15,000 Car Men Idle Soon

About 15,000 Midland car workers will be idle by tomorrow night because of the strike of 160 crane drivers and slingers which continued today at the British Motor Corporation's car body building factory of Fisher and Ludlow Limited, Birmingham.

Car body production at the factory is already at a standstill with over 7,000 workers laid off. Other factories which receive supplies of bodies from the factory are suffering from a growing dislocation. The effects of the strike grew throughout the day at the Austin factory at Longbridge, Birmingham, and about 1,500 day shift workers had to be sent home. Night shift production tonight was on a limited scale with some workers being laid off and others not fully employed.

An Austin official said that it was expected that by tomorrow night a total of between 4,000 and 5,000 workers would have been laid off.

Other factories affected are in Coventry. The Fisher and Ludlow factory at Tile Hill, where 800 are employed, is closing after tonight's shift, and the Standard Motor Company expect to have to lay off between 2,000 and 3,000 workers to-morrow. The dispute began on Friday when crane drivers and slingers on the night shift stopped work in support of a claim for an accident free bonus. They were joined by day shift workers on Monday. Since then there has been deadlock.