Police were called to the factory. Ford denied that a 'mini-riot' had happened although workers insisted the vehicles were attacked. Up to 50 cars were wreaked as well as the loss of production of nearly 600 cars. Windows were smashed and tools were used to gouge freshly painted bodywork. There is also a suggestion that the action was in protest in solidarity with a worker who had been arrested and cautioned at Dagenham police station over the theft of 100 metres of electrical cable and two junction boxes.
Sabotage is an old and very effective form of workers' independent action.
This method of fighting back is not so easy for the unions and the Left wing to control. Also, gay sex is often the only sexual option so even straights are at it including the sexual violence of rape and abuse. Although homosexuality undermines the masculine-macho and heterosexual nuclear family foundations of the military, armies can and will accommodate it. The European Court decision is nothing to celebrate because the military is the ultimate repressive institution of the State. As revolutionaries we welcome this decision no more than we do the introduction of more black people in the police, more women judges or more Catholics in the Royal Ulster Constabulary.