Strike By 200 Car Body Workers

FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
OXFORD, MARCH 13

A strike of 200 workers on British Motor Corporation car body production at the Pressed Steel Company, Cowley, today brought work to a standstill on the one and a half litre Farina range at the neighbouring Morris Motors factory when the assembly lines had to be closed. Nine hundred men on production of the Morris Oxford, Wolseley 16/50, Riley 4/68 and M.G. Magnette were sent home.

The strike at Pressed Steel is by men on the line which feeds B.M.C. car bodies into Morris Motors on an overhead conveyor. It arises over the introduction of extra labour into the gangs to increase production after the easing of the recession in the motor industry.

A B.M.C. spokesman said the 900 Morris Motors men would report back for work tomorrow, by which time it was to be hoped that the men on unofficial strike at the Pressed Steel Company would have resumed work.

"lt is a great pity that these interruptions should be occurring at a time when we are trying to build up production to meet the improvements in demand."

The 700 Mini-Minor workers at Morris Motors, who have been laid off because of a strike at B.M.C.'s Tractor and Transmissions branch in Birmingham, will resume work on both day and night shifts tomorrow.

"But for these unofficial stoppages, all the men concerned would have been on a five-day week this week,"  said the spokesman.

Two thousand workers at Rover company plants at Birmingham yesterday voted support for a strike which has halted production at four factories making components. The strike was begun by 65 inspectors at a Rover component factory in Acocks Green, Birmingham, two weeks ago. More than 150 inspectors at three other plants stopped work in sympathy, and 2,000 production workers refused to handle work which had not been inspected.

All production on cars and Landrovers at the main Rover assembly plant in Solihull, Birmingham, stopped last Thursday. Yesterday, however, 1,000 of the 2,200 laid off at Solihull resumed work on the Landrover assembly lines. Yesterday's meeting passed a resolution supporting the inspectors in "their fight for better wages ".

The workers will meet again this morning.