£100m-a-weekLoss Facing Britain

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31809, 14 October 1968, Page 17

£100m-a-weekLoss Facing Britain

(N.Z.PA.-Reuter —Copyright; LONDON, October 13. Britain’s vast engineering industry, which earns more than one-third of the country’s export revenue, today approaches a nation-wide strike which could make nearly four million workers idle. The strike call, in support of substantial pay claims, is backed by the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions, the overlord body embracing about 30 affiliated unions whose interests range through shipbuilding and motor manufacturing to aircraft production. It is being directed against firms affiliated to the Engineering Employers’ Federation, which employs about half Britain’s engineering force.

The Minister of Employment and Productivity (Mrs Barbara Castle) will meet union leaders tomorrow in a bid to avert what could be Britain’s worst labour stoppage since the General Strike of 1926.

The confederation's decision to support the strike came in defiance of ballots opposing the strike by several affected unions. Thousands of engineering workers, especially the highly skilled men in the car factories, are now taking home more money than haze ever had because of overtime working to fulfil export orders. Many are reported to be supporting the union claim for more money, but not to the extent of exchanging their present bulky wagepackets for the pittance of strike pay. The less-highly-paid unskilled workers, however, are massed solidly for strike action. At the moment it is anybody’s guess how many of the skilled men will answer a call to strike, but even if most of them do decide to carry on working, they may be prevented from doing so because strikes in other firms will cut off supplies of components and raw materials.

It was this form of indirect strike action which halted car production on Friday at Vauxhall’s Luton factories, where vital spare parts have dried up because strikes have hit 13 supply firms. Anti-strike ballots by people like the traditionally militant boilermakers—a contrast with the usual pre-strike solidarity—will be seized on by Mrs Castle tomorrow as a strategic advantage point when she tries to remove the strike threat If she is not successful, production worth £loom a week could be lost, much of it destined for the export market on which the Government is so dependent in its fight to balance the country's economy. British Leyland, the largest motor group, with 200,000 workers, could be in danger of almost immediate closure Other large firms are worried because a halt ih production would retard deliveries to overseas customers and make them liable for heavy late-delivery penalty payments. Grim Statistic If the nation-wide strike, due to begin on October 21, lasts more than three days, 1968 will become the most strike-ridden year in Britain since the Second World War. It is a grim statistic at a time when the country is struggling to reassert its economic strength. Yet the prospect of both the strike being avoided and the work-stop-page rate showing an improvement in the last two months of the year do not seem bright The chairmen of large industries, Cabinet Ministers, the Prime Minister, and the press have pleaded for greater harmony in industrial relations and thundered about the effects of strikes on the national export record, but all to no avail. All the answers to the question “Why?” are hard to find, but industrial commentators seem to agree on at least two points. First, that many of the 1968 disputes have occurred as a result of changes in working methods, often incorporating increased productivity payments; and, second, the Government’s prices-and-incomes policy. The latter is almost certain to be given close examination by the Government soon. The point at issue is whether the policy is producing enough results to justify the unpopularity it is bringing down on the Government’s head.