Sailor’s Place In British Economy

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31062, 18 May 1966, Page 1

Sailor’s Place In British Economy

(New Zealand Prest Attociation) INVERCARGILL, May 17. “I’m very sorry about your economic worries, but there is no more important a man to the British economy than the sailor,” the general secretary of the British Sailors’ Society (Mr R. S. Hessom) said tonight.

Mr Hessom, in New Zealand on a world tour of Merchant Navy and shipping centres, said this when questioned on the British seamen's strike. Asked how long the strike could continue, Mr Hessom said it depended on how financial the National Union of Seamen was. With a membership of 65,000, and because it runs welfare schemes, and the like, “it can't be very rich.” he said.

place in world shipping, and who were looking carefully at costs.

On the other hand, there were the seamen who wanted to be a part of an affluent society, but who were being paid only £l6 for a 56-hour week.

The seamen have not been on strike for more than 50 years, and goodness knows, they had their opportunities during both world ware,” he said.

• “You can’t help but have sympathy for both sides,” he said. On the one hand there were the owners, once the biggest shipbuilders and shippers in the world, who would now be struggling to claim fourth

Since World War II the sailor had risen from being a £7 10s a month worker to the wage he was now earning, and in that time conditions at sea had improved greatly, but he was still not getting a wage he wanted, Mr Hessom said.