Healey tells strikers he will not budge

Press, 27 January 1979, Page 8

Healey tells strikers he will not budge

(NZPA-Reuter London) i The British Chancellor of (the Exchequer (Mr Denis (Healey) has given notice he is sticking to his campaign to hold down wages, with a tough warning to workers striking for more pay. Mr Healey, architect of the Labour Government’s antiinflation strategy, told Parliament that if recent 15 per cent pay rises became universal, the nation could expect inflation to mount to 13 per cent by the end of the year. He appealed to unions to (“pause and reflect.” ! With industry' increasingly (hampered by a three-week-lold strike of lorry drivers, i and schools, hospitals, rail(ways, and other public ser(vices increasingly disrupted (by pay' strikes, prospects! for industrial harmony! seemed gloomy. More bad news for the,' Government came when authorities at iManchester’s international airport an- j nounced it would close down i because of industrial action by staff.

Vauxhall car-makers laid oft 750 workers and said a further 4000 would have to stop work as supplies of parts were being strangled by' the lorry drivers’ strike. But over-all the number of workers laid off because of the strike—some 200,000 to date—is far less than forecast last week by industrial and Government leaders. A gleam of hope for Mr Healey came from train drivers’ leaders who will today discuss new proposals from national trade-union chiefs with their union officials.. And striking hospital! workers announced they] would stop picketing drugs; and medical supplies for hospitals. On Wednesday' 60 patients suffering from cancer were sent home from Birmingham Hospital, though the pickets said the move was unnecessary. A sign of the growing bit-1 terness of the strike season was the refusal by an ortho- j paedic surgeon, Patrick ( Chesterman, to treat trade unionists. “It was a spur of the moment industrial ac-l

tion. I formed myself into a picket line,” he said today.

Dr Chesterman, who works at Battle Hospital, in Reading, west of London, called off his action later. One of the men he refused to treat was a postal worker whose union said it was taking legal advice. Mr Healey, who together with the Prime Minister (Mr James Callaghan) is the main proponent of the Government’s policy of restricting wage rises to 5 per cent through persuasion, has seen (inflation drop from over 20 (per cent in 1974 to single figures last year. | He said that general 15 per cent pay* settlements would cause the loss of 100.000 public sector jobs, bankrupt some small firms! and increase local taxes. He was speaking in a debate on the Government’s! (handling of Britain’s Indus-1 trial unrest. The Government) won a vote at the end of the' (debate by 16 votes. All the striking workers want, increases far in excess lof 5 per cent.