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the lessons
industrial
of the battle
since
The Timex story
BUS
MEX
PREP
CINE
Timex mass picket, May 17.
N THE CLASS struggle some events stand out
as a watershed. The struggle of the Timex
workers is just that. The powerful Timex corporation, backed by the Tories and their state forces, was defied by 343 workers using the traditional methods of struggle, the strike weapon, mass picketing and demonstrations.
However the closure of the Timex factory raises many questions. Was the failure of the workers to get their jobs back an outright defeat? Is militant action against union-busting bosses ineffective?
Fred Olsen's Timex corporation has pursued a world-wide strategy of switching production to low-wage countries like the Philippines. Its plants in the USA are being relocated to states with draconian anti-union laws. With the most restrictive labour laws in Europe, Britain seemed ideal ground for Olsen's 'slash and burn' tactics. Dundee was chosen as a testing ground for a vicious programme
of cuts in wages and conditions. Under cover of layoffs, management planned to pick-off union activists, paving the way for a sweat-shop.
Two years previously at the Dundee Albacom factory management sacked their workforce for going on strike and bussed in scabs. Accepting legal restraints and control by the official AEEU leadership, the workers were forced to admit defeat after a year-long lock-out. The scabs remain working to this day.
With this example on their doorstep, Timex management thought they could push through their plans with ease. They miscalculated. While the attitude of the union bureaucracy emboldened them, they had not taken the mood of the workforce into account.
The workforce at Timex was overwhelmingly women and of a more mature age, with few younger workers. To the bosses they must have appeared unlikely to put up a serious fight. Rising
Timex • 9
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Diary of the struggle Derember 1992 Times propose six months lay-off for 150 workers. Workers propose lay-off rotation. Times refuse.
January 1993 Negotiations continue. Timex reject rota. tion. Strike ballot: 92%. in favour. Strike
29 January.
1998
workers agree return to work under
orest but
Sushi
support of
demonstrate workers. Monday 22 March Timex workers and supporters block seab busses for two hours. Scottish Militant Labour (SML) coun-
13 TO
April 1993
panic Tomer
Pear Monday not
ROLLY.
Scotland). Partial general strike in Dundee. May 1993 Another monster demonstration on Saturday 15 May marks critical point of battle. Timex strike committee and leaders make a joint call with SML to blockade Timex. Monday 17 May, 3,000 pickets assemble. 1,000 police mobilised to break picket. Busses get through but management locked out. Arthur Scargill calls for a one-day general strike at rally following mass picket.
June 1993 Workers reject settlement cooked-up between management and AEEU official, Jimmy Airlie. All-Scotland shop-stewards conference proposes day of action for Thursday 1 July. The STUC sabotage this by doing nothing to build it but refinery workers at Grangemouth stage half-day strike. Timex announce closure by Christmas after years in Dundee. Workers reject proposal' to assist in orderly closure. 10.000 march behind Timex workers banner.
July 1993 Vil tant to halt closure. STUC don't lift a finger to stop asset stripping at Timex.
ngus Sunday factory. Workers, still proud and defiant, pledge to fight on, picket Timex scab office
organise boycott of scab in Forfar Timex products.
dev Airlie issues ultimatium to workers: call off the boycott and accept a settlement
Tim merl poli
bf or the AEEU withdraws official support. 'Airlie's achieved what Ha Ice
He's not one of us, them' Ann
Worker.
rawlon
10 • Timex
unemployment and the effects of recession has made workers hold back before launching defensive struggles. Workers reticence has been reinforced by the actions of right-wing trade union leaders signing cynical no-strike and wage cut deals, like the disgraceful Hoover deal negotiated by AEEU executive member Jimmy Airlie at Cambuslang, while simultaneously crowing that strikes, mass picketing, solidarity and demonstrations are outmoded forms of struggle. Yet the clearest lesson of the Timex battle is that traditional methods of struggle militantly applied achieved greater results in a few months than all the years of hot air from the TUC.
