DOCK WORKERS MAY RETURN

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28606, 7 June 1958, Page 13

DOCK WORKERS MAY RETURN

33rd Day Of London Bus Strike (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 8.30 p.m.) LONDON, June 6. London’s bus strike enters its thirty-third day- today after the breakdown last night of a new round of peace talks. But there is a hope that the city’s 19,000 striking dock workers will go back on Monday, London newspapers reported. » The “Daily Mail” said that 70,000 workers were now idle—so,ooo busmen, 19,284 dock workers, and 1700 Smithfield drivers. The bus strike talks broke down after meetings between Mr Cousins and Sir John Elliot, chairman of London Transport.

The “Daily Mail” said that Mr Frank Cousins, leader of the Transport and General Workers’ Union, called delegates of all London garages to an emergency conference this afternoon, and was expected to warn them that there would be no surrender.

Delegates of the dock strikers have called for a return to work and snuboed the meat drivers at the Smithfield market, whose pay strike the dockers had been backing. The Smithfield strikers have called an urgent meeting for today to consider their next move, the “Daily Mail” said. The 130 delegates to today’s busmen's conference would decide whether to accept the “no surrender" line and continue the strike in defiance of the decision of the Trades Union Congress that it should be ended as soon as possible.

Railway Business Up In the fortnight before the London bus strike began underground trains took £435,000 and carried 12.500,000 passengers. In the last fortnight they have taken £560,000 and have carried 15,500,000 people.

Traffic on some London inner suburban railway services has been 50 or even 100 per cent higher than usual. These figures are shown in the “Financial Times" summing up of results of the month’s bus strike in London.

It has been found that the number of cars coming into the West End has increased by 10 per cent, but the speed at which they travel in the inner areas has gone up from 10 miles an hour to 18. Retail sales in London have been reduced from 5 to 10 per cent, from the usual level of £3,00T,000 a week. The shops in Regent and Oxford streets, which derive a considerable number of customers from the suburbs, have had the largest drop in sales. The sales of scooters and bubble cars are up by 10 to 15 per cent on a year ago, and the demand for bicycles is very heavy in the London area. Deliveries in the last fortnight by one of London’s biggest bicycle suppliers have reached record levels.

Garages have found petrol sales average 15 per cent higher since the strike started and oil companies have been selling more petrol and diesel fuej. Reuter said that tons of foodstuffs were repdrted to be rotting in the docks. Port health inspectors said that 17J tons of perishable foodstuffs were in immediate danger at being condemned, and estimated that a further 3580 tons would have gone bad by next Monday. These included bananas, potatoes, oranges and onions.