New Claims For Wage Increases In Britain

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27734, 11 August 1955, Page 13

New Claims For Wage Increases In Britain

(Rec. 9 p.m.) LONDON, August 9.

The leaders of more than 3,500,000 British workers today began planning fresh wage claims which will strike hard at the Government’s anti-inflation policy. In Blackpool. 180 delegates, repreaenting nearly 3,000.000 shipbuilding and engineering workers, opened a conference which is expected to support a demand for a 10 per cent, pay increase. This would add about £100,000,000 to the wage bills of nearly 5000 factories and shipyards throughout Britain. In London, leaders of nearly 400.000 railway workers began a three-day meeting to draw up new wage demands from the British Transport Commission, which is already operating at a heavy loss. The third series of wage talks involves the leaders of about 220,000 bus workers. A meeting opened in London today will consider demands for

an extra £1 a week for busmen and women. The crop of wage claims involves more than a third of all British trade unionists and threatens further rises in the cost of living. The president of the British Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions (Mr ,H. G. Brotherton) told the Blackpool conference that a new -demand for more pay was inescapable. The claims were justified beyond question, especially in view of the “blatant prosperity” of their employers, he said. The last rises, ranging from 8s to Us a week, were granted in March this year. Costing £70,000 a year, they raised the weekly minimum wage to £6 12s lOd for unskilled workers and to £7 15s lOd for skilled men. Mr Brotherton said there. was no justification for alarm over Britain’s shipbuilding industry. He said the reason why certain

orders had gone to foreign countries was that most British yards were booked for years ahead. Referring to suggestions that the outlook in shipbuilding was less favourable than it was, he added: "The basis for these fears has been that a small number of orders for new ships which might have been expected to come to Britain have, in fact, gone to Germany. “In the 12 months to the middle of 1955, the tonnage of new orders placed with British shipbuilders exceeded the orders received in either of the previous two corresponding 12-month periods.” _____________