Ault & Wiborg - One small strike

Five weeks on the picket line, three days occupying the factory, one night in jail — and finally something had broken. And it wasn't the Ault & Wiborg strikers. They came out of the High Court on Tuesday November 10 wearing wide smiles. “Thumbs up!”, said the photographer from the Independent, and five of the six obligingly raised their thumbs. The sixth striker, Bryan O'Duffy, gave a mischievous smile and raised two fingers in a victory sign. By Gene Kerrigan.

“Ah, don't do that, Bryan”, called an AGEMOU official, “don't do that!” Strikers just released from jail after purging their contempt of court shouldn't do anything ambiguous with two fingers — it wouldn't look too good in the papers. And, besides, victory was very far from assured. They had come a long way since the strike began when - Ronnie Hawkins complained about the blocked fire door, but they had a long way yet to go.

Ault & Wiborg is a London-based firm which came to Ireland in the early fifties. At its plant in the John F. Kennedy Industrial Estate, in Bluebell, it manufactures and distributes paints, inks, lacquers, thinners and dyes. The production work is often dirty and oppressive. Powders, acetone and solvents are mixed by the production workers, passed along to the laboratory for testing, and from there sent to be canned and distribut ed. Some of the workers have to wear masks all day to guard against dust — “but the mask doesn't always stop it”.

In the ink-making process a worker must load sixteen ten-kilo sacks of black powder into a drum nick-named Big Bertha, add oils and set the mix ture to stir for six .hours. He must wear a special suit taped at wrists and ankles and, since the dust penetrates the suit, he must afterwards- take a shower and put on a fresh suit of clothes. The dust can leave stains on the upper part of the face for days afterwards. Each time a worker does this job he gets a special bonus of 35p.

Several months ago the workers read a safety leaflet circulated by the ITGWU which alleged that a certain chemical causes cancer of the liver. They had been using the chemical for some years but after reading the leaflet refused to handle it.

It's not a great job, they say, but it's not the worst and you have to work somewhere. Most have been with Ault & Wiborg for an average of seven or eight years. When they went to work there they automatically joined the union, which happened to be the Irish Transport and General Workers Union, the ITGWU. The firm had never had a strike.

Friday November 6, Fr. Michael Cleary got a message that Bryan O'Duffy wanted to see him urgently at the Ault & Wiborg factory. Cleary is a Ballyfermot curate whose cabaret act of songs and jokes gained him a national reputation as a “human” priest. Tall, thin, with an unkempt ginger beard, his clerical suit flecked with ash from the ever-present cigarette, he is one of the lads, the priest who gets to the parts other priests can't reach. Bryan O'Duffy had been active in community work along with Cleary and had been a member of a folk group with which Cleary had been associated.

When Cleary got to the factory he found that the workers had occupied it — and found himself being asked to intervene in an industrial dispute which had been grinding along in ob scurity for six weeks and which was now threatening to explode in the faces of the employer, two unions and, most directly, the Ault & Wiborg workers.

Like many industrial disputes, the Ault & Wiborg conflict grew from a number of small but collectively strong roots. There had been com plaints about the erratic bonus system. It was supposed to be reviewed after three months of operation but nine months dragged by without any moves. There was a claim for £3 “tea money”, to be paid when workers were asked with only a few hours notice to stay on for overtime. The workers felt that their ITGWU official was neglecting such grievances.

Several of the office workers were members of the Automobile, General Engineering and Mechanical Operatives Union, AGEMOU, and some months ago a number of production workers approached AGEMOU official Eamonn Woods saying they were dissatisfied with service from the ITGWU and wanted to transfer. Since only a minority of the production workers were involved Woods replied that it would be foolish to break up the negotiating unit and declined to accept the workers into AGEMOU.

In September, after discussing the issue over the summer, the workers returned to Woods, this time with a majority. Woods told them to clear their cards with the ITGWU. The ITGWU complain that AGEMOU should at that stage have formally sought permission to transfer the members. AGEMOU, however, had had previous experience of drawn out arguments with the ITGWU refusing point blank to release members unless 100% agreed. When the workers were unsuccessful in clearing their cards with the ITGWU Woods accepted them into the union anyway. AGEMOU now had 29 members in Ault & Wiborg, the ITGWU had 6, and there were 16 management and non-union people. A meeting was arranged with William Grainger, managing director of Ault & Wiborg, for October 5, to discuss members' grievances.

