Discussion with Jim Dunn, trade unionist 24.11.1983

Jim Dunn, trade unionist at Massey-Ferguson

Fliegende Universität, Protokoll vom 24.11.1983 by Hatto Fischer

Discussion with Jim Dunn

Jim Dunn explained at the beginning some of the structural of his trade union organisation at Massey-Ferguson, the tractor factory in Coventry, England, with main office in Canada (see: http://www.masseyferguson.de/)

It is with other words a multi-national concern. There are in Coventry 5,000 men and women employed and there are 110 shop stewards, who are elected by trade union members each year. They are organised in 'gangs' which may compromise any number between 20, 40 or 100 members. The factory as a whole has three convenors, he, Jim Dunn, is one of them. They are responsible for the the three trade union organisations at Massey-Ferguson. Jim Dunn himself works for or is organised in the trade union for Transport Workers. One other organisation is that of the metallic workers union. The third one Jim mentioned, but I forgot to catch the name of it.

Gangs are the most important elements of British trade unions. They make autonomous decisions as to pay, production, hours of work etc. - that is, everything that effects the working conditions. Him as a convenor does not intervene in their kind of decision-making, nor does any higher trade official intervene in his work at Massey-Ferguson. The motto is: those above work for us, we tell them what to do, not they us! There do exist joint structures, but the meetings take place only at our request. So everything goes from 'the bottom up!'

As an example, just seven weeks ago, there was decided at a meeting with all 5,000 members of Massey-Ferguson, that they will in future no more national trade union officials at their local meetings. The new procedure will only include shop stewards, the convenors and local officials of the trade union organisation e.g. transport trade union.

Social decisions have been made by members:

workshop for handicapped people: 'belong to us' – 'we decide who goes in, who goes out, that, back to ordinary work, after injuries and the like have healed out'; 'we determine this'
house for retarded. For eighteen years workers of Massey Ferguson worked towards this goal. It is run by voluntary workers during day time and by workers at night.
Provide workers in financial despair by means of a committee with appropriate funds with immediate help
send all people, who have been sick, with their families to the coast – we take over the costs and give each member, including the children, pocket-money, so that they can decide themselves on how to spend it: our belief in autonomy.

During the last two years we have occupied the factory four times. We closed the gate and send management home. There is an interesting viewpoint on trade union matters. We don't believe getting ourselves involved with lawyers – they don't know anything and they only confuse matters. For example, we got during the last occupation strike against job redundancy 110 writs. The lawyer advised us not to go to court, for the legal matter can be settled outside of court. We felt, we should do quite the opposite. We send four workers to the court in London. There they told simply to the judges: “Look, we are ordinary men, we need to have time to prepare our cases.” The judges granted us the time and that was all what we needed: we were already in the seventh week of occupation strike and at the end of seven weeks we no longer need to abide to the 'writs'. It was as simple as this. We did not want at that time 250 people from becoming redundant by means of a selection, that we would not be able to control. We got our victory, plus a letter of apology from the management to all those workers, who had been informed before the occupation strike began, that they were on the redundancy list. There was a public support in our case.

The social structure of each gang is very important. Each gang has its own social orientation and linkages. We don't believe only in work, but much more in social connections and binding forces through games and social activities. Thus there are football and golf teams. So the gangs make decision, in the sense of knowing what is good for them. Management wanted, for example, to break up the gangs, by giving everyone in the factory the same pay, but we rejected, because the gangs along decide the work value and subsequent pay to each worker. Naturally I have to go to them, if they make mistakes in their decisions, but I cannot impose myself upon them. I can only tell them what I think, that they have made a mistake.

