CAV stewards have mandate on pay claim

TICK, To • OFFICIAL SOLICITOR Dangerous concessions end Vickers' first Barrow strike THE MASSIVE Vickers shipyard at Barrow in Furness re-opened yesterday after two weeks of after two weeks of closure over a dispute involving 1,200 craftsmen. pute involving 1,200 This follows an agreement reached on Friday between management and local union leaders which solved the two-month boilermakers' strike at the yard.

The men have won a £1.75 increase, a further El-a-week good timekeeping money and £1.25 for more flexibility within their Bob Proudfoot, boilermakers' district delegate, said the vote to go back was carried by a 60 to 40 majority.

•We are going back to work with our heads held high. We said we would not go back for less than £3.75 and we are going back with £4 and some back payments, ; he said.

The original claim, however. stringser, crease. Under the latest deal the boilermakers will lose 60p if they turn up for work 15 minutes late once a week and the whole fl bonus if this happens twice.

In addition they have agreed to extend flexibility within the boilermaking trades. According to a company spokesman this goes 'almost all the way to complete flexibility'.

Platers and shipwrights, for example, will be expected to do their own welding and PAPERBACKS *CENTRE 28 Charlotte St London W1 CAV Acton, shop been given a fight claim.

and rejected the management's ofter of a general increase of £1.50 from July 3, a further 75p in December and a second 75p in July 1973. same day threw out the 18-month package deal and declared for the £6, 30-hour week, equal pay and more holidays demands.

in the factory undeterred by the mandate from the shop floor then went on a joint produ..tion consultative committee visit to the CAV factory at Sudbury, Suffolk, where they had drinks and lunch with senior manageburning if men from trades who traditionally carry out this kind of work are not immediately available.

Another important concession was one which allows the firm to bring labour onto the massive Vickers site under sub-contract.

Workers have been resisting this move for some time and management see this agreement as a break-through. But they point out that unemployed boilermakers in the town will have the first option on this work.

Limited flexibility has been in operation within the boilermakers at Barrow since 1966. The firm now says this has been extended and clarified.

'In the past it was not the agreement that was difficult to get, but its practical operation in the yard. We feel this obstacle is overcome in the new agreement because it defines specifically what we want to achieve,' the spokesman said.

Militant trade unionists in Barrow, ever, are critical agreement.

"The deal on good time-keeping is terrible considering the money offered," one told me yesterday.

in other trades now fear that the firm will be able to RIODICAL!

London, joint committee has mandate for a On June 13 the committee met Departmental meetings the Yet the right-wing leadership fail. AUEW convenor John Paxman CEORODI The Vickers yards dominate the town force a good time-keeping deal on them.

Management see the deal as a first tentative step towards their aim of introducing complete flexibility between all trades in the yards and lengthening the working week in preparation for entry into the So far workers and local trade union leaders remain totally opposed seems determined to restrict the fight to the Acton plant. He told the shop stewards meeting: 'Acton will do its own business irrespective of anything done by the other Lucas-owned factories.' In March however, Paxman, writing about the miners' strike, said their action had to be followed by all workers.

The Acton workers have been offered precisely the same deal as made to other Lucas factories. Now the North London district committee of the AUEW has said it will back action by the Acton workers if negotiations Stewards opposed to the rightwing leadership on the committees are fighting to extend the pay and conditions struggle. One shop has already passed a motion calling on the joint shop stewards' committee to fight for the full claim on a CAV-Lucas combine basis.

to this step. One of the concessions the boilermakers did not make in the current deal was a request by management to allow other trades to do their drilling work if necessary.

The two-month strike caused the first-ever lock-out in the yard's history - unemployment in Barrow rocketed temporarily to 30 per cent as a result. NOW OPEN Mon, Tues, Wed, Fri nurs 9 a.m.—7.30 p.m.

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