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This thread is an excerpt from my dads memoirs, it’s the late 50’s early 60’s in Glasgow and he’s sabotaging machinery and calling wildcat strikes for which he is eventually blacklisted and I wonder why I’m the person I am 
“It was around this time that I was becoming politicized and, true to character, I didn’t do this by half measures. I became an industrial saboteur & militant union rep.
All my working life I refused to compromise. If factory owners would not change conditions or increase wages”
All my working life I refused to compromise. If factory owners would not change conditions or increase wages”
“I’d put a spanner in the works. Quite literally. I’d break machines.
I’d call wildcat strikes.
Newlywed and newly working at a parts manufacturers in East Kilbride I was elected Shop Stewards Convener. I wasn’t a particularly shrewd Shop Stewards Convener.”
I’d call wildcat strikes.
Newlywed and newly working at a parts manufacturers in East Kilbride I was elected Shop Stewards Convener. I wasn’t a particularly shrewd Shop Stewards Convener.”
“Never was a cool and cagey negotiator. I got sacked after calling an unofficial strike over a wage demand. The members voted overwhelmingly against it shouting ‘fuck off Wylie’ from the shop floor. The management pulled me in and sacked me”
“(it was weeks since I found out they’d effectively black-listed me as well). The AEF refused to back me and I was thrown out of the union.
How’s that for a Shop Stewards Convener?”
How’s that for a Shop Stewards Convener?”
“Being blacklisted isn’t fun or good for the family economy or morale but in a way I was immensely proud of the fact. It caused untold problems and I couldn’t find a job in the Glasgow area or beyond for love nor money but at least I stood for something”
“In one shitty job I managed to procure in East Kilbride, literally sweeping the factory floors, I was identified as a Celtic supporter and therefore assumed to be a Catholic. For this ‘crime’ I was advised in no uncertain terms to leave this employment.”
“No protection was offered from the union reps for they too were of the that persuasion. It was, in fact, a Protestant closed shop, an entity not unheard of in the west of Scotland. Employers must have been well gratified by self-imposed stratifications within the work-force.”
“It was some time before I was able to obtain in employment in the Glasgow area again, and even then I had to lie to get it. Still living in East Kilbride I applied for a job as a Capstan Setter in a factory on Thornliebank Industrial Estate called Rawlplug.”
“I knew what a Capstan lathe was; I just didn’t know how to operate one. I got books out of the library and studied them but when I started it was obvious to the bloke at the next lathe that I didn’t have a clue what I was doing.”
“Very soon, the management got to know of my militant past and one of them called me into the meeting. He told me that he believed in giving people a second chance but any repeat performance at Rawlplug would mean trouble for me.”
“You’d think that would tober me. Not a bit of it. Within six months I was shop steward.”