Anna	How is it possible for them to make autonomous decisions?
Gerhard	Yes, that is what I also would like to know?
Jim Dunn	Massey-Fergusen is, of course, a Canadian company – multi-national – with branches in Italy, France, Canada – it produces important agricultural equipment, such as combines. Thus, the plant in Coventry is one of three in England. But to answer your question, decision making is a gradual process- we set our targets, the company sets in turn its targets and about this we have a dispute – these targets, once resolved, are very different from those of other factories; likewise it is inside of the factory: the gangs decide themselves how to link up with or hook up on the overall production targets.
Gerhard	That is not like the 'Lip'-production in France, how you work at Massey-Ferguson, but you do work on an autonomous basis inspire of a management depending upon instructions from headquarters in Canada – how is that possible?
Anna	I think, there is a book about Massey-Ferguson!
Rosemarie	Perhaps I saw one at the bookshop, but I don't think it was about M-F.
Jim Dunn	We have one in Liverpool, but that one has closed; then, there is another one in Manchester, which I think will not last – funny, they don't close ours down, because we have still so much capacity; that is, what capitalists want to have – the capacity to increase or decrease production; naturally, in the past, we have had our over production and yet there is also a strong demand for our commodities.
Dagmar	What about 'conversion plans at Massey-Ferguson – from production of weapons to civil means?
Jim Dunn	We are solely a factory for agricultural commodities; we do not face that problem.
Gerhard	What about the conversion plans at Lucas aerospace plants – their experiment?
Jim Dunn	Yes, I know, that is a funny things, because by now tourists flock to the plants, in order to see that experiment.
Rosemarie	I don't know – what took place there?
Jim Dunn	Nothing – at least, when you ask the ordinary worker there, if he has heard or even seen any changes lately, he will tell you 'no'!
Anna	I think there must be given some background information to that: the staff, or rather some scientists at the plant were asked about this in connection with also communist influence upon the factory.
Gerhard	In other words, they still do produce materials needed for war.
Jim Dunn	Of course – the whole thing is nonsense. When Anna M. went there, she asked three questions, to which she got the following answers: 1. How often meet shop stewarts? Answer: ones every months (at M-F at least once a week) 2. Structure inside the factory? Answer: no freedom whatsoever (gangs have no decision possibilities). 3. has something changed, since things about 'conversion' have been announced publically? When Anna asked this question, people at Lucas responded with 'we don't understand?' So they don't know what changes have taken place at factory level.
Gerhard	At t he top, do they know what goes on below!
Jim Dunn	No, we don't tell them anything.
Gerhard	Is that normal practice in England?
Jim Dunn	Well you have to fight for the conditions, including for that, what good leaders should do, namely to make good decisions become possible for everyone.
Hatto	What about the present Thatcher course and her anti-trade union policy?
Jim Dunn	You mean the Tabbot legislation. Yes, our workers want to discuss the legislation, but we convenors say, we don't know that fellow, thus we cannot discuss his legislation – it doesn't exist for us. Being stupid is sometimes an advantage. We have our closed shops, we are not going to change that. We have our own policy, for example, with regards to the unemployed: now, if they want to go to school, in order to get some re-training, we pay them the bus fare and the lunch, that is our social contribution to the unemployed. We say also, you yourself must do something, no one else will do it for you. The local press loves us. Recently we wanted to have youths to be taken for apprentice, thus to ease the unemployment situation. Management did not want to do this. We put a ban on overtime – work for four months. Finally, management did give in, because there was much too much work. That is good. Only one sad thing happened in the matter. During the ban-time, none of the parents working at the factory came to us to say, 'good for your what you are doing'; only when management gave in, all at once everyone of them came to us, in order to have us put in a good word for one of their youngsters – that is not good, to use us in the sense of a privileged position in terms of power and making selections.
Anna	You can only do these things, when everyone stands behind you!
Jim Dunn	You have to work on it - the art us to be not more than one inch away from your members – more than one inch and your are dead – then things will happen to you, like to every trade union official who gives everywhere speeches at conferences, but who no longer knows what is going on at factory level and after all, there is where you have to work to make changes become possible, not above!
