Union Move To End B.M.C. Stoppage

FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
BIRMINGHAM, Nov. 18

Officials of the Transport and General Workers' Union moved quickly today to avert a serious stoppage of British Motor Corporation production as a result of the latest unofficial strike to affect the organization.

After a two-hour meeting with shop stewards at the Midland headquarters of the union it was announced that a recommendation for a return to work would be put tomorrow to the 220 press shop workers who downed tools yesterday at the car body factory of Nuffield Metal Products at Washwood Heath, Birmingham. By tonight 3,300 workers had been laid off.

Mr J. Williams, regional engineering trade group secretary of the union, said they believed they had a formula to resolve the dispute.

The men claim that work on the wheel arch assembly for the Morris Minor is being revised and that the piece-work rate should be changed, but the management contend that shop stewards have accepted the rate.

A deputation of strikers went to the management today and offered to return to work if immediate negotiations were started on the piecework rate or if a rate fixer was put on to re-price the work. The management refused. As a result 2,500 workers were laid off and Morris Motors at Cowley also had to send home more than 800 workerkers engaged on the Morris Minor line. The night shift on this line was working normally tonight.

300 CAR WORKERS SENT HOME
Three hundred production workers employed at the Coventry factory of Jaguar Cars, Ltd., were sent home yesterday because 100 men employed in the paint shop decided to work to rule in a dispute over piecework rates. Production of Jaguar Mark Nine cars was affected by a shortage of bodies. Other production lines were unaffected.