T.U.C. Refusing To Accept Govt Plan

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31865, 18 December 1968, Page 19

T.U.C. Refusing To Accept Govt Plan

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) LONDON, December 17. The British Government and trade union chiefs remained split today on a wages policy in joint efforts to cure the nation's economic ills.

Government Ministers and leaders of the powerful Trades Union Congress, representing nearly 9 million workers, conferred on Sunday and yesterday at Chequers, country home of the Prime Minister, Mr Harold Wilson.

after reports from Sunday's meeting that union chiefs had been persuaded to accept the Government’s fixing of a growth rate between three and 3! per cent.

But last night a union (spokesman, Mr Sidney Greene, chairman of the T.U.C. economic committee, denied that [they had dropped their 6 per cent estimate of what the country’s rate of economic growth should be. He said unemployment would rise if the growth rate—at present 4 per cent—were curbed.

A union spokesman last night denied reports that the T.U.C. team had agreed to tough measures to get Britain out of debt. Union men say they fear unemployment, now around 500,000, will rise further if the Government goes ahead with its plan to hold down the national economic growth rate in 1969 to create a balance-of-payments surplus. The Government insists that wage increases—now officially pegged—and even full employment, must take second place to achieving a balance-of-payments surplus in 1969. But union leaders, although] acknowledging that Britain's] overseas trading position! needs drastic improvement,] refuse to put pay demands] into cold storage indefinitely.! The clash became clear