VITAL ISSUES FACE T.U.C.

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31774, 3 September 1968, Page 15

VITAL ISSUES FACE T.U.C.

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) BLACKPOOL, September 2. Britain’s trade union leaders have gathered in Blackpool today for their hundredth birthday congress in a mood which gives the Prime Minister (Mr Harold Wilson) no cause for celebration.

One thousand delegates representing nine million workers at the Trades Union Congress have split into two sides over pay and strike issues, and if their decisions do not go the way Mr Wilson hopes, his present balance-of-payments struggle and 1971 electoral chances will suffer a severe jolt. The congress opens today facing two passionate issues:

a national strike threat by 1,200,000 engineering workers, and strong pressure to reject the T.U.C.’s voluntary wagesrestraint policy. The Amalgamated Engineering Union’s executive committee voted, 31-30, last Friday to hold a national strike from September 23 to support its demands for an all-round minimum pay increase of 3Qs a week and three weeks holiday a year. The employers, whose industries are crucial in the recovery of the economy, have made their final offer: a 12s-a-week increase in two instalments and two weeks holiday. The shock move by the Left-wing union under militant president, Hugh Scanlon, has divided the congress before it even started. The giant Transport and General Workers’ Union plans to lead a frontal attack on that policy, which was passed by the slim majority of 4,620,000 to 4,087,000 last February. But the T.U.C. is the traditional strength behind Labour governments and its general secretary (Mr Georgo Woodcock) is confident that party loyalists will repulse the onslaught.

A rejection of the Government’s incomes policy could open the gates to a flood of pay claims ruinous to Mr Wilson’s hopes of giving industry a breather to capitalise on last year’s devaluation of sterling.

Expert’s View.—There is a reason why a swimmer often survives an attack by sharks, according to an expert. Dr Shelton Applegate, associate curator of the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History. He says most sharks, after they take the first bite, find they do not like the taste and spit it out.—Los Angeles, September 2.