strike action in support of those members. On July 22, 523 workers were sacked!
The Silentnight workers are very bitter about the way in which management tried to dupe them. They were not a political workforce and they were in good faith attempting to "help the company out" by foregoing their pay rise. They now know that this was wrong. People like Tom
Clarke use the workers to push through
not only more
also the Tory dream of lower wages for all
This week CBI leader
Beckett made a vicious attack on the work-
ing class and told employers not to award
annual pay rises, saying that they should
implement the old Yorkshire saying of
"nowt for nowt". Of course at the same
time these very same employers modelled
on Tom Clarke will be speeding up line
rates and pushing for more productivity.
The American model of wages and work
is rapidly being pushed for here in Britain.
In America wages are often negotiated on-
ly every three or four years and now the
negotiations are about how little will be cut
rather than how much more workers will
get. Relative to the price of capital costs
American wages were 37% Jower in 1983
than they were in 1972. Profits however of
the major companies continue to rise. Tom
Clarke is no ordinary small business per-
son. He is a leading Tory backed by the
Tories and determined to smash the work-
Although Silentnight have a major influence in the National Bedding Federation the management refused to use the
etablished disputes procedure as specified
Agreement of the Bedding and Mattress Manufacturing Trade. After two abortive meetings with representatives of ACAS the company have refused to accept any Almost six months later the strike still
Tom Clarke has, on numerous occa. sions, let it be known that he is anti-union. His action even led to him being removed by the police for provocative behaviour after he made abusive gestures to pickets at the factory gate. Mr Clarke is, incidentally, Chair of the local Conservative Partyl Since the strike began, profits have slumped from £5.2 million to £1.5m, yet dividents have remained the same at E1.2m -of which the Clarke family have claimed E644,771. This sum alone is three times the cost of the union pay claim! featuring the strike, shop steward Janet On the "Diverse Reports" proramme Seymour was quoted as saying "Clarke and MacGregor are Maggie Thatcher's knife and fork! She moves her arms and they carve us up!* This analogy with the miners' dispute is further stengthened by correspondence which In 1979, Ken Murray, then the Joint Group Manager for Silentnight Holdings Ltd, wrote to the Tory MP for Pendle, John Lee. His letter reads:
"One thing 1 would like to coment on is the apparent lack of urgency wit drowing payments to the families available to the families of moderates would help stiflen their note to fee militants ... from a strategic point of wel this particular move could very well be taken earlier rather than later. John Lee replied:
You're absolutely right. we must get roughour more controversial legisi on in the early stages of this parli
I take your point withdrawal of payments to the families John Lee, formerly parliamentary coniltant to the National Bedding Federatio ind now an Under Secretary for Defenc workers have asked for his help, but, not surprisingly, none was forthcoming.
This strike is a major political battle. The
dispute over pay rises is no longer impor-
tant, It is now about the right to belong to a
trade union and this was reflected in the
unanimous votes of support passed at TUC
and Labour Party Conferences. However,
FTAT officials have tried hard to contain
the strike to avoid any danger of confron-
ting the anti-trade union legislation.
Nevertheless, boycotting of Silentnight
products has occurred at Hull and other
especially in Ireland. The
who are the largest customers for Silent-
night beds, have frozen orders. Such
solidarity action is beginning to bite hard
but the action needs to be extended. Few
Ware experienced trade
unionists and it has taken time for the
limitations of the full time officers to
become apparent. In fact it was only when
local "Militant" supporters started produc-
bulletin that the union
responded with information of its own. No
mass meetings have been held for months
but the workers remain firm and continue
to develop links throughout the country by
extensive speaking tours.
The strike has catapulted the workers
vernignt into the political arena
miners" strike and used them. A Women's
Support Group has been set up in Bar-
noldswick and Sutton to support both the
women strikers and the partners of male
strikers. For most of the women involved it is their first industrial action.
The support group is also very important because the strikers are mainly men (a reflection of the make up of the workforce) and without the support of other women the women strikers could easily be left to
seat. One of the leading figures in the strike, Janet Seymour, has travelled all over the country talking at Labour politicians at Conference, and col. ••• Hands off .... •• Guillermo Lora! VETERAN Bolivian Trotskyist Guillermo Lora has fallen victim of the country's singularly anti-democratic electoral laws.
For the July general elections the Bolivian National Electoral Court decided that any parties receiving less than $0.000 liable to a fine of USS7.000.
The court was controlled by former military dictator Hugo Banzer and the man who has since Estenssoro of the bourgeois Revolu-
were at the time predicted to be the two front runners in the poll.
ora however stood as presiden
Ton behalf of th Revolutionary (POR). using the election as a platform for revolutionary propaganda and exposure of the electoral law. He received less than 50.000 votes.
The Paz Estenssoro government. Socialist Viewpoint No. 9 December 1985 pl0
lecting funds for the strike committee. She
says that she never dreamed a year ago
that she would be doing this.
Another woman who came down to Lon-
don to address some meetings had never
been out of Lancashire beforel There are
some forms of communal childcare which
have started since the strike and which
have begun to allow both men and women
to fit in their domestic chores with their
As is always the case when women take
strike action there are also problems with
the men who are not used to their partners
not being there and the meal not being
The women are working these
things out together and are determined
that come what may they will not abandon
The Asian workers are also now working
with a number of black activists in London
and this marks a big step forward in terms
of the poltics of the strike.
Othe silence from the trade
union and Labour Party bureaucracy re-
mains. After the defeat of the
strike, the last thing that Willis, Kinnock
and their friends want is class confronta-
tion against one of Maggie's boot-boys. A
victory at Silentnight would, however, be
unionists everywhere.
Only if the support, both financial and
hysical, Is stepped up can this happen
'his strike has many similarities to Grun
wick and even the NGA dispute at Warr-
ington. The FTAT leadership needs to be
forced to mobilise the same sort of support
that those disputes received. The right to
belong to a trade union is what is at stake
and no excuses can be accepted for the
isolation of the Silentnight strikers.
Donations of food and money should be
Cravendale Branch 92 Strike Fund, c/o
10 Rainhall Crescent, Bar• however. ran immediately into opposition from the militant Bolivian trade union movement, who staged a 16-day general strike against his heavy handed austerity plan to deal with Bolivia's huge economic crisis. The plan included a wage freeze and a 95% devaluation of the peso in a bid to cut the 14.000% inflation rate. The strike was met by miltary repression and the arrest of thousands of workers and union leaders.
In the aftermath of that strike. Lora has been singled out for legal demanding he pay the $7,000. government
The POR has launched an international appeal to raise this sum of money, which is enormous in the context of Bolivia.
Donations are invited to be sent to: Juan Pablo Bacherer, c/o G. Böhrt. Vaktarsatan 30-D. 754 22 Uppsala, Sweden.
Why Thatcher backs