Cabinet to face pay-code threat

Press, 16 January 1979, Page 6

Cabinet to face pay-code threat

NZPA-Reuter London The British Prime Minister (Mr James Callaghan) will today meet his Cabinet in an effort to find ways to edge the chaos of a nation-wide truck drivers’ strike which has already put half a million people out of work. It was estimated the figure could soar to two million by next week-end, crippling such industries as car am. chemical manufacturing, and putting food in short supply on supermarket shelves.

The country’s more than 100,000 haulage drivers struck last week over their demand for a 22 per cent pay rise, far above the Callaghan Government’s anti-in-flation policy of limiting rises to 5 per cent. The drivers have already turned down a 15 per cent offer.

The Cabinet was expected to concentrate on working out a pact with the strikers to ensure essential deliveries such as hospital supplies and animal feed get through. One Cabinet member, the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Michael Foot), said in a television interview on Sunday that it was unlikely that a state of emergency would be called because there was no possibility that servicemen could handle the work of all the striking drivers. The Transport and Genera] Workers’ Union secretary (Mr Moss Evans) said some road haulage firms were ready to pay the 22 per cent [rise the drivers are demandi ing giving Britons a glimmer of hope that a solution [might be found.

Mr Callaghan and his Ministers fear a pay-rise explosion that could inflict another period of high inflation on the vulnerable British economy. Recent pay rises, starting with Ford car workers late last year, have been around 15 per cent, three times the Government’s hoped-for figure