[TWO thousand workers in the Vosper Thornycroft (Woolston)…]

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TWO thousand workers in the Vosper Thornycroft (Woolston) shipyards walked off the job on Tuesday 22 November in the first militant action against British Shipbuilders' national 'survival plan' The one-day stoppage brought warship production in the Solent area to a complete standstill.

* Sell-out Although the strikers later returned to work, they remain intent on further action against the sell-out deal proposed by BS management and union leaders.

In this deal BS initially insisted that it would not pay any annual wage increase to its 62,000 workers but finally conceded an extra £7 a week after unions had threatened them with a national strike.

As this payment is conditional upon the workforce agreeing to effect huge productivity increases, yard closures • and further job losses, it was clearly going to be faced with rejection in the yards at local level.

Bert Brown, secretary of the Joint Shop Stewards Committee at Woolston, pointed out that 60% of the BS workforce were already in receipt of some form of state benefits because wages were so low.

But defence of jobs at Vospers will require more than a single stoppage. And the situation at BS urgently requires workers' occupation of the shipyards as phase one of a determined fightback. the Government will stagger payments over perhaps a year to 18 months to ease cash-flow problems involved in the £4 billion sale.

THE 2800 manual workers involved in the five week strike at Rolls Royce Motors at Crewe return to work this week [Monday November 28], following acceptance at a mass meeting on Friday of a new pay offer.

Added to the original and "final' offer of 4 per cent on basic rates is a lump sum of £150, together with the promise of £2 per week on the basic adult rates from next July prior to the next scheduled wage settlement due in August.

There are various additional proposals to 'harmonise' the working conditions of manual workers with those of white-collar staff.