WORKERS at GEC Alsthom make distribution switchgear for the electricity industry.
They supply the recently privatised electricity companies in Britain. They also manufacture kits for assembly in Malta, Mexico and Venezuela.
Like workers in manufacturing throughout the country, they have seen their area decimated by successive recessions and the Tories' policies.
Between 1979 and 1982 Greater Manchester lost 100,000 manufacturing jobs. Between 1982 and 1984 the region lost another 10,000.Since then there have been further haemorrhages, including losses at GEC.
But GEC workers have had enough. As a spokesperson for the Site Joint Trade Union Committee said We won't accept the principle of compulsory redundancies. Wel won't see people being sacked.
Four hundred workers repre sented by the AEU, GMBATU, MSF, EETPU and APEX unions are on official all-out strike.
hey are receiving strike pa it financial support is sti vital.
Workers in other GEC factories in the area are beginning to organise a levy. All the stri kers have received one top-up payment already, but delegations are now travelling nationwide to build support and raise funds.
I NEVER EXPECT To WORK AGA •LUNGS? NO GEC merged with the French firm Alsthom in 1989. By the end of 1991 over 1000 jobs had been lost in the former GEC factories. Then came the drive for compulsory redundancies at Higher Openshaw.
Mismanagement
But there is a long history of mismanagement. As the union spokesperson told us The comTHAT S TOO BAD (NO) ARTHRITIS?
of being put out of work. And as far as we're concerned, enough is enough.
Japanese, Malayan and Korebigger share of the international switchgear market and the company has said that labour costs al bEc are too nigh Higher Openshaw workers reject this claim. The basic rate for a skilled man is €204 per IS IT YOUR HEART? -IT'S JOHN MAJOR Laurence Scotts, GCHQ and the being returned.
Solidarity messages have come fromthe CTunion federation in their sister factories in France. Local workers come own to spend a half hour or he picket line as well, to show the strikers that they aren't alone in what is now their sixth week of struggle.