Morris Wants More Night Work

FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
OXFORD, JAN. 15

The future of the Cowley car factories at Oxford could be affected by the outcome of talks being held between the management and unions about a proposal to extend night-shift working to meet big increases in production at Morris Motors, a company spokesman said today.

He said that unless extra night shifts could be started the future of Cowley and the livelihood of the people working there would be in jeopardy. The company wants another 1,000 men to work alternately on days and nights from February because of the expected demand at home and overseas in the next few months for the Morris 1100 and other cars cars assembled at Cowley.

Today the senior shop stewards reported to the company the result of a meeting yesterday of the 1,000 men involved at which they were told of the company's proposals.

"It was decided that there should be further discussions with the company and these are now taking place"  the spokesman said. " The proposals for more night-shift working have not been accepted -nor have they been rejected."

This was the first step towards working a night shift on models produced at the factory.  Nuffield Exports at Cowley now has bigger order books than at any time in the past five years.