Grunwick Strikes

from Vince Corbin 04th Jan 2012, 10:39

As a person that worked for Grunwicks during this time and was actually present when the initial "dispute" started. I am greatly saddened by the continued re-writing of the events! In fact it was Mrs Desei's son that was sacked 1st, he came back from the pub a bit drunk, got into an argument with his manager and was sacked "for swearing". Also, it was part of the standard employment contract at Grunwicks that, during busy times, staff would be asked to work for an additional hour, for which they got paid. As further compensation, during quite periods, staff would go home early but still be on full pay. On the day in question, Mrs Desei was asked to stay for the extra hour, but she refused and actually started to leave a few minutes before five o'clock. It was then that it all became rather stupid! The manager, who should have know better, started threatening Mrs Desei with the sack if she walked out, he was quite aggressive about it. But Mrs Desei was still angry about her son being sacked and so was a bit abusive back. During the argument a very small number of Mrs Desei's friends also decided to go home and the manager told them all that they were sacked! Over the next few days more arguments occurred and more people left, but the management was not concerned. We were getting towards the end of the busy period! The temporary staff numbers were being reduced anyway, so a few of them were offered permanent positions. Thus ensuring that the jobs that had been "vacated by those that walked out/were sacked" were filled! All in all it was a stupid and pointless argument on all sides. But under no circumstances did it warrant the ridiculous spectacles of those massed pickets! Many of the women, that continued to work for Grunwicks (mostly from the Asian community), were frequently verbally abused and threatened, both by their ex co-workers and by the pickets. Although I was never physically struck, one of my colleagues was kicked and punched while we were walking home one day, fortunately for us, a large group of pickets pulled our attackers away, before it got really nasty! We were also threatened by a very senior member of the union, his threats being that: 1) He knew where all of us lived and 2) That none of us would ever work again! These threats were recorded by a large number of TV and Newspaper journalists. However, only 1 newspaper ever attempted to publish these threats, that was the Sun, but the unions refused to print the details, so on that day the Sun had a completely blank front page!!!!