35 hour week: union leaders fudge
Labour Briefing1990sTranscribed by hand from the printed page.
Engineering workers striking for the 35 hour week have entered the New Year with all the problems they encountered in the last year.
They are still beset by the refusal of the Confed leaders to extend the strike, and their determination to accept any deal which involves reduced hours irrespective of the strings which may be attached to it.
Two thousand workers at Rolls Royce in Glasgow returned to work before Christmas after several appeals by AEU leaders and payments from their hardship fund had been cut off.
In BAe Preston, however, the strike has been strengthening. A picket of over 1,000 workers stopped the drift back to work which had started before the holiday, after strike pay had been cut.
Also workers at nearby BAe plants who had been bussed in for weeks to do strikers jobs held mass meetings and refused to board the buses in the future. After these decisions, the scabbing was reduced to a trickle despite threats from management.
There have been limited breakthroughs with some employers. Negotiations at NEI Peebles of Edinburgh and Edbro of Bolton have secured a reduction in hours eventually to 37.
The strike will not hold out indefinitely on the present basis, and it must be extended or it will not achieve a decisive breakthrough.