Selected Sabotage

Industrial Unionist, Volume 1, Issue 7, 1 August 1913, Page 1

Selected Sabotage

In 1910 the French railway workers were forced back to work from a strike which partly failed, and 3,300 men got sacked. Once back on the job the men started a “ passive” strike. Truck labels were changed and goods went to wrong consignees; “fragile” goods were carelessly handled and thus broken; engines went wrong on the way; fire-shovels were “ lost” and thereby trains had to stop; oil kegs unaccountably sprunk leaks and oil ran through on to valuable goods underneath; perishable goods were delayed until they went rotten; passenger service men had some high old jokes—they saw to it that the wrong portmanteaux were delivered and that plenty of time w r as spent punching tickets, etc., and that all sort of delays were caused; rules which were never intended to be obeyed were carefully carried out, with the result that time-tables had to be abandoned; all kinds of confusion was caused, and it grew worse and worse, until the authorities, under this pressure, had to give way, reinstate the victimised men, and employ thousands of extra men to straighten things up.