Rai WOrKs victory

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2,000 workers at the Glasgow workshop of British Rait Engineering Ltd walked out on Thursday 17 June in the face of management's provocative attacks on their bonus rate payments.

Three days prior to the walk-out, Coburn, the works production manager, had informed the works committee, of a £2.42 cut in the bonus to be paid out that week, although was unable to produce any production figures to justify such a cut.

(Coburn was moved to Glasgow after successfully closing down the Ashford works).

Support for the strike was 100% so no pickets were placed on the gates. Even the works security were out on strike as well as they too received the bonus payments, leaving the managerial staff to patrol the site and man the gates.

A mass meeting on the Friday voted to continue the strike and on the following Monday production managers from Derby travelled up to Glasgow to find a formula for ending the dispute.

The formula included: full pay for all days worked the previous week including the full bonus rates; maintenance of existing bonus rates; the setting up of a working party (involving management and union officials from outside Glasgow) to inquire into the causes of the strike and propose. new methods of cal culating bonus payments.

This formala was accepted at a further mass meeting and in the short term at least the management offensive has been pushed back.

In the long term, the workers face real dangers with Coburn, in line with BR policy, secking to increase productivity and reduce the size of the work-