As has already
been reported on marxist.com and socialist.net, the workers at the PRISME packaging
plant in Dundee have been in occupation since the 4th of March. The workers
decided to occupy the factory after they were each given a letter informing
them of their immediate dismissal without any of the pay they were owed from
the first of March. They demanded a letter outlining the payments they were
due, which when the received outlined all they payments they were entitled to,
however it scandalously concluded with the sentence “Unfortunately, we do not
have enough money to make these payments to you.” The workers took the decision
then that they were not going to follow the route the letter suggested in
contacting the Citizens’ Advice Bureau but that they were instead going to
occupy the factory with the demand that they received the payments owed to
them.
On Friday the 13th
of March two comrades from Edinburgh went to visit the occupiers to offer our
support to their struggle. We spoke to Maureen and Lorraine who had worked at
the factory for 13 and 14 years respectively. They both told us of the
widespread support they’d received from as far afield as Australia, but they
were yet to receive any support from the Labour Party, although they had been
visited from the SNP MSP for the area. Once again it seems that the Labour Party
has failed to support the workers in their struggle. Maureen and Lorraine also
informed us that the workers were considering running the factory under a
workers’ co-op. They had all the skills to operate the machines such as the
box-making machine, the gluing machine and the pattern machine; there is still
demand for PRISME packaging as after the workers called round the companies
they’d supplied in the past they’d been told that the companies would be still
be happy to work with PRISME packaging. Yet again proving in practice that
workers don’t need bosses!
Maureen and
Lorraine had also been involved in the TIMEX factory pickets in 1993 when the
TIMEX factory in Dundee was closed leaving many workers jobless. The workers in
the PRISME factory had been subject to terrible pay and limited holidays with a
minimum wage salary and very little holiday days – just a couple of days at
Christmas/New Year, two weeks in the summer and little else. None of the
workers involved in the occupation are in trade unions and Maureen said that
they “weren’t militants, just little people”. Yet no one is born a militant and under
current conditions little people in workplaces everywhere are being turned into
militants.
The following day
supporters of Socialist Appeal in Edinburgh distributed leaflets highlighting
the struggle of the PRISME workers whilst selling Socialist Appeal. Passing workers and youth, also suffering under
the hammer of the capitalist crisis, reacted enthusiastically and could clearly
identify the struggle around the PRISME occupation.
