Carriers’ Lock-out In U.S. Settled

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31343, 13 April 1967, Page 13

Carriers’ Lock-out In U.S. Settled

(N.Z. Press Association —Copyright) WASHINGTON, April 12. A tentative contract settlement between the Teamsters’ Union and the trucking industry was jointly announced early today, and the industry lock-out was expected to end within hours, the Associated Press reported.

Federal mediators, union and industry officials announced the agreement and said it was subject to approval by policy committees of both the teamsters and the industry, and then ratification by the 450,000 union members involved.

The chief industry negotiator, Mr Donald Cantlay, said orders to end the nation-wide lock-out and get trucks rolling again would go out as soon as directors of Trucking Employers Inc., approved the agreement, probably within a few hours.

Frank Fitzsimmons, general vice-president of the Teamsters’ Union, said he had asked the employers to “get our people back to

work” even before union ratification of the new national three-year contract. Terms of the contract were not announced.

The agreement ends the first nation-wide labour dispute in the trucking industry and the lock-out which had caused mounting shortages of many commodities throughout the country. Mr Cantlay called the case “one of the most complex contract negotiations” in the history of the nation. It involved some 12,000 trucking companies. The chief Federal mediator, William Simkin said “this has been a real case of collective bargaining. This has been no case of Government pressure.”