Please circulate this message throughout the labour movement

March and Rally for the sacked workers - Saturday 8th March.... assemble at St Woolas Cathedral, Stow Hill, Newport. March commences at 12 noon for mass rally at 12:30pm in John Frost Square.

STRIKE AT CRITCHLEY AS UNION IS BANNED


by Chris Proctor, CWU Communications


Members of the Communication Workers Union closed Critchley Label Technology's Croespenmaen factory on the 22nd of January in the first of a series of planned industrial actions to regain recognition of their union. At the start of this year, managing director John White said he would no longer have any dealings with union representatives.

By his actions, Mr White has underlined the need for a Trade Union in the company. He destroyed any relationship between himself and Critchley's workforce and behaved likc a model for the `bullying thug' school of industrial relations.

Two years ago Critchley management called us `amenable and constructive' for our role in helping the company's transition from a BT subsidiary to an independent company. At a meeting with the company on the 3rd of July Mr White told the Union officials `As long as my employees want to belong to a Trade Union, I will recognise it.' His words, however, bear little relationship to his actions.

Once lhe company was on its feet, its tune changed. In April last ycar he abandoned any semblance of a civilised relationship and sacked nine of our members. The fellow CWU members instituted an overtime ban to try and force their reinstatement which Mr White attempted to crush by ending recognition. He has now de-recognised the union twice in three years!

The nine dismissed employees include the union secretary and chair, and also a disabled member. They were sacked without notice or consultstion with the union. When the CWU insisted that the agreed procedures be applied, Mr White refused to meet any union representatives at all. His justification was that he `didn't have time to talk to a union'.

Later in Januarv, however, he had to find time to take a week away from his troubled factory - to face 9 charges of unfair dismissal brought against Critchley by the CWU. The cases began on the 27th of January at Cardiff's Industrial Tribunal.

If he had consulted the union before insisting on the sackings, all this frustration, anger and conflict could have been avoided, but he chose, instead, to wield a big stick. So what if peoples lives are ruined on the way?

Despite the anger at Mr White's egocentric and unpredictable behaviour, the CWU says that 'a moment's sanity can end this dispute in a trice'. We are asking for very little. All we want is normal industrial relations in the Croespenmaen factory. We want union recognition to continue; and we want to be consulted on staffmg issues in future. That's hardly radical stuff is it?

For more information and for support please contact Reg Kelly on 0850 754972 (mobile).

The Critchley 31 and the Communication Workers Union ask for your help and support.


Messages of support should be sent to

Tony Young
Joint General Secretary
Communication Workers Union
Greystoke House
150 Brunswick Road
Ealing
London W5 1AW

or, E-mailed to the CWU at 101354.1171@compuserve.com.

E-Mail your protests to the Critchley management at critchleycomponents@dial.pipex.com or leave a message on the Critchley web site at http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/square/hj72/index.htm for the UK, Europe and Asia.

Critchley's Website in the USA is at http://www.critchley.com.

Any donations would be welcome and should be made out to "CWU - Critchley Fighting Fund" and sent to the Union headquarters, address as above.

For other material relating this dispute and the CWU, please click on to:

  • Critchley Strikers - Register Your Support Electronic Pickets Wanted (20 June 1977)
  • Critchley Group on the Slide by Alan Harley, May 1997
  • Support the Critchley 31 - background briefing by the CWU
  • Critchley Strikers Need Your Support - March and Rally in Nottingham, 14 May 1997
  • Cheers and Tears for the Critchley Strikers by Eddie Barrett, April 1997
  • Internet Support for Critchley Strikers, April, 1997
  • Striking Critchley Workers Sacked!2 March, 1997
  • Strike at Critchley as Union is Banned
  • CWU Home Page
  • Return to the Articles Page
  • Return to the Home Page
  • Try the Useful Multimedia Links Page - hundreds of trade union, telecom, postal and political links

    Their fight is ours, their victory will be yours.

    This article was first published in "Trade Union Review", February 1997.

    "Trade Union Review" is available from 65 Bishops Road, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE15 6RY and is published 10 times a year at an annual subscription of £8 (UKP8).

    Tel: +44 191 272 2046
    Fax: +44 191 241 1609
  • Return to the Articles Page
  • Return to the Home Page
  • Try the Useful Multimedia Links Page

    • Update 2 March 1997