HE STRUGGLE BEGAN after the workers
struck over managements refusal to concede
rotation. Initially the workers agreed to return to work 'under protest, accepting a 10% wage cut and changes in working practises. Yet they had shown too much pluck. Management feared that they were not pliant enough and that a return to work would give them the opportunity of fighting on from the inside. When first hearing of the lay-offs, for example, workers had occupied the canteen. Indeed, it would have been an effective tactic at the start of the dispute to have occupied the factory: many workers openly admitted they should have occupied rather than coming out.
The picket became a
for class fighters
everywhere.
The decision of Peter Hall, Timex's axe-man, to lock the gates left them initially in a state of shock. But the sight of busses full of scabs entering the factory created outbursts of fury from women pickets witnessing the theft of their jobs.
The transformation of the workers from lambs to lions stunned the bosses. The mass picket at the gates became a focus of the battle for jobs, wages and conditions. Tory anti-picketing laws were circumvented despite legal action. Workers everywhere saw that at last a real fight was being put up. In this the picket was crucial.
The effectiveness of mass picketing is an issue of debate in the labour movement. Mass picketing has both a political and an industrial function. Politically, mass picketing was clearly successful in raising the profile of the dispute to national significance. Industrially, after the mass picket of May 17, Timex always closed on the day a mass picket was announced. If an official call for bolstering the picket had come from the STUC or the TUC the plant could have been completely cut off.
Even without this the picket became a magnet for class fighters everywhere as workers saw pictures of the human blockade on television. The
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nature of the struggle itself attracted unprecedented On Easter Monday, 6,000 workers marched past | NOTTS WOMEN AGANST FIT CLOS RUFFA Solidarity with Timex strikers came from all over Britain. solidarity. It showed that when workers put up a tenacious fight the Tory laws become de facto unworkable.
The struggle took this form mainly because the workers seized the leadership of their dispute through their strike committee. This tendency towards rank and file hoc committees directing industrial battles will become a feature in the future. The Timex strike committee, despite its imperfections - it was appointed and its members were not subject to recall - represented a higher form of trade union organisation for the prosecution It was the strike committee that of struggle.
organised the picketing and solidarity work where the AEEU officials were an impediment. The struggle opened the workers' eyes to the role of these leaders'. Timex convenor John Kydd junior was followed by a union solicitor who recorded his every word lest he make a public call for action to break anti-union laws. The bureaucracy were trembling for their union assets. After the human blockade of Timex on March 22, letters from the union threatening stoppage of strike pay and expulsion if workers were involved in illegality were consigned to the picket line brazier.
Rather than cow the Timex men and women into compliance they renewed the struggle with intensified vigour after overcoming their doubts. This caused the AEEU leadership to back-ofi in their attacks on the strike, switching to behind the scenes negotiations with Timex management to scupper the dispute.
in this is that the bure- The important lesson aucracy was suspended in mid-air by the militant action of the workers. It showed the chasm that divides the be-suited officials from their members who are under attack. On a visit to Dundee, Airlie told a local official to 'get hold of the dispute before it got out of control. MARKHAR MAIN the Timex gates, many taking industrial action to join the demonstration. NCR workers were given time off by management, lest they take unofficial action. Throughout the battle they had shown admirable initiative in organising car blockades of Timex by the nightshift; regularly they marched onto the lines as a body, once led by a piper. Workers from the public works, Valentines, Ninewells hospital and other major workplaces took part. Workers at the small Bulkbag factory came out on strike, in defiance of management, led by a GMB steward and SMI member. The sympathy action around Timex reflected a subterranean mood that is developing among the working class. Dundee workers, with pent up grievances over wage cuts, redundancies and privatisation, although in some cases feeling that they could do little about their own situation, were drawn to the Timex struggle. This included OHN KYDD JUNIOR is the sacked AEEU convenor of the Timex workforce. John has political differences with Scottish Militant Labour (SML). We asked him for an honest assessment of our role in this momentous battle:
"The role of SML in the Timex enhanced the class emphasis of the dispute. Their solidarity, support and encouragement helped to bolster the morale of the pickets at every stage of the dispute.
