Birmingham -all three part of the giant Trust House Forte empire, and striking for recognition f the TGWU.

History made

No-one could have predicted in November that it would be May 4 the following year before the Linton Lodge strike ended.

But when it did had been made. The strikers had achieved a complete victory; full reinstatement for those who wanted to return, including Jo Tosti as shop steward and union recognition.

Victory had been achieved against seemingly impossible odds.

Homeless

The workers had been sacked and made homeless after eviction from their. hotel accommodation: but had maintained with never a day missed, a picket line for 5½ cruelling winter months, many for 24 hours: Jo Tosti's example of seltsacrifice and patient leadership was decisive.

That this was amply recognised by the strikers can be seen from events shortly before the final settlement.

Management oftered them all their demands with Pat Lally looks at by Jo Tosti in the catering workers to standards and condi recognition.

one exception-Jo Tosti would not be reinstated.

The strikers voted unanimously to stay out until he too was taken back.

Throughout the period of his own strike Jo had also been central to the fight against the might of Trust Houses Forte, active in bringing together the three strike committees and conducting a national campaien for blackinz action by the TGWU.

Though, like Grunwick, these struggles were defeated it was not without heavy blows having first been struck against the blatant class collaboration of the union leaders which had prevented the implementation of policies necessary to win.

Direct At the finish, local, regional and national bureaucrats knew they had been in a fight.

Utilising to their limit the official union structures and complementing this with lobbies and direct action to challenge the blocking and sabotage of the strikers' demands, the THF workers time and again rebuffed attempts by their leaders to bury the disputes.

Birmingham TGWU official Alan Law had his 'left' reputation badly dented. Jack Jones. general secretary. nad to suffer the indignity of striking hotel workers nccupying his Transport House office in protest against lack union suppor the contri improve tions and utior made hol and their living win union And, when the same union was plunged into another marathon battle for recognition in the central London Garners Steakhouses at the start of 1978, Jo Tosti was in the forefront of TGWU militants whose support sustained that strike for nearly 18 months only for it, too, to end in defeat, sold out by London Region TGWU officials.

Principle

Jo Tosti's qualities of modesty, tenacity and belief in principle above all else remained despite such setbacks, and other falled hotel strikes at the Metropole, Claridges and the Park Lane Grosvenor.

In an industry notoriously difficult to organise, dominated by the institutionalised poverty pay of the Wages Council and sweetheart-style union agreements to enforce them, there are all too few prepared to stand out against such conditions.

Jo Tosti did: and those who knew him will not forget it.

*A pamphlet, The Hotel Strikes lessons for unionisation' , containing a record of the Linton Lodge and THi strikes, with a foreward by Jo Tosti, is still available, price 60p including postage, from the WSL, BM BOx 5277, London WIN 3XX. EW! SOUTHERN AFRICA

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Ernie Stubbins concludes his look at historic struggles by the working class on the question of rents 'age

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Grosvenor hotel, Sheffield, and Randolph, Oxford and

THE LODEL THE DRAGON