At Cambion: The Strike Ends

THE STRIKE is over at Cambion, at least for the time being. Workers were forced to return to work after seven months of facing a company that used illegal and deceitful methods in a blatant attempt to destroy the union at its Concord Ave. plant.

The economic hardship of maintaining a strike for over half a year has proven too difficult to bear for people with families to support. In recent weeks many strikes began returning to work, and the union did not relish picket-line confrontations with workers who have stayed with the strike for months.

When Cambion management continued to refuse to bargain at recent meetings arranged by various parties--including federal and state mediators and City Manager James L. Sullivan--union leadership realized their position was hopeless and they recommended that the rank and file vote to end the strike.

There is still a union at Cambion, and Local 262 will continue to try to negotiate the wage clauses that opened April 14. And on November 17, the NLRB will begin prosecuting Cambion for refusing to bargain in good faith. There is a fair likelihood that Cambion will be found guilty once again, but probably only after months of appeals and legal delays. And even then, only the traditionally light sanctions stipulated in the National Labor Relations Act will be imposed: posting of notices in the factory saying the company has bargained in bad faith and will now change its ways, and possibly a fine.

Not all union members have been rehired yet. Cambion, violating seniority clauses in the existing contract, has not given jobs to top union officials and prominent strike supporters. At any rate, it will be some time before the plant is in full production--presently only about 60 workers have jobs.

Those who do have jobs will not receive their first paycheck for another two weeks. And it will be months, and maybe years, before most workers can recover financially from the strike. And one woman--permanently disabled in a violent confrontation with police on a picket line in May--will never fully recover.

The union still, as much as ever, needs your support. A benefit concert for the workers at Cambion will take place tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. in Sanders Theatre. Tickets are $2.00 at the door; each $2.00 will go a long way toward making the burden of their struggle a little easier to bear.