Six days before the meeting was to take place one of the workers, Ronnie Hawkins, went to management and said that as AGEMOU shop steward he was complaining about a blocked fire door. He was told that the firm did not recognise AGEMOU. The workers held a meeting and walked out.

D ay merged into day, week into week, and the strike limped on — boring as most strikes. Those with dependents could get social welfare assistance — £41 for a married man with four children. A production worker who was on £84 a week basic after eight years an whose take-home pay, with overtime and the up-and- down bonus, averaged about £90, had a wife and five children who between them got £45 assistance.

AGEMOU is not quite the stroppy little bantam of a few years ago. The union is still financially punchdrunk from its battle with Roadstone in 1979 (during which it l its member ship of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions) and has only in recent months been able to restore some measure of strike pay to members in dispute. The crisis in agriculture brought redundancy to many of its members in the farm machinery companies. Member ship is now around 6,000. In addition there has been a takeover of the executive by the more conservative side of the union and the fight between left and right has been taken to the courts.

Still, AGEMOU's freewheeling style commands loyalty from its members and after the build-up of restrained resentments of the previous couple of years the Ault & Wiborg strikers felt that at least some move was being made.

Eamonn Woods phoned the company's managing director, William Grainger, asking that the dispute be taken to the Labour Court if neces sary in tripartite talks with the ITGWU. On October 5 the ITGWU Branch Secretary, John McManus, wrote to each striker, ordering them back to work. “As the action fs in violation of the procedures agreed with your employer, we would require you to resume working immediately”.

Four days later, on October 9, Grainger wrote to Woods rejecting conciliation talks on the grounds that the ITGWU “have shown no enthusiasm for your suggestion of assistance of the Labour Court”. Grainger added, “I have not abandoned hope that we may do something in this area”. Woods wrote back with notice that AGEMOU would now make the strike official.

Grainger wrote to Woods on October 15 saying he couldn't recognise AGEMOU as Ault & Wiborg “have had an exclusive negotiating agreement with the ITGWU for workers in the factory”. The agreement, however, was verbal — and had been for twenty- five years. It had never been ratified by the workers in the factory.

j By now the strikers and the AGEMOU officials saw recognition as the prime issue. Other grievances could be negotiated on once the strike ended. The tenuous grievances which had led to the decision to change unions and to strike had now solidified into a righteous and determined demand that the workers have the right to join the union of their choice.

As the weeks passed a fear grew among the strikers that Ault & Wiborg would take the opportunity of the strike to dispense with production al together and import the goods from its parent factory in Britain. The company would then merely serve as a distribution agent. The fact that the six ITGWU members continued to work inside the factory and the company van continued to make deliveries heightened this suspicion.

On Monday November 2, the workers met and decided to occupy the factory in order to prevent the distribution of goods. The AGEMOU officials could not sanction the action but, as is the union's style, they refused to obstruct the members once the decision had been voted on. On the morning of Wednesday November 4, a dozen strikers occupied the factory and locked the gates.

By, the time Fr. Michael Cleary became involved ‘in the dispute, on Friday November 6, the gates of th jail were opening to take in the strikers. Ault & Wiborg had been to court on Wednesday and Thursday, first to obtain an interim injunction and then to obtain an order of attach ment as the strikers had broken the injunction by remaining in the factory. Eight strikers were named in the order: Ronnie Hawkins, Bryan O'Duffy, Laurence Sailinger, Dave Redmond, Eamonn McMahon, Bren dan Davis, William O'Kelly and Bernard McCarthy.

Cleary, who is himself a member of the ITGWU (Equity Branch), was not primarily concerned with the inter-union or dispute issues. He wanted the strikers kept out of jail, whatever the outcome of the conflicts. He persuaded the strikers that leaving the fac tory on Friday afternoon would be s as a gesture of goodwill which might help resolve the issue.

When the strikers entered the factory on Wednesday they had had their suspicions confirmed. The place was “skyhigh” with 200-kilo drums of paint, imported from England — the paint which the strikers usually produced..