"Their direct action approach of national recognition and raised the dispute to greater heights. Those who condemned the support of SMI failed to recognise the class nature of the dispute and by their actions aided and abetted the Engineering Employers Federation and the company at a time when we had them on the defensive" Timex • 11
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illegal' walk outs, which occurred with no call being made even by the strike committee itself. Workers may be reticent to come out in solidarity given the nature of the union leadership but Easter Monday clearly showed that a call from the Timex strike committee for a one-day general strike in Dundee, given the legitimacy of the class, committee in the eyes of the working could have gained an immense response if built for by a campaign of factory gate meetings explaining the aims of the action to the wider labour movement. This was the position of SMI who merely gave a public voice to the many Timex workers who were privately demanding a general strike to link their struggle with others facing the bosses attacks.
HE STRUGGLE INTENSIFIED through spring and summer as pressure mounted on Timex. The mass picket of May 17 showed the vulnerability of the factory to a blockade, creating consternation amongst the police who were hard pressed to keep the plant open for scabbing. The media howls for a resolution of the dispute echoed Tory fears that an outright victory for the Timex workers would irreparably breach the effectiveness of the anti-union laws.
The STUC were pressed from below to organise solidarity action. At the suggestion of SMI the • Timex strike committee pressurised the STUC into organising a shop stewards conference to discuss action to aid the struggle. At this conference the STUC leadership ruled out 'secondary action but faced numerous calls for an all-Scotland one-day stoppage to link wider struggles together with the Timex dispute. The STUC leadership conceded to calling a day of action on July 1. This was an ideal opportunity to make an official call for a one-day stoppage by the strike committee. The tacit backing of the STUC would have enhanced the legitimacy of this call. It would have definitely got a response despite the announcement in June that Timex planned to close the factory by Christmas. Unfortunately this opportunity was not seized by the strike committee although the action of 800 refinery workers at Grangemouth showed the potential groundswell of support for generalised action.
The closure announcement marked another crucial turn in the dispute. Timex had been fought to a standstill. Their attempt to maintain a scab sweatshop was defeated and they were preparing to flee. It posed pointblank the question of how to pursue the fight. SML immediately raised the demand of occupation of the plant. Occupation would have been a severe blow for Timex, stopping them skulking out of Dundee. The outcome could have been entirely different in that new vistas for the continuation of the struggle would have opened up.
The occupation of Caterpillar had shown how this could raise the stakes in a struggle against closure. Given the impact of Timex an occupation 12 • Timex would have maintained the tempo of the struggle and allowed the build-up of solidarity to a wider layer of workers. Having seized the assets of the Timex corporation in their Dundee factory the initiative would have been in the workers hands. There was support for occupation amongst a layer of the most militant Timex workers. Technically occupation was not a problem: what was lacking was the necessary leadership and organisation for it.
Had SMIL been in the leadership of the dispute, occupation would have been taken-up in a serious fashion from the very start. The workers had shown their courage on the line. They would not have baulked at an occupation which would have posed serious problems for the bosses and their state forces. The failure to organise an occupation stands as a missed opportunity and a mistake. Occupation would have been a severe blow for Timex, stopping them skulking out of Dundee.
Yet Timex is not a defeat for the labour movement. At the start John Kydd junior stated that either Timex negotiated a settlement or the workers would close the factory: there would not be another Albacom in Dundee. The Timex multinational was halted by the tenacity of the Timex workers and the movement that developed around them. Timex's conscious policy of 'slash and burn' was defeated - they failed to establish a scab plant in Dundee.
Of course the Timex workers did not get their jobs back but their attitude is defiant. We proved they could not walk all over us' is a common response. In a wider context it has been a setback for the bosses and has placed a barrier in the path of organised scabbing as a weapon in their At key stages the struggle could have taken a decisive turn towards a generalised movement. The situation was pregnant with the possibility of a regional one-day general strike. It is certainly true that in Dundee and further afield the lessons of Timex are being seriously discussed by workers grappling for ideas and tactics to employ in the period ahead. Rather than the closure of Timex cowing workers in Dundee and Scotland, this struggle demonstrates the anger that exists in both the public and private sector which will find expression in the months and years ahead It is precisely the methods of the Timex workers, which caught the imagination of the British working class, thai wi be utilised in the turbulent period that is us pening up.
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