"leet Street's key word to describe the • headline writers and picture editors sage about hoiding our stomachs to to help relay the ERIDAN argues that it is vital for the this battle against low pay onto the of the workers' movement to ensure the success of the strike.
Although the union executive did not hold a mass meeting or a ballot before calling thestrike, it is easy to see why the overwhelming majority of workers in the large companies took to the picket lines.
Tayabali Kapasi describes his job on the bread line at the Sunblest bakery in Walthamstow, East London, as 'hard, hot, and very fast moving. Heis among the Asians who make up 90 per cent of the 250 workersat this factory owned by Associated Foods profits last year, £33.7m).
SO many Asians? Tayabali shrugs. 'Cheap labour. White workers don't want the job." agreed rates, is 241 for a 40-hour week. Dasic on the nationally The employers have offered to increase this by demanded by the Labour Government, princely with another 6 percent depending on ill strict productivity requirements. Hence the strike.
Few workers in industry tolerate the shifts that Tayabali has to put up witn. Heis on a six-day week tnal egins at Sam on Sundays and involves working roman to om on Mondays and Fridays.
For a 55-hour week he grosses about E76, which is higher than that of many Omer Orcau WOrKCES.
At Walthamstow, only six workers are scabbing, and une DICKCIS strenuously trying to prevent the daily despatch of tens of thousands of loaves produced by managers under the excuse of supplying hospitals and prisons. The day before I spoketo Tayabali, 80 cops nad wadea into ine pickets and arrested 13 stikers, four of chairperson Baldev Dhillon: policemen got hold of me, lifted me up to above five feet, and then dropped me They have issued no calls for assistance from the trade union movement, not even from the Transport Union, some of whose members continue to deliver bread baked by management and strike.
employers' bread no real bread.' smell. I don't know whether it's the chemicals that go in, or the air. They're just turning out stuff to fill people's stomachs. For me, it's not WORKERS at the Drews Lane tractor and transmission plant in