Garners-fight on for levy!

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GRUNWICK CONFERENCE? ACAS AGAIN?

With the summer tourist season beginning to pack Central London and bolster the super profits of the hotel in Garners Steak Houses enters its fifteenth week.

It is testimony to the courage and determination of these workers that after 15 weeks on £6 per week strike pay, picket lines can be maintained at six restaurants simultaneously on six days a weak.

This willingness to fight the employer, also reflected in the continued high turn out at strikers' mass meetings, is in sharp contrast to the treachery of the trade union leadership, who have refused to mobilise the rank and file of the massive Region 1 of the TGWU in support of this strike.

Strengthened

position of the str was ened by the strik omand the 1/647 bri of fishalls Diary YOUR MAN AT THE TOP'S GHT TO STAY ON YOUR BACK the TGWU adopting policies calling for secondary blacking of suppliers, building of Saturday mass pickets and £36 per week strike pay, raised if necessary by a Regional Levy.

But the strikers soon learned that to achieve action on these policies means a consistent fight against the bitter opposition of the union bureaucracy.

However union officials have been forced to make a series of concessions to the strikers' demands.

Last Tuesday the Regional Committee took the unprecedented step of inviting a delegation from the strike to address their meeting.

Reports say that in this meeting members of the strike committee (who had picketed outside with leaflets and placards) sharply attacked their union officials for promising everything and doing nothing to win the strike.

This hostility clearly reflected the fact that despite promises from the Food, Drink and Tobacco Trade Group Secretary Cook, there has been no evidence that blacking of taken place.

Strikers are also bitter that in fifteen weeks there has been only one delegation from the TGWU on the picket line, despite rhetoric from Jack Dromey (Secretary of the SE TUC) and Nicholson (EC member of the TGWU) that they would mobilise the labour movement for the picket lines.

The sharpest conflict over the scandalously low pay.

Hostility

Regional secretary Todd was forced to silence the strikers when they demanded a Regional Levy for £36 a week strike pay.

Despite Todd's hostility the Regional Committee (divided amongst itself) voted to endorse the strike committee's policies on blacking and picketing and refer the question of finance to the Regional Finance and General Purposes Committee.

The official endorsement of blacking and picketing policy will JUST TELL THE GET ROUND THIS AND WHEN LEN & THE LADS THEIR HUNGER STRIKE... AND SUSPENDED THEM FROM THE UNION... THAT WAS DANGEROUSLY TACTLESS! BRUSHED OFF THEN ROY of course remain empty words if left up to the bureaucrats of Region 1.

It is essential that these concessions are now used by the strikers to mobilise action in support of the strike.

Delegations from the strike committee must be sent to TGWU branch meetings and stewards committees (especially the strategically vital Smithfield and Covent Garden markets) winning support in action for what is now Regional policy-secondary blacking and mass picketing.

Despite the secret meeting between the Regional F&GP and the EC of the TGWU last Thursday, it is not clear whether the bureaucracy will concede anything yet on finance.

But concessions already gained from the bureaucracy reflect the important fight carried out by politically conscious sections of the strike committee.

The strength of this position must now be used by the strikers campaigning amongst the rank and file for the active support of their policies.

BUT I THINK WEVE LET THE SUPPORT DRY UP ENOUGH NOW TO BEGIN TO WRAP THIS THING UP!

ABOUT TIME

TOO, I SAY!

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SOCIALIST PRESS Mao Manning battles in Fleet Street papers took a new turn last week as Thomson Newspapers-owners of the Times and Sunday Times, threatened an indefinite lock out of their staff.

The threat to close the papers for an indefinite period if agreement was not reached within six months on new working practices received swift response from union leaders who have been itching to get to discipline their members.

If action by Fleet Street print workers is unofficial that is only because the major print union leaders refuse to give them any support in their piecemeal attempts to maintain conditions manning levels.

The Times Newspapers attack has undoubtedly been launched because senior management became convinced that they could rely on the leaders of the print unions for support.

It is less than a year since Owen O'Brien, General Secretary of Natsopa, sacked members at the Times from the union (and therefore frem their jobs) because

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and catering, industry, the strike for union recognition

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