Striking Critchley Workers Sacked!

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.

More than a quarter of a million British communications workers are pledging support to a handful of employees at a little factory in a remote Welsh valley. And they want your help, too.

The employees -- 31 people who worked at the Critchley Labels plant in the tiny village of Croespenmaen -- have been sacked because they refused to allow their bosses to kick the union off the site.

The Communication Workers Union of the United Kingdom -- representing postal, telephone and cable employees across Britain -- had a long-standing agreement with Critchley Label Technology to allow for negotiations with the company on issues affecting staff.

But the bosses weren't willing to talk with the CWU over redundancies at the plant, so they just tore up the agreement.

The workers voted -- in a secret ballot - to strike. Management sacked them, and provoked the outrage of the British trade union movement.

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.
    Published 2 March, 1997