U.K. STRIKE BILL Resignation of Woodcock

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32566, 27 March 1971, Page 19

U.K. STRIKE BILL Resignation of Woodcock

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) LONDON, March 26. A leading British trade union moderate has resigned from his £11,500-a-year Government post thus dealing the Conservative Administration’s indutrial reform plans a severe blow.

The resignation of Mr George Woodcock, who is 67, from his post as head of the Commission for Industrial Relations is by no means a fatal assault on the controversial Industrial Relations Bill that was passed through the House of Commons yesterday, but it does underscore the Government’s failure to convince Britain’s union leaders of the merits of the legislation.

The Trades Union Congress, Britain’s central labour organisation, had declared a policy of non-co-op-

eration with the Government on the measure, and this was one of the reasons why Mr Woodcock, a former general secretary of the T.U.C., has left the commission established two years ago, to im-

prove the country’s outdated collective bargaining machinery. In a statement, Mr Woodcock made it clear that he opposed the bill, which he described as an ill-considered piece of legislation. “But,” he said, “the bill itself does not make it impossible for me to stay. What changes the character of things is the fact that we will not get the co-operation in our work from the trade unions.” Mr Woodcock is the third member of the commission to resign because of the implications of the proposed industrial reform. Pym’s denial In the House of Commons yesterday, the Opposition Labour Party suggested that he was the first victim of the bill, but many members of the House thought that one of their own colleagues was.

He is the Government’s Chief Whip, Mr Francis Pym, who was accused by the Opposition of being drunk in the House a few moments before the final voting on the bill.

Mr Pym today denied that he was “in his cups,” maintaining that he was merely elated at the prospect of die bill’s finally being passed. “It is unfortunate that the moment you shout or make a gesture in the House, you get a mass coverage in the press,” he said. “We had just come to the end of the longest and most controversial bill taken through Parliament for many years, and I was certainly showing my great relief.” A Conservative M.P. who was standing next to Mr Pym, at the time of the incident, Dr Alan Glyn, declared that he was completely sober.