Striking workers sacked
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/ Trailer maker Craven Tasker has been accused of union bashing after sacking striking workers at its Scottish assembly plant and replacing them with new employees.
Production workers at Cumbernauld, near Glasgow, went on strike on 7 June after Craven Tasker imposed a wage freeze, rejecting their claim for a wage rise and shorter hours.
The company gave the 43 strikers until 13 June to return to work, warning that if they did not they would be deemed to have dismissed themselves. They failed to return and Craven Tasker has so far recruited 34 workers to replace them.
Craven Tasker's managing director Dennis Kenyon stresses that there is no chance of the sacked workers being taken back: "Either they return to work accepting the company's position, or they put themselves in line for dismissal," he says.
Kenyon adds that the company has been struggling to keep its workforce occupied at Cum bernauld, but at the time of the strike it had just won an order for 200 trailers from a Londonbased firm, and another order for 100 trailers at a "very competitive price".
The dismissed workers have continued to picket the Cumbernauld factory and Kenyon claims that there have been ugly scenes on the picket line.
The AEU claims that Craven Tasker is taking advantage of the present industrial laws to get rid of its unionised workforce. It says it would have considered a wage freeze if the company had specified a fixed period rather than an open-ended review.
"Some of the men have had more than 28 years' service and have never been involved in a dispute," says Bill Tynan, AEU district secretary for midLanark. Tynan claims that apprentices within the factory — who the union did not bring out on strike — are being verbally abused by non-union workers.
Cumbernauld MP Norman Hogg has failed to persuade Craven Tasker's parent company Ballyvesey to meet him and discuss the dispute.