CRISIS IN CAR INDUSTRY

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 28008, 30 June 1956, Page 9

CRISIS IN CAR INDUSTRY

Eden To Confer With Cabinet (N.Z. Press Association— Copyright) (Rec. 10 p.m.) LONDON, June 28. Sir Anthony Eden and the British Cabinet will today consider the crisis in the British motor industry caused by the biggest mass dismissal of workers since the war. A triple bombshell of dismissals, short-time working and a bitter industrial dispute hit the industry yesterday. It was the blackest seven hours the industrial Midlands have known since the early 1930'5. Yesterday’s developments meant the end of a decade of continuous post-war boom conditions for British motor firms.

Within a few hours the following occurred: The British Motor Corporation announced the dismissal of 6000 workers and the beginning of a three or four-day week for 49,000 workmen. One thousand Rover Motor Company workers were reduced to a fourday week. The Standard Motor Company broke off negotiations about redundancy that might have saved 1200 workers from dismissal next week. The latest dismissals follow car and engineering firms’ staff reductions in the last few weeks. Men at the Norton motor-cycle factory in Birmingham yesterday decided to continue their nine-week-old strike over redundancy, lhe “Daily Express” said. Labour Ministry spokesmen said it was difficult to fit skilled car factory men into other industries, although 25,000 jobs were vacant in the Midlands.

Pay Increases The special correspondent of the New Zealand Press Association says that nearly 11,000,000 British workers received pay increases in the first five months of this year, according to the Ministry of Labour gazette, 'len million nine hundred and seventy workers had rises totalling £5.547,000. weekly. In the same period last year 9,982,000 workers had increases amounting to £3,924,000 a week. The economic blitzkrieg which in U years has transformed Germany from a beaten nation into a world power has now enabled her to claim another trade victory over Britain, says the “Daily” Express.” The newspaper says that Germany’s holdings of gold and dollars—the best prosperity indication —stand higher today than Britain’s. x The “Daily Express” says that tne Germans have now displaced the British as the world’s second-richest people next to the Americans. The dollar holdings of the leading nations are now: the United States, 22,000,000,000; Germany, 2,600,000,000; Britain, 2,369,000,000. The Germans thus have a lead over Britain of 231,000,000 dollars—£B3,ooo,ooo. German “Treasure Trove” Five years ago Britain’s gold and dollar holding of £834,000,000 swamped the German holding by £704,000,000. “Yet,” says the “Daily Express, “this is only part of the German treasure trove. They also have £789,000,000 worth of other foreign exchanges. They are also ow ed millions of dollars by nations, including Britain, which comprise the European Payments Union.

“Britain owes European Payments Union £116,000,000 worth of dollars but the Germans have built up a credit of £213,000,000 in dollars. A message from New York says news of the crises in the British motor industry coincided today with reports that the American car business is improving. Production in the United States is still below last year’s record figures, however, and about 150,000 workers in the Detroit area have been laid-off.

Leading dealers and manufacturers, however, said today that sales of new cars had made a significant turn for the better this fhonth and the improvement in the used car market was even better.