Manchester and Stockport apprentices decided at a meeting on November 18 to return to work on Monday 23rd. The National Apprentices Wages and gnre a Campaign, which called the strike, demanded that there must not be any vic Le ation and that the AEU Executive should press the employers to agree to conce“e T.U. negotiating rights for apprentices. The committee decided to back any future strike called for by the Executive if the reasonable demands of apprentices were not met. Unfortunately, it seems that the very considerable response of Clydeside apprentices came too late to boost the morale of ther apprenticese Thus the strike of over 1,000 apprentices has failed to achieve its aims: the implemenatation of the AEU Youth Charter.
Most of the support for the strike has been in its place of origin, Manchester and Stockport. But over 350 apprentices from AET Trefford Park have gone back to work, leaving a disheatened, dwindling number still cut from a few of the largest factories. Response in the rest of the country has been very poor indeed. The strike has been badly organised and strategy poorly conceived. This point of criticism has been about the only contribution to the apprentices cause made by the Manchester Direct Action Committee which broke with the majority of the early leaders of the strike. This committee with Mike Hughes as secretary, consists of supporters of alleged Keep Left members of the Young Socialists, and has attempted to secure the leadership of the campaign and turn it to their ow political ends. This Direct Action Committee convened a conference in Manchester on October 31st, the "delegates" who attended almost solely consisted of Keep Left activists, a large proportion of which are not apprentices (for example, one "delegate" was a noneapprenticed building worker from Salford), The Young Socialists who called this conference then suggested that the decisions taken should be bin¢ ng on the apprentices.
Apart from the demoralising effect of this disruption, there was another factor which succeeded in shaking some of the lads from their early determination, Most of them had heard conflicting reports of: the attitude of the major union concerned, the AEU, Late in the day, it drifted through to the lads that the AEU Executive had asked them to return to work, and that the lads' points would be raised during the "package deal" negotiations. Very few heard that it took the casting vote of the President to pass that decision. Many convenors who had up until that time unofficially encouraged the apprentices began to change their advice = a committee member was disturbed to learn that communist convenors told lads to go back to work in Sheffield. In addition, in the Stockport area there have been cases reported of employers who offered cheap meals to apprentices who stayed in the factories. Also cases of employers sending letters to the homes of some of the lads (an impertinence which is on the increase!), Although this influenced some waiverers it also served to strengthen the determination of many of the others,
The publicity given to the strike has, as usual, been designed to weaken the actions by the lads, Even so, it has shown the engineering employers and the unions that apprentices are fed up with their present treatment. The lessons learnt during this strike should be valuable ones. It is clear that apprentices need to organise nationally and that they need to set up, in this sort of situation, a body which can be democratically elected and free of any form of takeover by any group with differing aims to apprentices. More than anything else, the unions must recognise that they should immediately press for trade union negotiating rights for their junior workers and encourage them to play a full part in the trade union movement. Ed. notes see elsewhere for other reports on this strike.