At the risk of upsetting the applecart, I have to ask "Have any of you actually been involved in protracted industrial action?" I was back in 1979. It took over 2 years for the pay increase achieved to make up the wages lost in achieving the increase (does that make sense?). I don't know about the rest of the engineering world, but I go to work for the money (paltry though it may be). I would be reluctant to take industrial action again unless the gain was substantially greater than the losses incurred.