BACK TO WORK

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 221, 15 June 1936, Page 9

BACK TO WORK

Strikers Returning In France IMPROVED POSITION Some Industries Still Affected By Telegraph—Press Assn.— Copyright. . (Received June 14, 6.30 p.m.) Paris, June 13. The strike situation has greatly improved, and strikers are everywhere returning to work. With the metal workers’ dispute settled. it is generally hoped that the back of the strike is broken. The employees in the Citroen and Renault works have formally evacuated the factories. The Renault employees, dressed in carnival costumes, held a procession of flower-laden taxi-cabs to celebrate their victory. Similar demonstrations took place in many suburbs. Work generally will be resumed, on Monday, although builders and painters, Parisian store assistants, insurance clerks and river and canal boatmen are still standing out. Paris dockers came out, joining the boatmen. Twelve hundred employees of the Nieuport aeroplane works have begun to stay in. The stoppage movement has spread to Morocco, where native sugar refiners and metal workers have struck. Government Declaration.

The Government declares that the industrial situation has improved. The strike in hotels and restaurants has been satisfactorily settled. The building trade strikers have been forbidden to parade, and no assemblies are permitted. A race meeting at St Cloud has been cancelled owing to the track workers striking without awaiting the authorities’ reply to their demands. , The most important individual settlement was the signature of a collective contract at the Ministry of the Interior by the employers and employees of the metallurgical industry A significant, development was the occupation of all the Paris town halls by armed mobile guards, who, however, are gendarmerie, and not soldiers. This action resulted from a conference between M. Blum, M. Salengro, Minister of the Interior, and'the Police Prefect, M. La Geron, which determined upon the preservation of order at all costs. Police Precautions. M. Blum declared that deputies and the Government are determined to enforce public order in view of the impression that suspicious external influences are operating, resulting in increased nervousness and a tendency to panic. Every strategic point, in the city has been occupied, demonstrating the Government’s anxiety to prevent rioting, buglers and mobile guards being on duty at the Montmarte-Drouot cross-roads ready to sound the firing alarm, namely, three warning blasts. Neglect of this warning by the crowds will produce a final blast, after which the guards are legally entitled to fire. Similar tense conditions prevail in all the great industrial areas. Many members of the Croix de Feu perambulated the streets <m a pretence of preserving order, but police refused their aid and arrested many of their number. The Bourse is steady, but the. franc has depreciated from 76.28 to 76.39. The Paris Municipal Council has resolved to decline all responsibility for any damage by strikes, the illegality of which the Government has recognised but has not attempted to condemn. The Ministry of. Labour announced the termination of the strikes in the cabinet-making, butchering, dressmaking, slop clothing and leather bag and trunk trades, while the metallurgical workers, builders, carpenters and locksmiths are expected to resume work on June 15. At Amiens the undertakers’ employees have struck, rendering funerals impossible. Lunatic asylum warders struck and left, the director single-handed. The inmates of a factory deliberately set fire to it, but the flames were extinguished by firemen.