Hotel Strikes Firm

Scan page 11

'If you can't win after five months then you can't win at • These words to the strikers at the Linton Lodge and Randolph Hotels in Oxford are not from Trust Houses Forte management currently fighting a bitter campaign against unionisation in Oxford, Sheffield and Birmingham, but from the TGWU Midlands Regional Committee meeting last week.

And Brian Mathers, the Regional Secretary told a delegation of strikers who lobbied the meeting during the lunch hour that they had "jumped the gun" by going out on strike in the first place.

Two hours later the Regional Committee took the decision to withdraw the £6 a week hardship money from the strikers. A representative of the Regional Committee was sent to. Oxford to inform the strikers of this decision.

That the strikers had "jumped the gun" was not a new accusation. Jack Jones himself was arguing the same line the previous week after being forced to meet a group of strikers from Sheffied and Oxford who had occupied his office in Transport House overnight.

Jones spent two hours explaining that 'the union' thought the strikes were unwinnable and offering to find them jobs elseFaced the strike Wrote Like all bureaucrats, their seltdefence mechanism is to peddle the same lies at every level of the apparatus in the hope that constant repition will give their arguments credibility.

Unfortunately for them, in this case the facts are well known.

Far from 'jumping the gun', , the disputes began after the sacking of union organisers.

"EXTREMISTS"

Mathers and Hulett also see eyeto-eye on the role of so-called 'left wing extremists who are 'guilty' according to Hulett, of giving the strikers the idea that the union should be organising national action against Trust Houses Forte!

It is a great tribute to the strikers that they were not demoralised or divided by the withdrawal of official support.

Not only did their determination increase but negotiations with THF and the owners of Linton Lodge last Friday actually showed some signs of making concessions.

Although the offers made were unacceptable-THF offered financial compensation with no reinstatement and Linton Lodge offered reinstatement but not to the strike leaders-further talks are scheduled for next week.

RESTORED

with these deve lopm ints shave now beer told hat money has been restored.

It was done, they were told, to pressure them into the meeting with management.

More likely it reflec :ts the pressure of the TGWU le: Idership and the problems caused w hen the strikers refused to give up.