BRITAIN FACES TWO STRIKES

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27664, 21 May 1955, Page 7

BRITAIN FACES TWO STRIKES

Railwaymen And Dockers (N.Z. Prut Auoctatton—Copyripht) (Bee. 11 p-sn.) LONDON, May 20. Strike* by railwaymen and dockers may be declared at the climax of the General Election campaign next week. The worsening' of the situation in the docks was followed last night* by a fresh crisis in Britain’s railway wage dispute, threatening a national strike in the State-owned railways. This emerged after the breakdown of pay talks between the British Traneport Commission, operators of the railways, and the two major rail unions. The leaders of the 15,000 dockers due to strike next week in tour key ports rejected the peace formula put to them last night by the leaders of Britain’s 8,000,000 strong Trades Union Congress. The leaders of the 70,000 train drivers and firemen who suspended their wage claim strike, timed to begin on May 1 on the promise of pay negotiations, said they would “look again” at these strike notices tomorrow. The parallel industrial crises followed within a .few hours of a special discussion on labour unrest between Sir Anthony Eden and the Minister of Labour (Sir Walter Monckton). The dockers’ decision against abandoning the projected strike led the Trades Union Congress to take the drastic step of calling on all workers to boycott the stoppage. Terms which the T.U.C. offered to the dockers for settling the dispute involved the dockers returning to the 1,300,000-strong Transport and General Workers’ Union the 8000 men it has ’’poached” in the last year.