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********* ***** What sort of firm is Easterbrook Allcard?
It's a small tool firm mainly dyes, taps, seamers, and so on, It's a privately-owned firm based purely in Sheffield. We have a few storage places around the country. How is the workforce made up?
It's made up of 60% females, 40% males. At one time it was slightly more but it seems to have been moved down now in favour of the men.
What sort of job do they do?
The females are machine operators; the males are machine operators and setters. Are the female workers mainly involved in less skilled work than the men?
We have got female workers who are setters equal to males. We have got females that work to blue-print drawings, and work with gromiometers, and all kinds of very complicated equipment.
How were the unions built here - they incl ude the AUEW, T&G and the ETU don't they?
Three years ago we started to organise, and the real making of the unions was when they sacked me for union organisation. At that particular period, we started a work-torule in order to try to get the males" rates of pay right and the next morning at quarter to eight he sacked me. As a resuit, we had a four-week strike that we won and maintained union organisation.
How strong are the unions now?
The unions are 99%; the shop-floor itself is virtually full trade union. But the office workers aren't. once did get a meeting with all the supervisors to organise them in the union but they backed our because they were frightened of losing their jobs. And you are the Convenor here?
Yes, I'm the convenor of an all-male shopstewards committee. Because we haven't got the facilities within the firm and whoever's a trade unionist within this firm or a shop steward, an active member comes under tremendous pressure and a lot of our females don't feel they're up to this particular sort of pressure. Is it also because they've got very heavy responsibilities in the home?
Yes, if you've not facilities within a works to operate, obviously we have to have meetings at night. And a lot of our females obvidusiy cant leave their families and so forth at night to go along to meetings. It's impos*********** The following interview is with Silvia Greenwood, Convenor of Easterbrook Allcard in Sheffield, who was on strike for Equal Pay. The workers have returned to work pending negotiations, the result being that a few days later their demands were grantedwage rises between E5 and E7. ************* Personna women fight another battle-for the right to work -steward.
What is the aim of this strike? Equal pay, or is more involved?
is involved. When you look at the rates of pay within this firm, we work under what's called the small-tool agreement. And under this agreement there are only 6 rates of pay for males-in our firm itself there are 13. On we have tried to get the male rates of pay put right.
the back of us on equal pay this could be forced upon management by doing job evaluation of females. Well, job evaluation of all jobs, that's what the intention was. Management came back and said "No, on; ly job evaluation of females' and they would not consider doing job evaluation of males. The reason is obvious-it meant pay rises for men as well as females. They then come along and try to give the breakoff point without doing any comparison factor or job evaluation of males, and tried to put 190 fumales on a rate that does not exist within this company.
Pay Act that says equal pay for work of equal value, some males must be dropped down to this rate, that means another 2 rates-15 instead of 13. And who would the men be on that rate?
Did you have the full support of the male workers when this strike started?
the shop stewards committee and decided that at that particular point we would ask our females or tell our females that the best way to go about this, and we decided that at that point was that they didn't do any work normally done by females... that we ********* locked out.
sible to do a-job within this firm from a querter to eight to twenty-five past four as a shop a walk-out.since?
No, obviously with equal pay everything a number of occasions in the last three years We figured that with the legislation at So in order to qualify under the Equal Oh yes, when we were aware of what management were doing, I had a meeting of the only support we wanted from our males would sit-in at our machines so that nobody could work them and we'd just sit there and the men would get their money. Because if they're setters and they've nobody to set-up, they'li still pay them a rate. Management obviously cottoned onto this after the first afternoon, And the Friday morning when they tuned-up for work, all the females were We decided whether to go bodily through but there was a line of management and we were a little afraid of our females getting hurt. So we called a shop stewards committee meeting and the males decided to back us by And how have management been behaving When we first took the action on the Thursday-the sit-in-management put a personal letter out to each female, I assame they thought our females were illiterate or didn't know exactly what was happening but they offered them a rate of pay such as E33, E32.60 and E34-all it did was anger our females a hell of a lot more. They tore them up and were dancing up and down - they weren't sitting quitely at that particular point!
putting statements out to the press that our females would be receiving more than the setters. O yes | agree with them entirely. I agree with them for the simple reason that a lot of our males aren't getting the right rate of pay. That is not because we want more than the males but the fact that they have, over the years, conned men to work within our factory at any rate they could set them on, with the fake promise of increasing their pay after they had done their initial training. This we fought for weeks at a time to get these men onto correct rates and in a lot of cases we haven't succeeded. Why is this sttike so important to the Sheffield labour movement?
This is the tip of the iceberg. This Is the first case and I'm quite sure that every management in Sheffield looking for a loophole to get out of the Equal Pay Act will be looking to this one. I'm quite sure there's going to be a hell of a lot of females, not only in Sheffield but in Great Britain who'll be taken down this way unless someone closes this loop-hole up. Male lobs will be created. Created in order to keep the cheap labour, that management have used for years, down.
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The next action they tried was divi- ding the males from the females by