After having made concessions year after year, “Enough is enough” strikers explained in a leaflet they are distributing at the picket line to passing motorists and people coming to the company’s large retail store, an adjunct to the plant.

“Most people see our picket and turn away,” said striker Cheryl Clark. She noted that the retail store bosses had put up a large “We Are Open” sign to little effect. Besides trying to limit the effect of their pickets, the managers’ threats are having little impact on the effectiveness of the strike.

“We’ve not stood up to them for years,” said Alison McCaughie, who along with nine other workers helps lead a strike committee. “We’ve had a union for a long time, but there was a happy-family, ‘don’t rock the boat’ attitude,” striker Jo McLean added. “Now we’re going to make a stand.”

“For four of the last 10 years we’ve had no wage raise at all. We’ve lost almost 20 percent of our wages over the past decade,” said shop steward John Donnelly, who works as a knitting machine operator. The majority of the workers are sewing machine operators, mostly women.

McCaughie explained that they work on a piece-rate basis. For much of the week they work hard to earn above the government-set minimum wage of £5.35 hour (£1=US$1.87). Many earn just £170 a week. Male knitting machine operators who work shifts receive about £220 a week.

Donnelly and others were particularly incensed that Edinburgh Woollen Mills, the owners of Mackinnon Mills, made nearly £24 million in profits over the last year. Workers at Mackinnon produce knitwear for the parent company’s 300 shops across the United Kingdom. The company employs 3,000 workers.

The retail workers have received a 2.5 percent wage increase, but manufacturing workers at Mackinnon, as well as workers at a nonunion plant in Selkirk, Scotland, have been denied a raise. The company claims they are running at a loss.

McCaughie said the strike committee is planning to organize several carloads of workers to protest at the company’s headquarters in Langholme, Scotland.
 
 
Related articles:
On the Picket Line
15,000 strike at Goodyear plants in U.S. and Canada
Germany: phone workers protest plant closure  
 
 
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