INDUSTRIAL STOPPAGES

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31085, 14 June 1966, Page 15

INDUSTRIAL STOPPAGES

Lowest For 45 Years

In 1965 the average lost time an industrial stoppage was the lowest in the 45 years since detailed statistics were first collected in 1921, according to the latest issue of the “Labour and Employment Gazette,” published by the Department of Labour. Although the number of stoppages (105) was the seventh highest since 1921, the number of man-days lost (21,800) was the ninth lowest in the same period, says the journal.

As a result, the stoppages averaged 208 man-days lost each, which was the lowest such figure on record. In previous years, reading back from 1964, the average number of man-days lost a stopnage was 719, 908, 970, 538, 595, 406. There had been only three other occasions in the last 45 years when the average had been below 300 man-days lost a stoppage. The Gazette said that since 1951, when the major waterfront dispute boosted the figures for that year to 1,157,000 man-days lost (giving an average of 10,618 mandays a stoppage) the record of lost time through industrial disturbances had generally improved. Leaving out that very untypical year, it was found that from 1921 to 1950 lost time in industry averaged 69,000 man-days a year, but from 1952 to 1965 the average was only 38,000 man-days a year.

This improvement has occurred although the labour force was considerably larger in the latter period than in the earlier one.

“In the 14 years since the unusual circumstances of 1951 there has not been a single year in which lost time exceeded 100,000 man-days, and in 10 of those years the loss has been below 50,000 mandays,” said the Gazette.

Fossil Found.—A fossilised fish believed about 170 million years old has been found in an abandoned quarry at Ponte Giurino in the Imagna Valley near Bergamo, Italy.