Rosemarie	How do you do this art?
Hatto	What about your relationship to trade union officials at the top?
Jim Dunn	No problem – I simply have to pick up the phone and say, listen, I will come around next day, say at eleven, and his secretary will say, no, he will only be in in the afternoon; alright, I say, I will be there at two – and he will not dare to be absent when I come. They depend upon us, not we upon them! Now, there has been an interesting development at Massey-Ferguson: we have installed a 'time bank'. The idea came about after people said, look, we want to go home a bit earlier on Friday to do some shopping etc. For this many were prepared to give up a lot of things, including 'tea breaks' – now, that is nonsense, for these things mean a lot to us. Other companies, that have gone this way, are no longer any happy bunch of people working together, you do need your tea-time. So we developed the idea of a time-bank: after having worked so much, each person will have at the time-bank at disposal so much free time. He simply needs to go to the bank two days in advance and say, look, then I would like to have four hours off or else, if he wants a cheap holiday, he can receive on his 'saved time' extra credit or money, in order to finance the holidays. The principle of the time-bank is this: you must take things through their logical pattern till the end. For example, when a man reaches the age of 55, he may not want to work so much, thus, the time bank gives him the possibility of saving up his time, so that he can retire earlier and still receive the full pay till the end. When he retires, he gives another person a job and he looses nothing, indeed he gains time and that is important to us. The whole thing is conceived in such a way, that management of Massey-Ferguson does not realise what is going on at the factory. We will put the puzzle together, when it is time to do so; till then we work on our concept of a gradual decrease in work-time. When we go into the fight about early retirement, then structures will already be there, before management had even the time to think about the issues that we have involved them in.
Dagmar	What about contacts to other factors? What about national issues?
Jim Dunn	We have very little contacts to other factories, our factory is by car 20 minutes away from another one, but we discover they have different ideas, wants and problems – that is autonomy – each local area shows its own geographical pattern or design, but when you try to put them together into one big plot, then you have all the weaknesses together and you end up only fighting each other, because of the weakness. Yes, we talk with them and listen to the others, what they have to say, but we decide ourselves and no one else mixes into that matter. For when it comes to your own issues, then you have to fight yourself for it; no one else will fight it out for you. Within the national organisation, I do chair one meeting, but I don't like it: the only thing TUC is good for, is one resolution that we passed – we said we want two people working for the unemployed in Coventry, two fully paid positions – after two months I received a letter from the TUC, saying that they have accepted – I had forgotten about it and was surprised. So, by now, we have two people working for the unemployed – one of them was a former deputy convenor at Massey-Ferguson, another one is an academic. But in general, the TUC is a lot of nonsense. The national issue is, of course, unemployment, but when we went to Coventry, it rained and it was fun, there was a lot of guts in our feelings for the unemployed and we marched a long distance; but when the TUC organized its national march, they came through Coventry not only during the holidays, but also on a Sunday – now, Coventry is dead during the weekend, let alone on a Sunday – no, that is bureaucratic thinking, they don't understand, that you cannot organise a march for the unemployed on a Sunday!
Hatto	Jim, you told me the first thing that you do when Germans come to Massey-Ferguson, that you show them ' on how to break the rules!'
Jim Dunn	Yes – for example when people from Aktion Sühnezeichen came to us, the first thing is to show them, how to break the rules: if there is a red light, you must go across – it is a challenge and you must the car driver the opportunity to hit you, otherwise it is no challenge; here, I see many people simply standing still when the traffic light has gone 'red' – unbelievable.
Anna	Perhaps it is a problem for Europeans to cross streets in England!
Jim Dunn	You've got the point! Anna, you and everyone else here must come to Coventry – I show you around – you will enjoy it!
