Strikes

FRIDAY-NIGHT STRIKES CALLED OFF

Members of the National Union of Vehicle Builders at two Birmingham factories of. the British Motor Corporation have decided to end their unofficial Friday- night strikes in support of a demand for a four-night working week. The strikes. which began on April 1. are estimated to have cost nearly £5m. worth of vehicles.

700 Morris Workers Sent Home
FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
OXFORD, AUG. 12

Nearly 600 men were sent home from the factory of Morris Motors at Cowley, Oxford today after an unofficial stoppage by 110 men on the No. 1 paint line, who, it is understood, were dissatisfied with the rate at which bodies were being supplied to them.
The men sent home were told to report back for work on Monday. At the neighbouring Pressed Steel Company's plant workers on the Morris Oxford line were also sent home at lunchtime.

Earlier an unofficial strike by 14 men at the B.M.C. factory of Nuffield Metal Products, Birmingham, resulted in 100 employees of the Morris works at Cowley being sent home and told to report on Monday. The effect of the strike by men engaged in building cabs for the quarter- ton van-was to stop production on the van line at Cowley. A B.M.C. spokesman in Birmingham said:
"It means the loss of about 700 units a day which are normally sent to Morris Motors Cars branch at Cowley for assembly into complete vehicles.

"Because of excessive absenteeism after the holiday we could not man the line fully, and the labour was dispersed temporarily to other work. The men dispersed demanded a guarantee of their average piecework earnings. But this is not the usual management procedure in these cases."