Tommy Lewis, who represents Dept 800 and 900 on the M.A.C., is one of the older generation of Bata workers, and, next month, will have been with the Company 20 years. He has been on the committee for five years, with one break.

Engaged on maintenance and repairs at Bata Hotel, Tommy is mainly a metal-worker, but is also a woodworker and an electrician and a plumber, and, in his own words, “pretty well a bit of everything.” He is usually to be found in the workroom on the third floor of the hotel, surrounded by a miscellaneous collection of pipes, bedsteads and fittings of every description.

For the job he does, and has been doing ever since he came to East Tilbury, he admits it is necessary to “be handy with your hands,” and to “use your loaf.”

This latter quality is also necessary, he said, for successful membership of the M.A.C. “Only really important matters need be brought before a meeting,” he stressed. “Most of the questions should be, and, in fact, are, discussed and settled beforehand. The hotel is an important section of British Bata, and it has its problems just like any other department.

“When they are mentioned, and I take them up, I receive the fullest co-operation from Social Services Manager Bruce Shaw and Catering Supervisor George Ballard, and everyone else concerned. And everything I say at a meeting is always heard courteously, and, if practicable, put into operation. I thank my constituents for electing me again.”