Anna M.	When I came there, I thought to know everything about 'gangs': I asked very proudly, who determines the pace of the factory belts? I expected the answer: 'the autonomous gangs', but to my surprise, they replied, the management! But then they added, and we decide, whether or not we agree with that!
Dagmar	What about the deployments of the Pershings in England?
Jim Dunn	We are affiliated members of the CND – the English peace movement – I am very confident that it will grow in future. And for once when members ask us why we propose 'nuclear disarmament', I cite official trade union policy, saying, that the British trade union complete nuclear disarmament. There are people in the peace movement with different opinions, but that is good, that is its strength.
Hatto	What about trade union membership and 'power' – here, in West Germany, a court has just given the right to the metal trade union, that it no longer needs to take in Willy Hoss, Daimler-Benz and his 'Plakat'-group (poster group – alternative newspaper at factory level), because further damage to the trade union can be expected as a result of their criticism, a rather peculiar judgement by the judges and how IG Metal considers its position to be strengthened by the court decision.
Jim Dunn	Naturally we have two structures in our trade union organisation: 1. I am a member of one branch – the city has 110 branches in terms of various trade union organisations – they meet once a month and there have to be always 4 from a branch present, otherwise, this branch does not exist. We go there, all four of us from Coventry, that is from Massey-Ferguson, so we know each other very well and don't have much to say. We go there and talk a lot of rubbish. But we go there, because this allows us to control trade union officials through the branch. The branch meeting has at the next level the district committee and there all trade union officials have to attend, otherwise they are sacked, so you can say, the branch is very meaningless, but equally 'powerful' – no one wants to get a branch letter. 2. The other arm of trade unions is of course the workshop – that is the smallest possible cells. We have at Massey-Ferguson 20 meetings for all members. Gangs meet once or twice a week, shop stewards once a week – so you see, we have more committees than football teams at Massey-Ferguson – so there is a lot to decide and a lot of activities, which management does not control.
Dagmar	Do shop stewards work?
Jim Dunn	Yes, but they get the easiest job, in order to be able to attend meetings. If he is shop steward of an assembly gang, then he has never a job to do. He must be free to look after all matters concerning the gang.
Dagmar	Must he be voted in and for how long?
Jim Dunn	In order to be voted, he must first of all be able to make a decent cup of tea – elections are every year – names must be put up for every 110 shop steward elections on nomination sheets and then, once elected, he can be ousted any time if the gang says so. Of course, grievances must be addressed in our presence as convenors, just to make sure there are no tricks being played, but the gangs decide.
Anna B.	How many women to men in your organisation?
Jim Dunn	I knew that you would ask that question – very few ladies work at shop level; we think the work there is not suitable for ladies – a lot of physical work with lifting heavy things. More women can be found in the cantines, in offices and in production controls. There is one lady out of 110 shop stewards – that is good, because if someone wants to swear, op, he holds back – there is a lady present.
Gerhard	What is the difference in motivation?
Jim Dunn	Women are more interested in careers, promotion – for example, those who worked five years ago in production controls are by now staff members at a much higher level. We talk enough with them, but except for the ladies from the cantine, they are not part of our organisation. They are full with ambitions and that is the greatest weakness – that is why we have politicians.
Dagmar	What about the relationship of the union, that is gangs to more or less passive members and what about disputes outside of the trade unions? Can people be excluded from the union?
Jim Dunn	We say simply, people who stay outside take their disputes outside of the trade union elsewhere. Inside, we have our autonomous gangs and they are great. Gangs have relationships that are stronger than either work- or money-ties, for these relationships have lasted already 20 to 30 years. When a young person enters a gang, he faces its tradition. When a person does not fit, and you feel this after the first initial time, then he will have to change or else get out: the gang will sort out the man and it works. Massey-Ferguson hates the gangs, for its management wants everyone to become the same, to have the same face, uniform and pay, but not we, the gangs. After all we all have a 'poetic licence' and that means everyone of us wants to be his own journalist and paint his own picture of himself to the outside world, so why deprive a man from this possibility. No, gangs are great, they are the only things that work.
