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From Militant, No. 446, 9 March 1979, p. 6.
Transcribed by Iain Dalton.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
The Bradford Telegraph and Argus reported last November that one Joseph Thompson had been sacked from his job as a dyeworker in Yeadon, near Bradford – all because he had ‘disobeyed a union rule 14 years ago.’
The National Union of Dyers, Bleachers and Textile workers had discovered that Mr Thompson had worked at “a local dyeworks blacked by the union”, for a couple of months after leaving school when 16.
The union’s officials confiscated his union card and because the firm, Naylor and Jennings, was a closed shop, they had to sack Mr Thompson.
Mr Thompson is quoted as saying:
“I don’t know whose fault this is, but I am left with no job just before Christmas and a wife and three children to support.”
The report insinuated that here was another poor innocent victim of high-handed bureaucratic abuse of union power, and was taken up by television, radio and several Tory MPs.
The union refused to comment, adding to the impression that here was an unanswerable example of faceless bureaucracy unaccountable to no-one, over-reacting to a trivial breach of the rules.
These distortions become clearer, however, when the background was investigated.
The firm that Mr Thompson worked for, “briefly as a fill-in job”, turns out to be William Denby & Son of Basildon, near Bradford.
It was here in 1963 that a dispute began which was to develop into Britain’s longest running strike at the time, lasting 14 months.
The dispute arose on the 30 October 1963 when Dyers and Bleachers members walked out in protest at a member of management breaking a working agreement by operating a machine during the lunch-break.
Everyone who walked out was summarily dismissed. After talks broke down – because Denby refused to take back certain men he regarded as ‘troublemakers’ – the strike was made official on the 2 November.
Twenty-four hour picketing was maintained, but with the recruitment of scab labour under police protection Denby’s was able to maintain production. As both sides dug in, feelings ran high in the locality, with neighbours, friends and families being split over the issue.
The more advanced workers realised Denby was out to smash the union. The less conscious layers, influenced by the press and the media, saw Denby as the underdog taking on the might of the union.
The former view was vindicated when Denby’s circulated a letter offering re-employment at the same rates of pay providing the employee agree not to join the union.
This led to the union in March 1964, declaring Denby’s ‘black’ and appealing for a boycott of his products. Local textile workers responded in a tremendous show of solidarity.
But the owners also showed their class loyalties and supported Denby both financially and by accepting his products and putting their labels on them.
The struggle continued with Denby’s demanding an open shop, and the union demanding a return to the status quo.
Denby’s compromise of partial reinstatement was rejected out of hand by the men at one of their weekly meetings.
The men faced public hostility, police intimidation and insults from the scabs.
One picket described how on Fridays the scabs drive in cars and vans through the lines, escorted by police, and toss at the dejected pickets wage packets with their earnings total written on the outside and halfpennies and abusive letters inside.
The dispute dragged on towards the pickets’ second Christmas on the line: the second time their kids had no toys, the second time there were no festivities or relief from the poverty and deprivation of the breadline the workers had to endure in fighting for their principles, their rights and their survival.
The tremendous pressures of 14 months on strike had led to the break-up of marriages, physical and mental illnesses, and a bitterness which is still present today in the area.
This was shown at the 1976 conference of the Dyers and Bleachers union, when a motion calling for the lifting of the ban on anyone who had either crossed the picket line or worked at Denby’s since the dispute being members of the union was overwhelmingly defeated.
More recently, in 1978, a man took up a management job with another Yeadon firm, Scott and Rhodes, and when the members found out he was an ex-Denby man they threatened strike action rather than work with him, forcing management to pay him up and give him his cards.
Why wasn’t this reported in the press in terms of shocked indignation? The man was not a union member, so the union leadership could not be blamed.
But more important, at that time there was still a chance of the union leaders persuading their members to agree to a 5% limit on wage claims, especially the more ‘moderate’ unions like the Dyers’ and Bleachers’.
However, with the massive rejection of wage restraint by the working class the gloves are off. Now as bitter disputes with the organised labour movement loom there is a need to discredit the leadership of the movement and divide and weaken it, thereby ensuring defeat.
Hence the distortions about Joe Thompson’s “disobeying of a union rule 14 years ago” and the attempt to portray the union’s action as a blinkered heavy-handed judgement by one trade union official.
The facts are simple. In the irreconcilable conflict between capital and labour, the working class have only their own solidarity to rely on. The first rule of solidarity is; never cross a picket line.
The ruling class have their wealth, the media, the police and the armed forces. But as we have seen in Iran, this counts for nothing in the face of united working class solidarity in action.
The scab strikes a blow for the bosses and against his own class every time he crosses a picket line.
The working class have every right to remind such people that they have a long memory, and that workers who line up with the bosses now will share their fate in the future.
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