BRITAIN BADLY HIT BY POSTAL STRIKE

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31902, 1 February 1969, Page 13

BRITAIN BADLY HIT BY POSTAL STRIKE

• N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright >

LONDON. January 31.

Britain’s striking postal workers resumed work today, after a 24-hour stoppage in Britain’s major cities, to face an immense backlog of undelivered mail.

The strike caused an uproar in Parliament, where Opposit i o n Conservative members demanded the resignation of the Postmaster - General (Mr John Stonehouse). The Postal Workers’ Union claimed a total stoppage in the affected cities, involving 93,000 workers. Britons were also hit yesterday by striking bank workers in London and the south and east of England, who held a half-day stoppage to protest at a pay award being referred by the Government to the watchdog Prices and Incomes Board. Britain’s links with the outside world were whittled down to a thread. Instead of being rushed off to ports and airfields, mail piled up in depots, and overseas telephone calls, with the exception of those that could be dialled, were dealt with by switchboards manned at between 30 and 60 per cent of the normal level. The cablegram service was non-existent. Post Office employees in London and 18 other large cities were out on a one-day stoppage in support of a pay claim by 3500 overseas cable operators who have now been on strike for 11 days. Inland services were worse hit than the overseas ones. No mail moved in the affected areas and staffing on many provincial switchboards was negligible. Some Government offices

wilh union members on the switch-boards were badly affected. At the Foreign Office,! only two operators arrived for duty, and the G.P.O. had : no telephone service at all.l, Postmen who should have): been handling the mail and*' the girls who should have!' been answering telephone I calls attended, instead, pro-!: test parades.

One in London marched to I Hyde Park to the sound of ! bagpipes, banjos and guitars. I In addition to the one-day I strike, the Post Office Workers’ Union is banning all overi time and Sunday work, which i will mean a progressively worse situation. I The matter was discussed !at today's sitting of the I Cabinet.