After four weeks on all-out strike pickets assembled to march back into the factory together in a magnificent show of strength. We stood here through sun, rain, snow and wind, but everybody stuck together and that's why we won. The dispute began after workers were offered an insulting pay rise of 1 percent on their already miserable 3.08 an hour. Wheeldon threatened to close the factory if workers went on strike. He only had the chiefs in there, but you can't run a factory without the indians.
Workers go back proud to have won the minimum wage as their basic hourly rate.
They have also won enhanced overtime payments, an attendance allowance and new bonus rates-all based on the improved hourly basic. But we've got to get the standards higher. He didn't think we'd stay out, but by last week he was a broken man. The strikers raised their demands during the course of the strike and now want to be paid rates better than the minimum. The next pay review is due in July.