Workers back down on Ulster stoppage

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33539, 21 May 1974, Page 13

Workers back down on Ulster stoppage

(1V.ZP..4.-Reuter—Copyright) BELFAST, Mav 20.

Hard-line Protestant workers last night hacked down from a threatened confrontation with the Northern Ireland authorities over a total strike in support of political demands.

The Ulster Workers’ Council which claims to represent 300,000 workers, said that it would not enforce a total stoppage, scheduled for midnight, but would continue to withdraw labour from industry.

The council said that its members would continue to man the only one of Northern Ireland’s five power stations still operating, so as to maintain essential services, but only on condition that the British Government did not call in troops. The council’s decision came after long meetings in Belfast to discuss the decision earlier yesterday by Mr Merlyn Rees, Britain’s Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, to declare a state of emergency in the province.

There were unconfirmed reports that the Army had flown in 300 specialist engineers from units in West Germany, capable of taking over the running of the power stations if necessary. After the formal proclamation of the state of emergency, which took immediate effect and allows the Government to use troops to

maintain essential services,' Mr Rees flew to England for talks with the Prime Minister (Mr Wilson). A statement issued later said that Mr Wilson had endorsed .measures being taken to deal with the situation.

The strike now appears to be turning into a trial of strength between the workers’ council and the Government, with Mr Rees maintaining his refusal to meet

I representatives of the jU.W.C. who are demanding : new elections in the province as a condition for i returning to work. ) The council is bitterly [opposed to the coalition Pro-[testant-Catholic Government 'set up in Belfast by Britain, early this year, and sees this and last December’s Sunningdale Agreement to im-j prove links between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic as paving the way: for a take-over by the pre-. dominantly-Catholic South. I A U.W.C. spokesman last! night criticised the state of emergency, commenting: “It’s no good trying jackboot! tactics, we want an Assem-I bly election, and someone in the Government to talk to| us now.”

Electricity supplies in Northern Ireland yesterday were so low that at any given time two-thirds of the province was without power. Trade union leaders have been meeting over the weekend to try to arrange support for a march tomorrow in which unwilling strikers could return to work together and without fear of intimidation.

Mr Len Murray, the general secretary of Britain's Trades Union Congress, is expected in Belfast later today to assess the deteriorating industrial situation, which is costing Northern Ireland an estimated C4m a day.