Dagmar	What about the communication structure?
Jim Dunn	After every meeting with the shop steward, we release an information sheet about the meeting and hang it at every clock of the gangs. With a factory newspaper it is more problematic. Except during periods of strike I would end up doing all the work – writing, printing, etc. so that is a bit problematic.
Hatto	What about Massey-Ferguson momentary stand as to economic developments?
Rosemarie	What structural features are emerging as a result?
Jim Dunn	Even when now in England over 11,000 companies have closed down, Massey-Ferguson will continue. We have the capacity to do so. Lately we have received so many orders, that the company now faces a new problem: over-time work, which we stopped with our ban till they let us take in 25 youngsters, or else giving away contracts for work to companies aside from our own factory; we certainly do not want to take in new workers solely on 'temporary basis', because that would mean the end of our closed shop. Of course, management wants to do that, but we will not let them. There is also one main issue in this: Massey-Ferguson wants to use our 'pension fund' to re-invest the money in other things. The people at the company in Manchester have done this and also the staff at Massey-Ferguson, but we don't want to. We will take them to court for misuse of funds. That is, however, a part of the old legislation. The new Tabbot proposal wants to do away with this; oh yes, they are clever.
Dagmar	What are doing in Berlin?
Jim Dunn	Teach golf!
Rischa	Teach? Where?
Jim Dunn	O yes, it is like a religion – people write, talk and play music – what I want to do is teach people play golf. It is great! At Massey-Ferguson we have many who play golf and we have also provided them with the facilities to play at.
Anna	But you need a lot of land!
Jim Dunn	O no, you begin with a driver's range.
Rischa	That is not common to trade union movements – we used to consider golf as part of cultural imperialism.
Jim Dunn	If you go back practically 10 years, then of course no one played golf. By now there are over one and half million people playing. Alone at Massey-Ferguson many workers have taken up to play golf. And even West Germany has produced one of the best golf players. Here in Berlin there are four courses: Private/American/British...Now, if you want to play golf, you must begin with driver's ranges and then put pressure on local government officials to give you the land for golf.
Hatto	To get back to the pension fund and re-investment, what is your consideration of Thatcher's attempt to find a financial realignment?
Jim Dunn	Since three years there has been a break-down in public debate about this issue. People don't know what is going on. And journalism is one-sided, in favour of Thatcherism and against trade unions, a simple minded thinking, but still clever enough to make things become possible, such as the Tabbot proposal indicates.
Hatto	Have you any questions as to our situation here in Berlin West and West Germany?
Jim Dunn	Yes, I looked into the re-armament debate in parliament, just a bit and from what I could understand – people in parliament talk only nonsense – I found the SPD vote against the Pershing rockets a pack of lies; if they had been in government, they would have just voted the other way around. It was only a theatre, this parliamentary discussion. Now, what do you feel about it?
Anna B.	Yes, it was quite a farce, with the police outside to protect the parliament against the people in whose name it supposedly wants to make the decision.
Jim Dunn	Indeed, What is absurd. During monarchy people could not be arrested if they come within one mile of parliament, but now it is the other way around. Nobody mentioned that!
Hatto	I read it in the Frankfurter Rundschau on Tuesday, 22.November 1983, but it is true, few heard or mentioned this historical reversal!
Jim Dunn	Well, my question would be how to change the system? I tell you what I mean by this. I walked once here with a trade unionist around his plant – he was a work counsellor – during the entire day in the factory, practically only two people approached him with some kind of request. Now, I would walk with you through Massey-Fergusen, I would not be able to take two steps and another guy would get a hold of me and say, listen Jim, I have got this problem! I was amazed by the state of things in this country and about the relationship between workers and trade union. Alright, we have also our funny TUC who are somewhere above, but our people are not silenced. We do not have this 'silence'. By us everyone demands of me that I listen to them. I have to.
Anna	Maybe this silence begins here already with a press, that no one believes in and also, no one reads books.