Before leaving the factory the strikers carried out acts of minor sabotage which would later be categorised as vandalism. However, there was nothing mindless or vindictive about the sabotage. The phone line was pulled out of the wall, the keys to the company van and forklift truck thrown away and a number of business documents hidden — all aimed at preventing the company from carrying on business by substituting the imports for the work normally done by the strikers.

Cleary made several attempts over the weekend to resolve the conflict between AGEMOU and the ITGWU before the strikers came to court on Monday morning. Although both the strikers and the AGEMOU officials were adamant that come what may there would be no going back on the principle of the right to choice of union, they welcomed Cleary's intervention.

Cleary rang Liberty Hall and the home of ITGWU President John Car roll but was unable to contact any ITGWU officials. Listeners to the pirate station Radio Dublin heard Cleary make urgent appeals on his programme that anyone who was in contact with John Carroll or ITGWU General Secretary Michael Mullen should ask them to get in touch with the station immediately.

Cleary finally contacted Mullen by phone, and those close to him found him bemused by the conversation. Mullen, he told friends, at first responded with abrupt monosyllables to Cleary's explanation of' the problem. He then announced that he had no time to talk to Cleary. “As far as I'm concerned you're a hypocrite; All you do is go around pubs singing and slagging the nuns!” No, he wouldn't intervene.

On Monday morning the eight strikers appeared in the High Court before Miss Justice Carroll. Each was asked if he apologised for breaking the injunction and if he would give an under taking to abide by the order in future. Each replied, “No”.

The eight were ordered to jail, the first strikers to be jailed since 1966. Brendan Davis, whose health was particularly unsuited to confinement in jail, later that day returned to court to purge his contempt and was freed. He did so with the concurrence of the other strikers and could have avoided his few hours of confinement in the Bridewell by apologising that morning in court — but had felt that he shouldn't break solidarity by being the one Yes among the eight.

A fter Brendan Davis was released AGEMOU officials Eamonn Woods and Charlie Mooney drove up to Ault & Wiborg, where the other strikers were still picketing in defiance of the injunction, with the news of what had happened. As they drove away from the High Court they saw Fr. Cleary running up Church Street. They assumed he was just in a hurry home.

Cleary had brought cigarettes around to the strikers in the Bridewell cells and while there talked by phone with John McManus, ITGWU Branch Secretary. Cleary appealed for a meeting between the ITGWU and AGEMOU. At this stage the combination of embarrassment and fear of loss of face still had most parties talking in codes. McManus said he was “al ways happy to see people without an appointment”.

Cleary took this to be agreement to meet with AGEMOU and ran out of the Bridewell in search of Eamonn Woods.

It wasn't until almost 5pm that Woods and Mooney returned to the AGEMOU office and found an excited Cleary. The ITGWU officials were ready for a meeting, he said, the strikers had not yet been transferred from the Bridewell to Mountjoy, and Minister for Justice Jim Mitchell was standing by in his office and would help get the men released if the dispute could be resolved tonight.

Woods and Mooney feared that a premature response from them, with out formal agreement that the members were being released by the ITGWU, might lead to the strikers being freed from jail — only to have the membership issue erupt again once the pressure was off. There would have to be a meeting before they could agree to anything.

This wasn't the first time AGEMOU and the ITGWU had knocked heads and the meeting in Liberty Hall began uneasily. The ITGWU wanted a formal letter asking that the members be re leased — AGEMOU wanted a formal letter releasing them. At one point it was suggested that both letters be handed to Cleary at the same time and that he pass them on, so that neither side was conceding anything and neither could pull a fast one at the last minute.

However, with AGEMOU wanting its members out of jail and the ITGWU embarrassed that members appeared willing to go to jail to get out of the union, both sides wanted a quick end to the dispute. Cleary insisted that there had to be a measure of trust and ITGWU Group Secretary Paddy Donegan gave his word that if AGEMOU passed over a letter the members would be released from the ITGWU within twenty-four hours. Donegan was as good as his word.

