Members of the Grunwick strike committee. Top left: Mahmoud Ahmed, Bill Heywood; seated: Vipi Magiani, Jayaben Desai; attempt to deprive Grunwick of its essential services. to handle Ward's mail.
forces assembled against them.
Committee about their experience of the struggle. dress machinist before ste dress machinist before took a job at Grunwick in 1974. She had left the Gujerat state in India to live in East Africa when she married, and in 196 the Tamily cane to Britain. Grunwick is her fiest expericace of a strike. It is unlikely to be her last.
'50 many Asian peopic say that the unions do nothing fo them", she says. "So they don't Join or they But what they mist do is paying their raise their voice and ask the cadership what's going on.
"They have to stand together, organise themielves, and join with the trade union movement.
*The Government doesn't kant to do anything about - that's what we've observed the whole year. 1 think we have done everything possible. But the union hasn't acted properly. and the TUC didn't move.
The support for us has not died. From the rank and file it is the same. The TLIC has to use that support, that strength and TABUSET PAT COLLINS worked at Grunwick for six years as a van ay of many action Pat and On Il July six other drivers marched out of the gates to join the strike. He has no doubt what it would mean to lose it. 'Other workers in a similar situation', he says, *will feel there is no point in striking, and probably not much point in TE WAS H would be a big blow to the WHOIC TOVEHICH It's been a wonderful fight. I've been very surprised tha people who knew nothing about trade unions could despatched coachloads of uniformed thugs to Wilesden. The TUC, which dutifully took the 11 July mass picket for a tour of NW London's back streets, and has obstructed every The Rats of the Year award is reserved for the leaders of APEX and the postal workers' union. As 1977 drew to its miserable close, APEX suspended from union membership the Gramwick strikers who upset the TUC by fasting on its doorstep, while the UPW imposed fines of up to t500 on its members in the Cricklewood sorting office who had refused Socialist Challenge has no difficulty in selecting our People of the Year. They are the Grunwick strikers who continue to battle against such despicable opposition within the workers' movement, quite apart from the array of state These are the comments of some members of the Strike bocome so active, I wasn't in a UNION Tor most or the time 91 Grunwick, but now I feel that the only hope the working class the threats and so on.
And the larce of Ward's so-called ballot, when we were all crowded into the canteen so people could look over your sharked andyou were let inno shoulder to sec what doubt what would happen if you wanted a union MAHMOOD AHMAD who comes from Pakistan, worked at Grunwick or Just three weeks before the strike began.
The struggle, he says, changed his life. *I's all been experience. I've been learning all the time.
Before the strike I couldn't have spoken to a crowd of people, argued Case 11 court, spoken 10 MPs about our problem. Now 1 can spea to a crowd of two thousand..
I've become much more after near come crose come lighting NAFE and the National Front; dealing with the problems of immigrant people in tltis couttry. I've joined the National Council for Civil Liberties and l'm a member of Brent Trades Council. *T think the strike has encouraged Asians to take an active role in the unions. About half the Grunwick strikers are women and you just wouldn't expect Indian women to be to a picker line and arguing that wasn't right. Now they're the leading people.' JUST BEEN 'ON MOLIDAY?