Grounding a coup

It sounds like the plot of a fictional comedy. A group of gnarly Glaswegian factory workers decide to down tools – refusing to mend the engines of the fighter planes being used by a despotic junta thousands of miles away in Chile. One of them, an old ‘desert rat’ from WWII stands up to the bosses but is afraid to tell his wife that he’s risking his job through a sense of solidarity. And then, after being left to rot for years, the engines suddenly disappear. That’s just a fraction of the plot of Nae Pasaran. What makes it even more marvellous is that it isn’t a fiction at all, but a documentary, based on an act of trade union solidarity that has passed into legend. Apparently, when the film premiered at the Glasgow Film Festival earlier this year, people were crying in their seats. UNISON’s Stephen Smellie, of the South Lanarkshire local government branch, says: “When I watched the film the first time I just felt so proud to be a trade unionist. It was one of the few occasions where I’ve felt ‘that’s me’ on the screen, this is what we do, we’re heroes. “From a trade union point of view we do need to get this film out to everybody. It shows that trade unions are relevant, internationally, that solidarity works.” On 11 September 1973, in Chile, the CIA-backed General Pinochet led the violent military coup against Salvador Allende’s left-wing government, which began with a frightening symbol of oppression – as fighter planes fired rockets into t...
Source: UNISON Health care news - Category: UK Health Authors: Tags: Article Magazine international Source Type: news