By now the strikers had been taken to Mountjoy. On entering the prison they were about to be stripped and issued with prison clothing (two had already gone to the shower) when the Minister for Justice, Jim Mitchell, contacted the prison with orders that the strikers were to retain their own clothing and be housed in the comparatively comfortable Training Unit instead of individual cells.

At 2.30 that day Tommy Morris, a former election agent for Jim Mitchell, who is an associate of both Fr. Cleary and Bryan O'Duffy, had contacted the Minister and asked him to intervene. Not too happy about being The Minister For Jailing Strikers, Mitchell co operated with Morris in attempts to arrange a special High Court sitting, if necessary in Justice Carroll's home, to allow the strikers to purge their contempt of court and be released that night. The arrangements fell through — and, anyway, the strikers were wary of making any premature moves on the basis of verbal agreements. Woods and Mooney went to the prison and explained the situation and the strikers agreed to purge their contempt in the High Court next morning.

Bryan O'Duffy was the first of the strikers to take the witness stand in the High Court next morning. He told Miss Justice Carroll (who was throughout the proceedings referred to as “My Lord”) that he was applying to purge his contempt because of over night developments which had the result that the ITGWU and Ault & Wiborg “who set themselves up as gods of intransigence, have agreed to meet the trade union representatives of our choice”.

It all seemed a formality. The strikers would purge their contempt and be released, the ITGWU would release them, the recognition dispute was over — everyone could go back to work and AGEMOU would have negotiations with the company about out standing grievances.

Neither Justice Carroll nor Peter Kelly, S.C., representing the company, were having this. Carroll had the day before told Brendan Davis that “if the court's orders are not obeyed society just develops into a state of anarchy”. Each striker received a separate lecture to the effect that he must be contrite not because of overnight developments or because of the prospect of jail — but because he realised that his actions threatened the very basis of society. Each striker took the stand and solemnly apologised on that basis.

Peter Kelly insisted on having each striker sworn in and questioned intensely. His questions sought to establish who had caused the damage in the factory and to prove that the AGEMOU officials were party to breaking the law. Otherwise it wouldn't be a proper purging of contempt, he said. The strikers, who had while picketing in defiance of the injunction, cut the AGEMOU name off the top of their placards in order to protect the union, managed to avoid committing perjury while evading Kelly's questions.

When the case was adjourned after fifty minutes it looked like the strikers would spend another night in jail. Only Eamonn McMahon, who had not actually been in the factory during the occupation, was allow ed purge his contempt. The strikers, said Justice Carroll, should come back after lunch having agreed a sum which they would pay as compensation for the damage. But even Peter Kelly could not put a figure on the cost. And, anyway, the strikers discussed amongst themselves, paying compensation would compromise them later on — leaving them open, perhaps, to sacking or to further charges.

The strikers clearly needed a lawyer. Woods and Mooney searched the Four Courts for a solicitor while the strikers were locked away downstairs. The first question asked of them always was, “When would the strikers be in a position to discharge the fee?”

That afternoon in the court and a few hours more on the following Mon day would cost £500 in legal fees.

When the case resumed at 2pm Michael Feehan S.C. argued for the strikers that the court should concern it self only with the issue of contempt of court, that all other matters were extraneous. Justice Carroll said that the contempt could not be purged until the strikers were “prepared to make an offer to the company which would satisfy me that they were purging their contempt”. Peter Kelly said he now believed that the damage amounted to about £300, but had just learned that important documents, ledger cards bearing details of the company's debtors, were missing. The case was adjourned again.

After this the court itself became almost irrelevant, a rubber stamp for the agreements forged out in the corn don and under the winding staircase. Feehan and his partner Colm Allen, Peter Kelly, managing director William Grainger, Woods and Mooney, and the strikers back in the courtroom all played a part in the legal dance that followed. Partners were swopped, proposals whispered, little wig and gown ed runs were made from one side to another. At one point Dick Burke, former Fine Gael Minister, resplendent in wig and gown, joined in discussion with Grainger.

The lawyers went back in and told Justice Carroll that certain information had come into their possession and was being checked, could they have another ten minutes? They could.

What was happening was that the strikers had given information about where the ledger cards and the keys of the van and fork-lift truck were hidden. This had been phoned to the factory to be verified.

