Despite reports received by shop stewards at E,N.V. Engineering at
Willesden, London, that their workers arg being black-listed in
factories throughout the area, they are strenghening their organisation
to fight the announced ‘phased closure! of tieir factory. They are
demanding that the employers open the books, are setting up an all
union factory comaittee of shop stewards and shop shop committees to
direct the opposition to the closure, and are organising a public
meeting to raise support for their fight against uneztployment,. One
steward has already staged a sitein against 210 wage cuts in his shope
Since a 13 week recognition strike in 1951 E.N.V. workers have built
a poerful shop-floor organisation and shop stewards committee which
has gained them the highest rates in the London engineering industry
and made them the pacemakers for other workers in the industry. In
August 1962 the .merican Eaton Combine bought E.N.V. They have also
factories at Aycliffe near Darlington and in Manchester vhere the plant
has only been open a year. When the Manchester factory was opened an
attempt was made to move work from London and Aycliffe to be carried
out at cheaper rates by women workers in Manchester. The work was
blacked and a successful drive made to unionise the factory.
The crisis period which led up to the closure announcement began when
in June Mr,John C,.Townsend was appointed managing director with the
responsibility of making Willesden ‘a reasonably profitable Division,
or, if this is not possible, of closing it down'. Three weeks after his
appointment he issued a statement saying he no longer intended to
negotiate with the stewards, he was calling a meeting with top A&U
officials, including Sir William Carron, to discuss the 'deteriorating'
profit position, At this meeting on July 4th the management presented
two docurients, the acceptance of which were, 'the minimum requirements
essential if Willesden is to stay in business',. The first document
envisaged the disbanding of the shop stewards committees and the post
of convenor. This was to be done over a period of six months during
which shop stewards would need passes to leave their shops, no meetings
were to be held in the factory without management's permission, no
notices were to be posted on boards without management scrutiny, and
the convenor was to be restricted to two hours union work during
working hours, The second document, 'The Interim Agreement’ sought to
scrap all the domestic agreements that had been made over a long period,
proposed three shift working and time study and changes in payments by ©
results rates, which the E.N.V. stewards believe would mean cuts in
earnings. These proposals were in complete violation of an undertaking
given at a conference called shortly after the American takeover when
assurances were given that all existing agreements would be honourede
In answer to the management's proposalsa mass factory meeting decided
upon sectional protest action on Wednesday 20th July. On the day before
an unofficial meeting at the Employers Federation Uffices the E.N.V.
management agreed to full negotiating rights for shop stewards, The news
was passed out next morning to all but the electrical and stores
department, whose workers’ stayed out of the factory for two hours, The
production manager refused to negotiate with the stewards for the men's
return and denied knowledge of the previous day's agreement. The chair-~
man of the shopestewards committee, Geoff Carlsson, was locked out of
the factory and threatened with dismissal after goigig to speak to the
men. When the men returned at 10 am. they * were locked out. Sfter a
stack-driver was threatened with the sack for refusing to do storemen's work 2 mass meeting was called and d:cided to walk out for the day in prdest. The following day when they arrived at the factory the workers were herded into the canteen and told by Townsend that they were there to vote there and then 'for' or ‘against* his proposal of July 4th, He implied that if the vote was 'No' the factory would close. The convenor, Geoff Mitchell, advised the men not to vote anid started to lead them from the canteen past the foremen who were guarding the exitse However, after convenor Mitchell had left the doors were shut and no one was to leave until the ballot papers were filledin, Some workers then opened a door and threw a ballot box down the s&airs outside ite They were then allowed to leave .The mamagement then claimed that the stewards had intinidated the men not to vote, One day after the canteen fisco 800 workers at a mass meeting rejected the ballot unanimously. When the workers returned from their holidays in August the management were still working of p’=ans to smash their resistance, Provocations were carried out by the Mancgenent. One shop, through the introduction of a mew production line, had its rate so cut that the men had cuts of up to 210 per week in their pay. One steward locked himself in the shop until he was paid his normal wages, The other workers in the shop are now pressing for their normal rates, On Wednesday 24th August the managment announce the closure. In his letter to the workers Townsend blamed the closure on the economic and commercial situation and the tightening of credit. The shop stewards immediately stated their opposition to the closure and a mass meeting was called the next day when the stewards! actions were endorsede The B.N.V. struggle reflects only too clearly the direction of government and employers’ policy. This violent attack on shop-floor organisations and militant trade unionists is part and par£8l of Wilson's policy to put British Capitalism back on its feet. The anti-union laws and the wage freeze are mainly directed at the independent workers' committees based on rank and file militancy. So too is the Commission on Trade Unions, This is because militant shop-floor unionism has been able to gain increasingly higher standards for workers. That is why it is no co-incidence that the attack on E.N.V. workers coms at this time. The E.N.V. management claim the Freeze as the cause of the closure though it is believed that they have a backlog of orders, The Eaton's Annual Report for 1965 shows an increase of 50% in output in 1965 and envisages ’a further expansion with new machinery which is already installed and in operation, It is ouite clear that the over-riding consX2eration is to smash the union organisation at E.N.V. and cut wage rates. Over the last few yars other workers in the area have undergone the experience of run-down and clogure in their factories only to find them opened again with cheap, unorganised labour. The future period will see the strugele being fought out at E.N.V. spreading throughout the engineering industry. Increasing numbers of workers will see the national and international significance of their struggle and through their experience be brought into a conscious struggle for a socialist alternative to Wilson's Tory policies. But this is only possible if there is a principled programme of political demands for the left to advance, and a definite strategy to fight closures and unemployment at the local level; to link up the struggles of one section of workers with another, and to build the bridge of socialist consciousness between workers in industrial struggle and the national and internationsl ~Olitical struggle that is necessary if their gains are to be protected and their aspirations to be fulfilled.