Brent Trades Council held a meeting of around 50 people to defend a cleaner rep at Stonebridge park depot sacked during the strike - then put its commitment to solidarity into practice immediately by marching down the road to Stonebridge depot when the meeting finished, where another cleaner rep was being disciplined for her action in relation to the strike.
The disciplinary had been called for 9.30 in the evening, while simultaneously another rep was being discpinlined for the same 'crime' in a different location, by ISS, who wanted to make it hard to get there and to get representation. Tubeworker doubts they expected 40 of us to turn up and chant messages of solidarity and the demands of the cleaners' strike outside the room as the disciplinary started.
We went there expecting that her rep would not be allowed to represent the cleaner, as ISS have forbidden any non-cleaners from representing cleaners. At least, she was expecting to be sacked there and then. But the pressure outside meant she got her chosen rep to stay with her, got ISS's pretence of a fair hearing. Rather than being sacked on the spot, it's been adjourned for a week.
This just goes to show that direct action and mass support can intimidate the bosses. They are not invincible. They may decide to sack the rep in a week's time, when nobody is there, and there may have been an argument for forcing a judgement to be made while the support was there. But when reps are threatened with the sack, we should be there in future! With all the disciplinaries and sackings going on since the strike, we could be picketing outside some cleaning company office every day of the week. It could be a lot of work, but it's at least something we should aspire to be doing.