Strike Stops Work On Mini-Minor

FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
OXFORD, MARCH 8

Three hundred and fifty men on the Mini-Minor line at the Cowley factory of Morris Motors Limited were sent home at noon today because of a breakdown in supplies. The cause of the breakdown is a stoppage at the Morris Motors Limited tractors and transmissions branch at Birmingham, which caused the 700 men working the day and night shifts on the Mini-Minor at Cowley to be sent home yesterday.

The Birmingham men returned to work this morning. but later walked out again. There will be no work for day or night shift Mini-Minor workers at Cowley until further notice, said a British Motor Corporation spokesman in Oxford today.

"This has disrupted the normal pipeline of supplies just at a time when production was being stepped up ", he said. The Birmingham dispute affects 55 machinists producing components for the rear suspension of the Austin Seven and the Mini-Minor. They stopped work on Friday over piece-work prices and were joined by 18 night shift workers.

WORK STOPS AT ROVER'S MAIN FACTORY
Production at the four strike-hit Rover Car Company component factories in Birmingham was at a complete standstill yesterday, and in the afternoon 2,200 production workers at the main factory at Solihull, Warwickshire, were sent home. All production of cars and Landrover vehicles was suspended until Monday.