Critchley Strikers Need Your Support
The police have now agreed to the Union's proposal for a protest march and short rally at the Critchley Group headquarters in Nottingham
As previously announced, this march will take place on Wednesday 14 May. The march will commence at 1.00 pm and will proceed through the industrial estate at which the Critchley Group's headquarters is located. A short rally will be held outside Critchley's premises and the march will then proceed back to the original starting point.
Marchers should assemble at the corner of Longwall Avenue, Queens Drive Industrial Estate, from 12.30 pm. Branches should note that there is no parking in the immediate area and that arrangements will need to be made to use taxis etc from the nearest parking places. The nearest railway station is Nottingham.
Alan Harley
National Organiser
In a little Welsh valley, a handful of communications workers have been battling since last year with a major corporation to restore a basic human right—the right to be represented by their trade union.
The Critchley 31 -- sacked employees of Critchley Label Technology at Croespenmaen in south Wales—are members of the UK's Communication Workers Union (CWU).
Between them, these 31 trade unionists had given their company 471 years of loyal service. They had a company agreement that pay and other contract changes would be negotiated with the CWU by bosses. Last year the bosses tore up that agreement. The Critchley 31 voted to strike in defence of their right to union representation. And were sacked by the company.
One of them said: "Our backs were against the wall. We'd lost everything, but we couldn't let them take away our union'.
Their cause has caught the imagination of working people across the world, and attracted support from unions, politicians and civil rights campaigners.
Their union's 280,000 members are proud of them, and so is the whole British trade union movement. Their courage and integrity have become a byword for what solidarity really means in the workplace today.For other material relating this dispute and the CWU, please click on to:
