89 WOMEN mushroom pickers from Middlebrook Mushrooms near Selby, remain sacked.
The women were sacked for refusing a pay cut despite having fully co-operated previously with management when they altered their conditions for the worse.
Over the last six weeks there have been serious attempts to build mass pickets to stop the scab bus entering on Saturday mornings. On June 12 around 200 pickets. including Timex strikers, tried without success to stop the bus.
The police had to use horses to get the bus through but there was no real violence against the pickets nor any arrests. The situation on June 26 was very different - the police attacked the pickets and nine were arrested.
It is essential that the next mass picket on July 10 is fully supported. The physical location of Middlebrooks means that a picket of several hundred could have a real chance of stopping the scabs.
The size of the picket is also very important to the morale of we swikers wito, nomy, Tech iot down by their union, the TGWU. TGWU officials and banners are noticeably absent from the pickets although rank and file members are present.
T&G officials didn't even reply to a request from Hull Trades Council to attend a Trades Coun cil meeting with the Middlebrook strikers.
The fight in the TGWU is very important. There does appear to be a tendency amongst the strikers to underestimate the importance of taking up the fight at all As well as physical support on the picket line there is a need to build support for a boycott of Middlebrook Mushrooms and products of their parent com pany, Booker pic.
Consumer boycotts are notoriously difficult to implement successfully. One avenue worth schools and colleges to fight to withdraw accounts from Booker Cash and Carry warehouses.
Detailed investigations have even produced one Humberside NALGO branch with a Booker TRADE UNION NEWS cash and carry card!
Donations to/information from Middlebrooks Strike, Park Drive, Campsall, Doncaster, DN6 9NS. MASS PICKET July 10 - assemble 7.00am at Middlebrooks (Junction 34 of the M62).