STRIKES IN BELGIUM

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 June 1936, Page 7

STRIKES IN BELGIUM

COAL & STEEL STOPPAGE CLASHES WITH POLICE [BY CABLE—PRESS ASSN, —COPYBIGHT.] BRUSSELS, June 16. The strike is general in the coalmining and steel industries. Strikers, making an effort to prevent the trams running at Liege, repeatedly clashed with the police who twice charged with drawn sabres. Three police were wounded by pistol shots in an affray at Rocour, suburb of Liege. Three were seriously injured at Saint Walburge, resisting an. attack of 200 miners. The municipality withdrew the trams, following the strikers’ threat to set fire to them. TROOPS AT WORK. (Received June 17. 2 p.m.) LONDON, June 16. The “Telegraph’s” Brussels correspondent says .that troops, are working the electric supply services, and will also be drafted to other public utilities.

A total of 3,500 shoemakers have struck at Mons. They are demanding a pension of £5O annually at sixty. The Ghent dockers are joining the strikers. PUBLIC SUPPORT MINERS. (Recd. June 17, 2 p.m.) LONDON, June 16. “The Times’s” Brussels correspondent says that the public generally sympathise with the strikers, especially the miners, w-ho have suffered severely in the depression, increased cost of living following the devaluation of the franc. Their aims are similar to those of the French strikers, namely, 10 per cent, increase in wages 40-hour week, and paid for annual holidays. The incident precipitating the strike was an employer fining a miner onefifth of his day’s wages, for a trivial offence; Twenty-one strikers, were arrested at Liege.

OIL SUPPLIES. BRUSSELS, June 16. The Belgian strikers induced the Ardennes workers to quit the oil refinery. The standstill causes anxiety over national defence supplies, since, it is necessary that the daily quota of 11,000 tons should be reduced to 4000 tons. FRENCH STOPPAGES. (Recd. .Time 17, 2 p.m.) PARIS, June 16. Sixteen vessels are held up in the harbour at. Nantes, where 15,000 men have ceased work. Department stores are closed, the building industry is at a standstill, and the petrol refineries have stopped working, while the Department store and slaughterhouse workers at Lyons, are still idle. WORKERS’ GREAT GAINS. (Received June 17, 2.30 p.m.) PARIS, June 16.

The Senate has begun a debate on M. Blum’s strike bills, which are estimated to entail an expenditure of £18,600,000 a year. M. Jouhaux, General Secretary of the Trades Union Council, declares that French Labour made up twenty years’ leeway in one night, namely on Juno 7. The union membership is now 2,600,000. The collective agreement affects seven million wage earners, of whom SO per cent, were previously ignorant of union organisation, necessitating extensive tutelage. Thirty-two thousand of the fifty thousand still idle in Paris, occupy the department stores and one price shops. Employees of insurance companies, perfumes and leathergoods houses are expected to resume to-morrow. Tho trouble is extending to Brittany.

IN ALGIERS. ALGIERS, June 16. Farmers are appealing for protection against bands of Arabs, who are roaming the countryside, forcing labourers to cease work, and damaging farms and livestock. Many of these agitators have been arrested. SPREAD IN MOROCCO. CASABLANCA, June 16. The strike movement is growing in Morocco.- The building trade workers at Cassablanca occupied 70 yards. The metallurgical industry is affected. SPANISH PRINTERS. BARCELONA, June 16. The printing trades, excluding the newspapers, have struck. The authorities are endeavouring to avert a strike of shop employees.