II
The bell to start work rang through the clear air of the late autumn morning.
Two thousand workers, all in high spirits, streamed in through the north and south gates. In these works you would not find any trace of guards standing round the gates.
Instead, almost every morning, someone from the union was giving out red or yellow leaflets.
“Here, don’t you want to have a look at this leaflet?”
On being challenged, one man who was hurrying by, stopped and turned round.
“Here you are.”
The leaflet made clear the union’s attitude to the efficiency committee.
“We must not lower efficiency and thus give the company an excuse to begin counter attacks. Within certain limits, we must support the company’s proposal to establish an efficiency committee. But we must watch carefully what lies behind the proposal.”
The men slipped the leaflets into their pockets, and the girls stuffed them into their long kimono sleeves, as they crowded into the factory. The men all wore rather spruce-looking overalls, and a certain colour had come back into the girls’ cheeks. They had gained something since the great strike of 1924.
They were all fully alive to their strength. Brought up for two years in the cradle of the Left-Wing unionism, as members of the S. Labour Union
