Wildt workers end occupation -but fight on!

Uncorrected machine reading. This text was read by machine (Apple Vision OCR) from a scan of a newspaper page, and the page was cut into articles by machine, at the headlines found by their type size. Nothing has been corrected: expect misread words, text from a neighbouring article, and titles that are the machine reading of the headline, some of them only fragments. Quote from the scan, not from this page.
How this article was cut and titled: headline found by type size in the OCR geometry (split_tabloid.py); 1-2 of 6; machine-segmented newspaper page; uncorrected Vision OCR.

page 3 of the scan

On Monday 28 February textile machinery workers at the Wildt Mellor Bromley, Aylestone Road factory in Leicester ente0 mne n occupation, staged in protest against the inreateneo sacking or all 390 workers in the factory.

The occupation ended after a writ had been served gainst the workers and, the chief constable had threatened to smasn ine occupation with 200 policemen.

Under this pressure, which was all the more difficult to resist as one of the unions. involved, the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers, had refused to give official support for the occupation. the WMB workers telt the had no option but to continue their resistance to closure by picketing the factory from outside.

AUEW Considering the role the AUEW bureaucracy have played in the dispute, it is not surprising that the local official concerned, District Secretary SnaRe CaTOn WeL comed the end of the occupation as "a step in the right direction".

This set-back in the struggle at W MB makes it all ine more vital to build as much support as possible for the workers threatened with the sack. Transport workers have a special responsibiity to ensure una the £3.4 million worth of finished macninery is not movea trom une factory.

Lynn Anderson and Christine Billington have launched what could be a decisive contribution to the struggle of workers at Wildts. They have set up a Wives Support ber the campaign or brusn Leyland bosses media whipping up ine so-called cowles Wives' against the Leyland work•Inere. But the action of the Wildts wives will not make front page news in the Fleet Street gutter As they say themselves: *We knew the wives would be hit hard and we wanted to give them as well as the men moral support and try to do something for the hardship cases. Forty women turned up at our first meeting... . a lol mort couldn't come but we have been keeping in touch by phone. One of the reasons we started the group was to stop women naging thei husbands and breaking their morale:' These women have a real reason to fear redundancies in an area like Leicester, where there are no comparable jobs. IN WEEKLY

----- pull-quotes -----

Photo: JOHN STURROCK (Report) and so do the wives