14-Day Newspaper Stoppage Discussed By Meetings

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27629, 9 April 1955, Page 7

14-Day Newspaper Stoppage Discussed By Meetings

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 9.30 p.m.) LONDON, April 7. Two meetings, barely 200 yards apart, in Westminster today considered how Britain’s national newspapers, strike-bound for 14 days, could publish again.

At Church House, scene of the United Nations preparatory meetings in 1945, three men appointed by the Government to investigate the stoppage caused by the maintenance men resumed hearings.

In the nearby Transport House, Britain’s 35 top union leaders met in an emergency session to consider the effect of the stoppage on a widening group of their 8,000,000 members.

Nearly 20,000 of these, members of hine printing unions, will lose their jobs next week unless the dispute has been settled.

Mr Charles Russell, for the proprietors, told a questioner at the court of inquiry today that the first wage offer to the printing unions was made on December 1, although the old agreement had expired last October. Mr Frank Foulkes, president of the Electricians’ Union, said no meeting with the maintenance men’s two unions was held till December 22. Discussion with the printing unions had begun in the previous May, he added.

Mr Foulkes told Mr Russell that his union refused arbitration on its 58s a week claim because “ordinary negotiations have not been carried out.’’

He said it was not his idea of negotiation that the employers should simply decide “what largesse they were going to give and decide among themselves which particular employees were, in Lord Burnham’s words, ‘the good boys’ who were to receive the largest amount.’’ (Lord Burnham, chairman of the proprietors’ labour committee, told the court when it began hearings yesterday that one did not give the larger slice of cake at a party to the boy who shouted: loudest, but to the “good boy.’’) The hearing is expected to end tonight. The court will then report to the Minister of Labour, Sir Walter Monckton.

A statement after the two-hour meeting of the general council of the Trades Union Congress, said it believed the newspaper strike should be “resolved within the industry as soon as possible.’’ It was ready “to assist as required in the joint union discussions already initiated,” it added. “Daily Worker’’ Appears

The Communist “Daily Worker’’ appeared yesterday, the first London newspaper to publish for 13 days. It announced that it had reached a settlement with its striking printers—a dispute entirely unconnected with the wage claim by the striking mechanics and electricians.

The “Daily Worker’’ is not a member of the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association, but it said that it had undertaken not to step up its circulation above normal while the other London newspapers are out of action.