Garner's: the strike the officials want to lose

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The financial union wi With the election of a new seven man strike committee last week, workers in the Garners Steak House strike throughout central London have begun to assert their independence with the passing of the following resolution at their TGWU Talk of the Town Branch.

"This branch recognises the crucial importance of the Garners Steak House strike in the struggle for unionisation in the catering industry. It therefore calls upon the Regional Committee to adopt the following policy and to mobilise maximum support.

1. No talks, no return to work until the employer recognises our union. 2. Mass picketing of Garners Steak Houses to be organised from all TGWU branches in Region 1, from 12 noon to 10pm every Saturday until the strike is won.

3. Blacking of all direct supplies of Garners Steak Houses and if necessary, their suppliers as well."

Unresolved

organisation of support with he : left unresolvı With the present branch levy clearly inadequate the question of raising a regional levy has to be fought for as a matter of urgency.

These policies are clearly in conflict with the attempts of the TGWU bureaucracy to sell out the strike.

Abandoned demand

Confirmation of these attempts appeared March issue of the TGWU Record, which says:

"The firm has rejected ACAS assistance and despite an offer from the union for members to return to work on the basis of reinstatement, no victimisation and acceptance of the right of ACAS to carry out a normal enquiry, the firm has not moved"

In other words union officials have abandoned the central demand-recognition of the union prior to a return to work.

The call from the branch for mass picketing will now pose a challenge to the increasingly provocative harrassment of the strikers and their supporters by the Metropolitan Police who enthusiastically respond to the employers' calls for their assistance in breaking the strike.

With the policy changes that have taken place over the last week, the basis has now been laid for the strike to be won and the ground lost over the last nine weeks made up.

But the failure of the latest strike bulletin to campaign openly for these policies indicates, however, that their achievement will demand a conscious fight against all those that oppose them within the strike itself.

1he organisation ot a conference by the SE Region of the TUC and the Greater London Association of Trades Councils provides an important opportunity for carrying the strikers' demands into the labour movement throughout London.

Conference

The conference is to be held on Thursday 13 April at 7pm at Transport House, Smith Square, London SWI.

All supporters of the strike, particularly in the TGWU, should be urged to send delegations to ensure it makes a positive contribution to the strike's success.

Messages of support and donations to the strike fund should be sent to the strike committee at TGWU, room 84, 12-13 Henrietta St., London WC2. that it has • withdrawn dissmissal notices given to 1,200 workers at their Kirkby plant two weeks ago indicates that a new turn is underway in the exploitation of unemployment by the employers.

The management "reprieve" follows mass meetings at which officials of all unions on the plant had obtained acceptance of every stipulation by the employer.

457 jobs are to be axed, productivity jacked up with union cooperation, and the engineers whose 15-week pay strike was used as a pretext for the sacking threat are to accept the management's offer.

• A committee of inquiry is also to be established-comprising national union officials alongside Birds Eye management to examine industrial relations at the Kirby plant.

The purpose of this appears to be to isolate and victimise any sections of workers who are still prepared to resist management attacks on working conditions.

All this makes it absolutely clear that the sacking notices were no more than a manoeuvre to pressure the union bureaucracy into more energetic action in forcing through management dictates.

The threat of redundancy -particularly against the background of 11% unemployment in the Merseyside area-is now being deliberately used by employers as a weapon to break working class militancy.

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An unseemly row between two Labour 'lefts' broke out in the PHOTO: John Sturrock, Report