Strikers abuse union

Press, 3 April 1980, Page 7

Strikers abuse union

NZPA London Bfitain’s longest national strike in half a century has ended with the order to steelmen to get back to work today. The' 13-week-old stoppage ended in violence, anger, and accusation. Furious steel pickets turned on their union leaders who were spat on and kicked as they left the peace talks. The • executives of the two main unions in the long and bitter dispute voted to accept the near 16 per cent pay offer recommended by the three-man inquiry headed by Lord Lever. But to many of the pickets waiting in the rain outside the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation ’ ?. headquarters: in London?* it-was a’ : "rotten sell , out” - because it was short' of the nearly 20 per cent they were seeking. However,'.it was far above the 6 per , cent the . company • had offered ;• when - the strike. started? The ''company 1 ’ later went’ up to an'" "absolute limit” ■ dt a 14.4 per cent rise

with productivity' bonuses. As- soon as the news was announced -steel .-> workers charged into the union building .arid, tried, to storm the room where the central negotiating ” committee ’ was meeting. Fighting broke'out and as it spilled on to the. streets outside police reinforcements were called in. Scotland Yard said later that three men had been arrested and charged with threatening behaviour. Burly pickets from South Wales and Yorkshire turned their anger on waiting journalists and television camera crews, who were manhandled out of the building. At least one media employee was knocked to the ground, y Bill'Sirs, moderate leader of the striking. union, Summed up,the end to the strike as “a momentous day.” He assessed the final package as being worth 18 per cent. t-Mr Sirs said the general executive of his union and the-blast furnacemen’s union had passed a vote of no confidence ’ in management of

British Steel. The two executives had also called, for a full-scale court of inquiry into the running of British Steel, ? '■ . ■ ' Mr Sirs said that the anger of some of the- strikers over the settlement was understandable since they felt it had fallen short of their desired 20 per cent target, for which they had stood on picket lines in foul weather for 13 weeks. The managing director of British Steel’s Teesside division, Derek Saul, put the cost to the corporation nationally of the strike at between $299M and 5322 M. British Steel was already' losing about 52.2 M a day when the strike began. Industry observers say the strike, has shown that steel is no longer one of the lynchpins of Britain’s economy. Mrs Thatcher has described it as one of “yesterday’s industries.” . Observers feel it is mnI likely that British Steel can lever win back the 10 per [cent share of the United I Kingdom market it has lost.