Callaghan seeks union backing

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34138, 27 April 1976, Page 21

Callaghan seeks union backing

(N.Z.P. A. -Reuter—Copyright) LONDON, April 26. Amid increasing alarm about the weakness of sterling, the new British Labour Prime Minister (Mr Callaghan) has urged the country’s trade unions to accept his Government’s call for a curb on wage rises this year.

* He has asked them to accept, “freely, and without subterfuges or attempts to 1 by-pass it,” the Govern- * ment’s offer of tax con--3 cessions in return for an agreement to keep all wage rises to a 3 per cent limit. Mr Callaghan told a gathering of trade unionists in Blackpool: “From the response we have had it is certain that the Government and the trade unions will succeed in reaching a new agreement which will enable us to take another giant stride in our fight to overcome inflation and safeguard jobs.” 3 Trades Union Congress . leaders are believed to be on -j the verge of accepting a a compromise half-way between the 3 per cent pro- ' posed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr Denis Healey) in his spring Budget

oland the 5 per cent requested t in the first union response o to the overture. Mr Callaghan said that by i- holding to last year’s flatn rate wage rise of £6 a week e — a limit of about 10 per cent — Britain had won an i- important battle against n inflation, but it still had to ■-iwin the "war.” si "Britain has taken a giant itl stride towards breaking the lb stranglehold of inflation, and v has escaped the treadmill of e! disaster reflected in the huge t wage rises, a year ago, of - sometimes as much as 40 d per cent, that simply fuelled inflation.” Mr Callaghan s said. n "Prices were rising at an a annual rate of 36 per cent in - the first half of 1975, but - during the last six months f the increase has been cut s back to barely 15 per cent t on an annual basis.’’