The sit-in strike at Adwest in Reading which has held out since the 20th of August, has won significant concessions, After Union/Management negotiations on Monday and Toesday. the workers accepted the deal which emerged. They will pet an across the board increase of £4.00 per week, which will be kept within Pay Board restrictions through alterations to the bonus system, flexibility and merit payments. As a step towards equal pay women workers will receive up to £2:00 in addition to this 14.00.
A formulation on job security was agreed as follows: "no machinery, plant or work to be moved without mutual agreement", In practice the shop stewards will block the transfer of work unless it will be carried out under the same conditions, and wage rates as at Reading. The work force will be increased from its present 400-450 to 660. And there will be a guaranteed new investment scheme of approxImately El million.
However there will not be a return to work until the workers at Western Thompson receive parity. This adjacent factory, which is part of the Adwest group, was out in sympathy, and has always had the same conditions in the past.
This victory was won by the determination and militant tactics of the strikers, They faced hostility from the local press, especially after the industrial reporter of the Reading Post was taken to the Press Council by the management for biased' reporting. And AUEW officials did not pay out strike pay until last Friday.
The struggle at Adwest has significance for workers throughout the Reading area, where speculation in land sales has created a growing threat of factory closures and redundancies. P O'SULLIVAN Adwest workers outside the gates. Pickers such as this helped win ...but setback at Tampax AUEW workers at the Tampax factory near Havant have returned to work after a six week strike, without the Union recognition they. were struggling for, The decision was taken by a very small majority, at a meeting of both the remaining strikers and the scabs who had returned to work. This "democratic vote was a manoeuvre by the ALEW District Committee.
Neither willing to conduct an effective blacking campaign, nor to order a return to work, the DC attempted to put the onus of defeat upon its members. In such situations the use of the mass picket is essential to overcome the isolation of small groups of workers. It was to prevent the use of such tactics that the employers brought in sixty Polioemen to clear a path for scab lorries, and arrested three pickets.
With a national engineers strike on the agenda the lessons of Tampax are clear. It will be neeessary to conduct a campaign of mass pickets and the organisation of support from Trade Unionists and other sections of the poptilation. Tampux has clearly illustrated that this cannot be left to chance, and that it will be necessary for Shop Stewards and ot her militants to take up the job that the District Committee failed TO LO PORTSMOUTH IMG