MEAT SUPPLIES IN LONDON

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26151, 29 June 1950, Page 5

MEAT SUPPLIES IN LONDON

LONDON, June 27. For the third time this year London's meat ration is threatened by another strike in the Smithfield market, where 1200 lorry drivers stopped work on June 23. The men are now endeavouring to organise sympathetic action in other markets, and they have already had some support in' Bristol. The London Retail Meat Traders’ Association to-dav told the Ministry of Food that unless the strike was settled it would not be possible to distribute this week’s meat ration to the London area.

The strikers are members of the Transport and General Workers’ Union, and the stoppage was begun as a protest against the delay in granting them a 19s weekly wage increase. The claim was first made 16 months ago. but it. was deferred. The strikers’ committee claims that unless the wage demands are met, meat drivers in all parts of the country will come out on strike.

Supplies of meat held by retail butchers in London are at present only about 10 per cent, of the normal quantity. The present stoppage is the eleventh maipr dispute at Smithfield since July, 1946. In all these cases there has been serious interference with Londpn’s meat supplies because of direct action by a comparatively small body of workers in the market. All of the disputes have been unofficial.