[The lock-out by the TV companies was extended…]

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The lock-out by the TV companies was extended to thousands more workers last week as the commercial TV companies took steps to lay off journalists and NATTKE members.

The employers-sitting on massive profit figures have made no move towards increasing their 15% offer to the ACTT.

Union leaders had originally advised members to accept this offer but it was decisively rejected.

Workers in the companies are using the profitability of the firms as the cornerstone of their case.

Since 1975 shares in Yorkshire TV have risen by 1,580% and profits have gone up 150%.

But the technicians have also been pointing to the fact that their wages have failed to keep up with inflation.

The government figures show a 73% increase in the Retail Price Index since 1975 while technicians wages have risen by 46%.

The companies' attempts to tough it out mean that workers will be in for a long haul. It was the employers who co-ordinated the original suspensions, in breach of agreements, in the knowledge this could lead to a shut-down.

Committees

This poses the question for the strikers as to how the strike is to be kept solid.

Strike committees must organise to call regular mass meetings and to call meetings with other workers locked out.

The secondary row over the cost of living clause which the companies have refused to implement must be brought to the centre of the dispute along wth the full 25% claim.

Union leaders are looking for a way off the hook. If the strikers are not to have their sacrifices rendered useless by them, they must ensure that day to day control is firmly under their grasp.

Developments are coming to a head in Leyland over the company's new grading structure.

The Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions (Confed) have come out in support of the company's position of unilaterally enforcing the grading and they have persuaded the National Joint Negotiating Committee (NJNC) to support the company and reverse their previous opposition by 11 votes to 9.

The Confed argued that there was an adequate appeals procedure in which the NJNC would be the final stage.

Naturally the NJNC thought this was a good idea. The company has 50% of the seats on the NJNC and on the union side there are several full time officials and others who represent a handful of workers.

It is therefore virtually impossible to win an appeal as only one person on the union side has to vote with the company for it to be lost.

There is to be a senior stewards meetings of all unions on Thursday 31 August weighted heavily in favour of the skilled workers, all of whom are in the top grade and stand to get large back-pay lump sums.

This meeting will almost certainly accept the NJNC's position, leaving the company free to attempt to implement the deal within the next few weeks.

In the light of this a meeting of TGWU senior stewards representing 70% of the workforce last Wednesday voted to reject the company's position.

Although the senior stewards wrongly decided to attend the all union senior stewards meet-