from Raymond Challinor
Eight hundred immigrant workers went on strike last week at Courtaulds' Preston factory. The majority are from India and Pakistan, but they in. clude West Indians, Africans, Poles and Ukrainians.
The dispute arose in the tyre cord spinning department when the management increased the production norm by 50%. Previously a worker had tended one machine; now it was proposed that two men should tend three machines between them. The management claims that this increase was in accord with an agreement reached with the Transport and General Workers' Union, but the men say that they have not been consulted.
Since the afternoon when the company tried to impose the speed-up, workers have clocked in as usual but refused to operate the machines. The company now threatens to have them prosecuted for trespass.
Standing outside the Transport and General offices, I spoke to many of the strikers. They emphasised, in a quiet, friendly manner, that conditions in the department were very unhealthy. They had to work in searing heat, amid hot acid and biting fumes. Many suffered from eye, ear and stomach complaints. Most Englishmen had been unable to withstand the temperature and, although they did not do their work properly, had been promoted to more attractive and better-paid jobs. Gradually the department had been transformed into an industrial ghetto, with only the foremen white. - "They come along. They say, 'You work', But I work hard now. I can do no more." This statement, made to me by an Indian, basically sums up the position. The strike action committee emphasises that they are interested in preserving their health, not in getting more pay: "We are not donkeys.... we want to live," .
During the past five years, immigrant workers have flocked: to join the Transport and General Workers! Union at Courtaulds'. They were told it would be in their own interests, as well as those of their fellow workmen. But it appears that all the Transport and General have done is to hamper their struggle. R.Roberts, one of the Union's officials, has called the present settlement, which gives the Company a 50% increase in work for a 2% increase in pay, "fair and reasonable". Then he went on to dismiss the dispute as "entirely racial".
It is true that in Preston there is considerable colour prejudice. When, before the last General Election, Russell Kerr, the Labour candidate for Preston North, accompanied coloured people into public houses that barred coloureds, he had his knuckles rapped by some Labour Councillors. Many Preston people say that Negroes are unclean, etc.
But the immigrant workers themselves reiterate that they wish to work alongside their English brothers. They do not, in any way, wish to erect barriers between them. For such a division always leaves the way open for the management to play one group of workers against another. So far, Courtaulds' have tried to introduce its speed-up plans against the immigrant workers, whom they probably think the weakest and most defenceless. But, says the Strike Action Committee, if the management succeeds in the
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The Preston Strike (continued)
tyre rope department, it will try the same trick in other parts of the factory. An injury to one is an injury to all.
It is this spirit of solidarity that needs to be shown at present. the strikers remain united and confident, pleased at the support coming from other parts of the country. But it is important that it come not simply from coloured workers, but also from their white brothers. Moreover, resolutions condemning the stand of the Transport and General Workers' local organisationneed to pour into their London headquarters.
All expressions of support, monies, etc., should be sent to: Mr. Choudhury, 4, Sergeant Street, Preston.
P.S. Readers will no doubt be sorry to learn that because of the strike the manager of Courtaulds' has had to cancel his three-week American holiday. He was going to visit Courtaulds' plant in Alabama.