The Madrid workers launched an appeal for international solidarity which met with an immediate response. In France the CGT union federation has organised an overtime ban and a boycott of Hutchinson products, while in Italy the chemical workers are blacking goods for the Spanish market and have raised large sums of money to aid the The combination of international solidarity with the support of Spanish workers and neighbourhood committees and the militancy of the strikers themselves seems to have paid off. Latest reports indicate that an industrial tribunal has ordered une re-instatement of at least a substantial proportion of the sacked workers. But it remains to be seen whether all the workers' demands have been met. It may well be that the Hutchinson struggle is not over yet.
However, whether Hutchinson struggle has been victorious or not, it is still important as a symptom of the rising militancy of the Spanish working class. The Hutchinson workers. like many others now in struggle, had never been on strike before. Yet they quickly learned what was required to take on the employers, with the armed strength of the dictatorship behind them.
In order to hold regular meetings they were forced to occupy a church. Promptly expelled by the Armed Police, they occupied another which serves as the organising focus of the strike. The sovereign body, which both decides policy and organises the basic necessities of the strike, is the democratic assembly of all strikers
WEEKLY What does the Chief Justice of the Western Pacific have in workers at the Trico factory in London? Absolutely nothing - which is probably why he was chosen to chair the Industrial Tribunal considering the Trico equal pay claim.
But the women did not have the doubtful pleasure of meeting Sir Jocelyn Bodilly. With the backing or teir union, the Amal gamated Union of Engineering Workers, they decided to boycott the Tribunal arguing that the experience of other workers has exposed tribunals as easy tools for the employers in taking advantage of the gaping holes of Labour's Equal Pay Act. Whether or not the Tribunal rules ag ainst them, the women believe that only colecuye. independent However, there are danger signs that victory will not be that easy. The 14 weeks of hardship and bitter conflict with scabs,