Since that time the workers, who had gone on strike in defense of their union, have organized a fight that has won solidarity from unionists throughout Britain. For a year now they have maintained a 24-hour picket line and joined other workers involved in struggle as part of their fight against the company’s union-busting drive.

"This dispute started because Craig Smith tried to smash the Transport and General Workers’ Union (TGWU) at Friction Dynamics," strike leader Gerald Parry told the rally. Smith is the owner of Friction Dynamics. "But the union is not ours to throw away. It is there to use and to protect for the generations to come. Trade unions are the only defense working people have to protect themselves, their families, and their communities," he said.

Parry’s speech, which he gave in both English and Welsh, was greeted with tumultuous applause. A significant number of marchers sported T-shirts displaying the Welsh dragon, the country’s national symbol.

Workers began the strike over a year ago to protest the company’s drive to extend the workweek, cut pay, and weaken the union at the plant. After the strike the bosses locked out the workers, put them on an unpaid eight-week "holiday," and then sacked the 87. The company recruited strikebreakers to continue production, albeit on a significantly reduced level.

The measures the company was intending to impose on the union members before the dispute have been implemented against the replacement workers. One consequence has been a sharp rise in accidents. On June 17 the company faces legal hearings in the case of a worker who suffered a serious injury in a workplace accident.

"Something is very wrong in this country if people like Craig Smith can win. We reject what he stands for: greed and exploitation," Parry told the union members and their supporters at the rally held in the town center.

As the workers and their supporters marched through the town, shoppers, tourists, and shop workers came out to applaud the different banners carried by those who joined the action from around the United Kingdom. "I joined the march because the Friction Dynamics workers’ fight needs support. They are fighting for us all" said John, a stonemason from nearby Anglesey, one of the thousands of local workers who have visited the picket line over the past year. Among those visiting the strikers have been farmers with donations of food, trade unionists who have raised money to contribute to the strike fund, and students attracted to the sustained and dignified struggle of the locked-out workers.

"The support we’ve received has continued throughout the dispute," Parry told the Militant. "It’s marvelous."

TGWU members who work at the car plants Rover Solihull and Cowley Oxford in the Midlands were present with their union banners. Union members traveled from Scotland to join the action, including a couple of workers from the First bus company plants. The biggest contingent on the march from outside the local area was from Region 2 of the Transport and General Workers’ Union, which covers the southwest of England. There were also banners from the public services union UNISON and from different districts of the TGWU.

The march and rally brought the town center to a standstill. "We’ve had crucial and unwavering support from the union and we are proud of it, " explained Parry.

The rally was opened by singer and actor Bryn Fon who led the crowd in singing Mae Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau (Land of my Fathers), the Welsh national anthem. Speakers included a number of union officials and politicians from the Labour Party. Hywel Williams, the president of the Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru, spoke, along with other officials of the organization.

"The 87 workers deserve your support because they stand up for dignity and they fight," Bill Morris, the general secretary of the TGWU, told the crowd. "It has been said that we will support them until the bitter end. We won’t, because the end won’t be bitter. It will end in justice."

Morris also condemned the governing Labour Party for failing to change legislation that allows employers to fire workers when they’ve been on strike for eight weeks. The Friction Dynamics workers have filed suit against their sackings. A hearing is currently scheduled in the Industrial Tribunal in October, nearly 18 months after they were fired.

John Davies, one of the locked-out workers, told the press that the march was "a tremendous morale boost...and shows Craig Smith that we are still here and not going away." He added the action helps let the government know "that the 1999 Employment Act needs to be changed to protect all lawful disputes in the future."

Davies’s wife and two sons joined the march as did the families of other locked-out workers. He told the Militant that the march and rally demonstrated that the support from the local area "is as strong as ever."  
 
 
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