CEILING REJECTED T.U.C. to offer proposals

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33034, 29 September 1972, Page 9

CEILING REJECTED T.U.C. to offer proposals

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LONDON, September 28.

British trade union leaders, having rejected a new Government package on voluntary price and wage rise restraints, will now start formulating counter-proposals aimed at curbing inflation.

The general council of the I Trades Union Congress ' (T.U.C.) unanimously decided yesterday that the plans of the Prime Minister (Mr Edward Heath) for a ceiling of £2 (SNZ4.3O) a week on pay rises and 5 per i cent on price increases over the next 12 months were “unacceptable in their present form.”

But the council, representing some 10 million workers, said that it would draw up its own anti-inflationary programme to present to a tripartnte meeting next month

between the Government, the T.U.C., and the Confederation of British Industry (C. 8.1. representing employers. After the T.U.C. decision, Mr Heath appealed to the nation to accept his economic proposals which he described as “fair and practical.” Speaking in central England to supporters of the ruling Conservative Party, he

said: “Think of the harm and suffering which inflation has already caused and is causing now to those among us.” The president of the C. 8.1. (Mr Michael Clapham) said that there was a “desperate danger” of inflation on South American levels if the T.U.C. did not accept the Government’s proposals. The London stock market also reacted adversely to the T.U.C. rejection, the authoritative “Financial Times” index of top share prices plunging to equal its lowest point this year. Many individual union leaders responded to Mr Heath’s proposals—unveiled on Tuesday night—with words like “ridiculous,” “laughable” and “totally unacceptable.” But Mr Vic Feather, head of the T.U.C., reacted more favourably and said that he hoped for some form of compromise “if the Government does the right thing.” Industrial observers thought that the T.U.C. counter-proposals might include demands for controls on rent, profits and dividends, and other measures to ensure a more equal distribution of wealth.