Jim Dunn	I don't think that is it. For example, Massey-Ferguson overtook 'measured day-payments' as have been recently experimented at Vanomag, before closing down this plant (or partially – some news as to economic affairs). We want to know more about such experiments for they convey us some ideas about future strategies on the behalf of the enterprise. They learn first in a negative sense elsewhere before taking over the results at our plant. But we battled against this measurement of day-payments. The 'gang' determines its own pay, but also the value of its own work and decides upon new forms before new work is taken on. That is important for our concept of 'autonomy': everyone has something to say!
Hatto	That is quite a different approach in comparison to our trade union movement; it is specialised in dealing with many different categories as to payment according to qualification, time worked already, etc. It gives the trade union something to bargain with. I consider that to be a very inhuman method. Our 'autonomy' has certainly quite a different approach: 'everyone has something to say' – this premise or thought is absurd for people here, for they think, that then nothing will be achieved because everyone wants to become a chief.
Jim Dunn	I think that I understand what you trying to say, especially about the problems of the trade union movement here. I talked recently to a guy who was sacked a few weeks ago. He appeared old and slow. He was completely isolated. What happened? He tried to organise at his company of about 160 people a trade union. It is something completely legal. He went to talk with trade union officials about the project and his ideas. Then, one official from the trade union came to the company and said to management, look, there is this guy, who wants to organize a trade union – he was sacked and no one protested, the people did not strike – I don't understand. If something like that would happen in England, everybody would go on strike if the sacking would be carried through.
Hatto	Here you mention the problem of 'fear', that breaks all kinds of practical solidarity. People are singled out and already everyone goes into distance to that person, especially when the hand of the authority, such as a policeman or a controller lays on his shoulder.
Rischa	I lived in London for some time and I must say, that I know very little about the relationships between workers. I met practically only intellectuals or bourgeoisie citizens, but I don't think that every time a strike follows when one person is sacked.
Jim Dunn	Certainly, nothing is perfect, but recently at Vauxhall 11 000 people went on strike because management wanted 'unjustly' to sack one man. True, there must be this 'fairness' and people don't like it if one person is picked out, because that goes against everyone. Then dam it, we go on strike, if management is 'unfair' to someone.
Rischa	Here we are never that close to the fight.
Jim Dunn	By us it is common.
Anna M.	One explanation in our case is that all unfair practices are immediately treated by the 'Arbeitsgerichte', that is, as individual cases. The person looses after two, three months outside his work the entire contact to the company. In the final end, he may get some compensation around the sum of 5,000,- or 10,000,-, but the job is gone. Moreover the social democratically minded trade union is afraid to lose its strike money, so they attempt to avoid strikes.
Jim Dunn	Lack of personal, direct responsibility leads to this loss of solidarity. For example, at the hospital I was staying at, each ward has a chairman elected by the patients in the hospital. They call them the 'walking wounded'. He has to fetch each morning tea, newspapers and biscuits. In other words, each person has something to do with the structure inside – not outside!
Anna M.	Does it mean a lot of changes, for example, patients come and go?
Jim Dunn	Of course, it means a lot of changes – dramatically.
Rischa	What about the tea quality – I have drunken sometimes very bad tea!
Jim Dunn	O yes, that is possible, but we think that is because they have taken away the milk bottles and with it fresh milk. But I have an important question to put to you: H o w t o c h a n g e t h e s y s t e m?
Rischa	You can't expect from the people sitting here, that they can change the work in the factories and along with it the system.
Jim Dunn	No, I didn't say that, but I asked about changing the thinking process. For example, teachers here told me that the government forbid them to talk in school about peace – why insist, why not talk about 'war', that they cannot prohibit and after war there comes peace – why go with the head through the wall, if it is easier in another manner? People are here too obstinate. They refuse 'changes', that are possible.
Rischa	Alright that is right, but I am sceptical about this as well.
