New Strike Threat To B.M.C. Output

FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT
BIRMINGHAM, OCT. 28

Car output by the British Motor Corporation is threatened yet again by an unofficial stoppage at a component factory.

Production at the S.U. Carburettor Company's works at Erdington, Birmingham, which supplies most of the carburettors used in B.M C. cars, has been brought to a standstill by a strike of 160 hourly-paid workers, mostly viewers, labourers, maintenance men and store keepers. About 300 piece workers had to be laid off today because of the strike which the company, one of the B.M.C. group describe as " completely unconstitutional."

An official of the Austin Motor Company said that the Longbridge factory was working as usual but that the strike, if prolonged. would affect car production. The strikers, more than half of whom are women, complain that time workers pay rates at the factory have not kept pace with average earnings for similar work throughout the B.M.C. organization. Shop stewards representing the members of three unions, the Amalgamated Engineering Union, the Transport and General Workers' Union and the General and Municipal Workers' Union, have asked for a pay increase of 6d. an hour. The management have offered, instead, to revise the production bonus, but this was not acceptable to the strikers.