Thousands Of Car Workers Go Home

FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
BIRMINGHAM, JAN. 2

On a day of snow showers and freezing rain. supplies of car bodies to motor manufacturers in the Midlands were again seriously reduced. The Pressed Steel Company said today that the supply of car bodies from their factory at Swindon had been reduced to "a trickle". Supplies from the company's Cowley factory have also been reduced.

At Swindon 700 men in the assembly department were sent home during the day, and at Cowley another 850 were laid off in the afternoon. Because of the shortage of car bodies from Swindon, production of the Morris 1100 at Oxford stopped at midday. Seven hundred workers were sent home.

In Birmingham production of the Austin A60 was resumed again this morning, but stopped at lunchtime. Five hundred workers were laid off.