Hatto	To change the system we need to overcome the concept of separation.
Jim Dunn	It all has to start with writers and journalists in the newspapers, in order to begin a public debate about things that matter us the most and not them, who are up there!
Anna M.	I want to say something as a result of my experiences, something aside or before or else with this 'writing idea' of Jim – we are trapped inside a trade union movement that does nothing; but now change is no longer a question of categories and strategy, for then I would only think in terms of good 'Greens' or bad 'Social Democrats'; it would leave me in a paradoxical situation: The Right would talk about things in a diabolic manner, e.,g. 'that does not matter', wheres the Left has or else thinks it has 'good ideas', but it never comes to implement them in practice. But at work there are different structures. They emerge with time and become visible as people begin to react to different questions. Before understanding this, we must find the courage to be brave enough and criticize others, until we understand each others reactions.
Jim Dunn	How did it happen that politicians could forbid school teachers to talk about peace?
Bruno	There was no 'denial', but only a strange connection made with Fascism insofar as school teachers talking about peace would come very close to 'manipulating' information and contents, in part because of believing in the SED in East Germany or else they were DKP members amongst the teachers and in the peace movement. There took, secondly, place a strike of 1,400 teachrs for half a hour. Now teachers are civil servants, that means they should not be 'political' – the controversy with the GEW was a result of the strike: teachers did not tell to the children, that they should demonstrate, but simply said, they will not conduct any lessons. In the free time children went altogether themselves – roughly 10,000 – to the various town halls in the city and made a lot of noise.
Jim Dunn	Good for them.
Bruno	Alone 3,000 went to the town hall of Spandau.
Rischa	To be fair, I think you must say that teachers are not like in England underpaid, but they do have a lot of privileges and it is a wish of the government to have them under control.
Jim Dunn	What is the difference – a school in England asked to talk with the children about trade union movements, can one do this here?
Bruno	Yes, one can invite anyone one likes to. Here in Berlin as in Bonn we have now the CDU at the top; they like teachers to be domiciled, teachers not to be political.; now they want to punish the top of the GEWE – Fahlbusch and Volkholz. Now in various district town halls these things are being debated right now.
Rosemarie	Certain things, I have heard, are happening, for instance, in Flensburg.
Bruno	There can be applied different forms of punishment against a teacher, e.g. reduction in salary to half a hour, de-promotion and in the worst cases being thrown out.
Rosemarie	Being fired is a bit more difficult, given their status as civil servants which means permanent employment and pension security for a life time.
Rischa	The worst is for anyone the promotion handicap.
Bruno	Important have been recently the elections for GEW representatives. GEW has made significant gains while 20% new members have joined this teacher trade union.
Jim Dunn	How have the parents reacted?
Bruno	At the beginning the government tried to make propaganda by letting right wing parents speak only in the media.
Rosemarie	Other civil servants went on strike such as judges, two of which have received disciplinary measures, but the union of judges stands fully behind the two.
Dagmar	The OTV civil servants went on strike for 5 minutes, on 19^th of Nov. there were actions by various groups for half a hour. They were controlled but no punishment measures followed.
Jim Dunn	How was it presented in the news?
Rosemarie	In the media, Franz Alt who moderates a weekly TV show called 'Report' and who is a member of the CDU, engaged himself in the peace movement and aired in his programme non violent resistance with many good cuts.
Anna B.	He was suspended for three months

Rischa	He can now moderate again
Rosemarie	Yes, he is allowed to moderate again, but under strict conditions. He must air such programmes which are 'well balanced' and of the 'middle of the road'.
Jim Dunn	We know these positions only too well.
Rosemarie	At RIAS two journalists were thrown out.
Bruno	The Tagespiegel, daily newspaper in Berlin, said 'no' to the stationing of the Pershings while the Spandauer Volksblatt covered fully all activities.
Rosemarie	There was a discussion about this – whether or not it is more purposeful to lease a newspaper with a tel. nr. in West Germany since from a West Berlin perspective it is a matter of having to take into consider the border for decisions.

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Discussion with Jim Dunn, trade unionist 24.11.1983