5000 Idle At Morris Works

FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
OXFORD, JAN. 19

An unofficial strike of 300 hourly paid men and women at the radiators branch of Morris Motors Ltd., Oxford, who are asking for 6d. an hour increase to cut down the differential between their earnings and those of piece rate workers dislocated car production in Oxford to-day.

Later 150 skilled workers joined in. More than 5,000 car workers were idle at the end of the day. A majority of 3,500 of those affected are from Morris Motors car branch at Cowley, where at midday all the production lines apart from the Morris Minor and Mini-Minor were closed down. The 800 Morris Minor night-shift workers were told not to report for work to-night, but the Mini-Minor night- shift, which started for the first time on Monday, worked as usual.

The strikers at the radiator factory are asking for a bonus scheme to be tied to the rate of production, which at present is at the highest level ever attained by the factory.