Lee Jeans

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Despite certain weaknesses in its demands, the Lee Jeans occu tion has emerged as the principal national focus of the struggle defend jobs. Socialist Press visited the Greenock factory and spoke the women at the centre of this crucial struggle.

The 18-week sit-in struggle against the closure of the Lee Jeans factory at Greenock has taken a dramatic new turn with the decision of dockers in ports throughout Britain to impose a black upon the products of the V.F. Corporation.

This will mainly affect the firm's goods leaving Northern Ireland for Scandinavia, their main market.

Helen Monaghan, the factory convenor told Socialist Press how she had just returned from a tour of Britain's ports explaining their case to the dockersculminating in a dockers' conference in London where full support for the struggle was endorsed.

Hesitancy

She explained that initial hesitancy to take action was because their such the women occupying the threatened plant had hoped to attract a buyer for the plant and had been persuaded not to take such action because it might frighten away any potential buyer.

. Drastic action Whilst they had not abandoned such hopes, they now see that more drastic action was essential to save their jobs.

Not only had backing come from the dockers but also from the seamen and lorry drivers, who are refusing to transport any of the company's products from Cairnryan ferry terminal to depots in Clydeside.

Helen recognised that this action might tempt the management to take more forceful action than hitherto.

They were obviously afraid of pushing towards a confrontation with the whole trade union movement by attempting to evict the 170 workers still involved in the occupation, she explained, but they may now be thinking of applying for an injunction for the removal of the workers.

Certainly the occupation remains highly organised and disciplined. Control of the factory has now rested with the workforce since 5 February and is consistently operated on a 3 shift 12 hour rota system.

Financial aid continues to pour in, in particular froin a levy of Clyde shipyard workers, though obviously more is always welcome, especially since there will now be no more cash coming from the closed Linwood factory and the struggle is costing £5,000 a week to sustain.

Helen explained that the stewards' committee allows the security men employed by the firm to check the premises twice a day to show that no damage has been done-but this is purely at the discretion of the stewards themselves.

The electricity has not been cut off because of the necessity to maintain the sprinkler system in case of fire, but bills for electricity of over £2,000 and for rent and rates of over £1,000 which have been sent to them have simply been ignored.

Suspicions One factor that concerns the stewards is the attitude of the leadership of their own trade union, the Tailor and Garment Workers Union.

Although they have made the struggle official, some recent events have aroused suspicions as to their sincerity For instance, when the company sent out P45 forms to the workers, the stewards coljected them i in, explaining to the workers that if they took them to the labour exchange this would indicate their acceptance of redundancy.

Now fresh P45 forms have been issued-with a note telling the workers where to hand them over.

There is more than a suspicion that there is a degree of connivance between management, government officials and the union leadership in this latest move.

Now that the ball has been set rolling in terms of blacking action, the issue becomes that of extending such action to a complete boycott of V.F. products.

This means persuading unions such as USDAW to refuse to handle such goods at distribution depots and commencing a boycot of sales of such goods in the High Street.

A good start was made in that last week by 40 people from the Right to Work campaign at Selfridges in London.

Helen Monaghan told us she was hoping to start this week on drawing up a leaflet for use outside the High Street stores, thus extending the campaign to embrace and involve the many thousands of people who support their struggle and would be only too willing to participate in securing the victory they seek.

TAILORS-AND Donations and messages of support should be sent to Helen Monaghan, 55 Cambridge Road, Greenock.

FIGHT:

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INDUSTRIAL NEWS Pare NATFHE 81 stepped fight with conference back from a the Tory The retreat was implicit in speeches from the Prestdent and the General Secretary who both tailed to relate their contributions to recent developments in the class struggle.

Clapped on by the NEC the dynamic duo engaged in anti-Tory rhetoric but refused to outline a strategy to defend services.

Crucial recent developments in the Labour Party were never mentioned throughout the conference. The rebel Labour councillors were not cited as a possible focus around wich to build wiis struggles.

Arms expenditure was trolled.

Much evidence shows that 'progressive' education authorities, have been hit worst with Inner London losing a total of £200 million in aid.

Despite these and countless other examples illustrated the NEC moved to delete clauses from motions which committed them to mobilise the membership for strike action in defence of jobs and services.

Source of strength The militancy of the civil service dispute was praised delegates against the wide differentials between different scales of payment for lecturers. The mood was clearly opposed to the pure percentage claim, much loved by well paid NEC members, and in favour of a claim of £x plus Y% which, whilst being far from ideal, does represent a healthy feeling from the rank and file towards greater equality of pay rates.

Conference passed motions opposing overseas student fee increases and attempts by the government to cash in on unemployment by recruiting to the armed

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