Aerospace workers stream out of Turf Moor after the mass meeting.

Lucas Aerospace workers overwhelmingly backed their shop stewards' opposition to the threatened 1,050 redundancies at a mass meeting at Turf Moor. But there is no thought of industrial action yet, as stewards committee member Mr Phil Asquith explained afterwards. "We are very optimistic that we can find a peaceable solution, although our members have given us the authority to take, as a very last resort, industrial action," he said.

An estimated 2,500 turned up for the 8 a.m. debate and just 23 dissenting hands were raised to the committee's resolution pledging total opposition to any redundancies. Mr Asquith said he was grateful to Burnley FC for allowing the stewards to use their ground, and to his members for their support. Morale had been understandably low after weeks of rumour and speculation followed by last week's crushing announcement. So he deliberately delivered a powerful, optimistic speech to lift the workforce. And he felt that he had succeeded, as the mood of the meeting gradually became more positive than shop-floor talk had indicated. Now the stewards will press ahead with their attempts to persuade Lucas management to discuss the alternative projects in the Corporate Plan, while simultaneously projecting the community approach of their efforts to save this area's industry.

Two particular points still irritate the unions about the policies of Lucas in recent years. Mr Asquith and his colleagues on the stewards' committee considered it absurd that there had been a factory started in France, which made and still makes identical products to those built locally. For, they have calculated that over the last two years Lucas has made £6m profit from its Burnley operations. Indeed, Mr Asquith pointed out that the management's production targets had always been exceeded here. The second major annoyance is the half-hearted way that they feel Lucas moved into alternative products. "Let's face it," said Mr Asquith, "they ignored all our suggestions several years ago and instead have been making stainless steel tea-pots and toast racks. One of out schemes was windmill rotors. They didn't take that up, and now Boeing is making 90-ton rotors," he added. "Another of our ideas was micro-processors, but they missed out on that boat too."