As he rushed out into the corridor company accountant Pat Jennings whispered to Dick Burke, “They found the cards but not the keys”.

The legal dance continued. As Peter Kelly moved back towards the court room Michael Feehan stopped him and whispered, “Are we agreed about the ledger?”

“Oh we found that, yes, but the other things . .

Everyone went back into the court room and Peter Kelly told Justice Car roll that as a result of information conveyed to him by Mr. Feehan the ledger cards had now been found and he thought that the defendants were not in a position to help him on the other matters. Three hundred pounds would be paid to the company by “a third party”. Thus, the strikers would not be compromised in further proceedings. (Fr. Cleary was in London that day but had been nominated to pay the £300).

With a deadpan expression, Justice Carroll said, “I'm glad the ledger cards have turned up”, and freed the strikers.

Now it was over. Face had been saved by the court, the company, the ITGWU and AGEMOU. The strikers were in the union of their choice and everything could get back to normal. Not quite.

A t a few minutes to 8am on Thursday November 12 William Grainger taped a notice to the front door of the Ault & Wiborg factory. It said that strikers wishing to return to work should form a queue and enter one at a time for a brief interview.

The previous morning the strikers had had a cheerful meeting in the basement of the AGEMOU office.

They voted to end the strike and Eamonn Woods drafted a letter to the company. Charlie Mooney had said it was important that there be no pres sure on the few workers in the firm who remained with the ITGWU. “You went to jail for the principle of joining the union of your choice — and that extends to others as well”.

Eamonn Woods had said that for eight people to stand up and tell a judge they were prepared to go to jail for the principle of joining the union of their choice took exceptional courage and exceptional confidence in the other workers.

Now, on Thursday morning, the workers gathered around the notice on the door, some of them with lunch boxes under their arms. Shit, he wants more trouble!

William Grainger sat at a small desk as the workers entered one by one. At his right hand there was a pad bearing the names of all the strikers. Each striker was told that the strike had ended too quickly, there was no work for them, the firm had been damaged by the strike and he was laying them off. Each striker got two leaflets confirming this in writing. Grainger asked each striker which union they were a member of. As they replied AGEMOU he added (A) to every name on the list before him.

The telephonist arrived and was told there was no work for her. Inside, Norman Young, a director of the company, could be seen answering the phone at the switchboard. There was work for the six ITGWU members and the others who had passed the pickets.

During the dispute Ault & Wiborg had been importing paint from its parent company in England, the orders jumping from the usual eight or nine pallets to, on one occasion, twenty- nine pallets, costing almost £41,000 sterling. The company used the name Apex Distributors as a front for the importation, apparently to avoid word of the transaction leaking to the strikers. Mr. Grainger refuses to discuss the Apex connection on the grounds that it might “irritate the situation”.

The fear grew among the strikers that the company had imported sufficient stock to supply customers for the forseeable future and was there fore able to lay the workers off as the previous level of production was not needed.

At this stage the strikers had achieved their main goal: the right to join the union of their choice. They now had a letter from Michael Mullen formally releasing them from the ITGWU. It had cost them dearly.

Over the following two weeks the legal fees mounted as the court continued to refuse to allow the union to picket. Grainger asked for a conciliation meeting at the Labour Court.  AEGMOU officials Eamonn Woods and Charlie Mooney arrived, separately, at the Labour Court shortly after 3pm on Thursday November 19. Unknown to Mooney, Woods had gone up in a lift moments before Mooney arrived. As Mooney entered the lobby the other lift opened and Grainger emerged, seething. He had understood that the meeting was scheduled for 2.30, the union officials believed that the meeting had been set for 3.30.

Woods was now waiting upstairs, and when he didn't appear in the lobby by 3.30 Grainger left. The next day lie wrote to the six workers who had been proven in court to have occupied the factory — sacking them for “gross misconduct”.

On Friday November 27, William Grainger was claiming that he ha4 “still not received a definition of the dispute”, Bryan O'Duffy had received his first payment of £48 from the Labour Exchange, and the AGEMOU officials were preparing to go to court, yet again, the following Monday to seek permission to picket Ault & Wiborg on the basis that six of their members had been unfairly sacked.