BRITISH TRADES UNIONS

Evening Star, Issue 21820, 8 September 1934, Page 13

BRITISH TRADES UNIONS

THE ANNUAL CONGRESS DEMAND FOR SHORTER WORKING WEEK (British Official Wireless.) Press Association —By Telegraph—Copyright RUGBY, September 6. The Trades Union Congress at Weymouth carried a resolution unanimously urging the General Council to consider putting into operation methods by which the activities of the Interna-, tional Labour Office should become better known to the working classes of this country, and that the necessary pressure be brought Upon the Government in power to ratify the conventions agreed to from time to 'time by the International Labour Office. This ’ decision was reached following a discussion on the demand for a forty-hour working week as*a means of reducing unemployment. . ' A resolution declaring that a shorter working week was essential and made possible by continuous employment of machinery and methods of production, and instructing the General Council to use every means to induce the Government to adopt a forty-hour working week without a reduction of wages or earnings, was carried. The congress overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to include a general strike in the programme of opposition to war, preferring to decide on the course of action if and when a threat of war arises.

The congress decided in favour of a system of collective peace.