A mass meeting of over 400 workers at Adwest Engineering (Reading) voted overwhelmingly on Monday to begin an indefinite day and night sit-in strike at once.
The recommendation was put by Pat Farrelly - divisional organiser of the AUEW and was supported by workers from all the unions in the factory: the AUEW (including its staff section TASS), and the clerical unions ASTMS and APEX. There was only one vote against. NEW SUBSIDIARY Adwest Engineering has a virtual monopoly of the manufacture of a kéy component for the luxury end of the car industry - power steering gears. Last December, the management of the Adwest Group (which has a number of subsidiaries in other parts of Britain) announced their intention to set up a new subsidiary, Power Steering Ltd., at Pennywell in Sunderland. would, they said, undertake all the non-specialist machining work previously done mainly by sub-contractors. They claimed that they simply wanted to bring all this work under the direct control of the Group.
Red Weekly 24 August 1973 Page 2 However, in order to 'help get this new subsidiary off the ground', they wanted to move 33 machines from Reading to Sunderland. This was agreed to by the shop stewards committee of the day. (A couple of, months later a majority of the shop floor workers signed a petition of no confidence and forced a re-election of the shop stewards committee after it agreed to a speed-up deal. In the elections the entire committee was replaced.)
What the management are now demanding is the right to move another 60 machines up to Pennywell. Needless to say, few workers in the factory place any confidence in management claims that there will be no job loss - especially. when they have simultaneously been pursuing a policy of work-study measurements which have dramatically cut piecework earnings With a combination of these wage cuts and the prospect of jobs disappearing, many workers began to look for alternative work in the Reading area. This seems to have been what the management was aiming at - a small de moralised workforce would, they hoped, be unable to resist a total closure of the plant, which would leave them free to sell the site at a fat profit (the price of land in Reading is abnormally high even by current standards). FIGHT BACK However, their plans were stillborn. With a growing realisation of what was happening, the workers began to organise to fight back. A meeting of all the shop stewards and staff rep resentatives discussed the situation, formed a strike committee, and convened the meeting last Monday. The demands of the sit-in are: (1) immediate pay rises of about £10 (including bonus to bring them into line with other sections of the car industry and stop workers leaving; (2) that no machinery be moved from Reading - Adwest must not be allowed to finance their expansion at the expense of Reading workers jobs.
Our information is that Adwest are way behind on their orders, so the strike should begin to bite almost immediately. Messages of support, donations to the strike fund, etc. to: Adwest Strike Committee, c/o AUEW, 121 Oxford Road, Reading, Berks. Pat Robinson