FORD PLANTS HELD UP

Hawera Star, Volume LII, 30 January 1933, Page 5

FORD PLANTS HELD UP

STRIKE OF BODY BUILDERS. EARLY RESUMPTION HOPED. (Dinted Press Association-By Electric Telegraph Copyright..) DETROIT, Jan. 28. The Ford Motor Company plants throughout the United States were shut down yesterday, throwing 150,000 men out of work because of a strike of employees of the Briggs Manufacturing Company, which is manufacturing bodies: for the new Ford automobiles.

While Briggs officials negotiated with their employees m an attempt to re-open the works, Mr. Henry Ford himself laid a charge in the course of a trans-Atlantic interview with the London “Evening Standard” that "certain of my competitors are operating against me supported by certain bankers with the object of preventing another Ford automobile from leaving the factory; They have succeeded for a few hours, but I will fight them and prove production cannot be stopped.” Mi”. Ford’s associates here admitted the interview was substantially correct, but refused to amplify it. Mr. Ford later visited the Briggs plant, where he conferred with rff;Cials. Subsequently notices were _ pasted'announcing pay increases, which it is believed will prove satisfactory- to the strikers. It is estimated the Ford shut down is causinor losses approximating £200,000 a day. None of Ihe foreign Ford plants is affected, however. New York reports that AVall Street s reaction to Mr. Ford’s charge was that the big banking interests had “too many other things on hand” to be interesting themselves in Mr. Ford s Mr. "Ford to-day saicj the difficulties in the local body plants that resulted in the suspension of work in his factories was not a strike; it was rn attack on the Ford industries. £ One way or another our plants will he .going again full-tilt in a very short time Mr. Ford said. Previously officials of the Ford conipany declared substantially correct the statement credited to Mr. Ford that certain of his competitors who were operating against him were iesponsible for the suspension of work rendering 100,000 men idle. AVhen the Ford Company announced the suspension yesterday it stated, it no longer could continue production without the bodies furnished by the Briggs Manufacturing Company. Ihe Briggs plants were closed early in the week following a walk-out of 6000 employees. . ~ Officials of the Ford Company said to-day that they expected the Briggs strike to end on Monday. The v dochired that within six hours after the strike ended the Ford plants throughout the United States would resume.