AEC lay off 3000 at their Southall plant

Production of trucks and buses at the British Leyland AEC Southall factory came to a stand-still last night when 3,000 workers, almost the entire labour force, were laid off. Supplies of gearboxes to the Southall plant have dried up be- cause of a strike by 800 men at another Leyland subsidiary, Thornycroft of Basingstoke. who stopped work when 46 of the workers were made redundant last month.

The Basingstoke factory supplies other British Leyland plants, but the company said yesterday that so far only Southall had been affected. Earlier this week some 500 production workers at Southall had to be laid off because of the Basingstoke dispute. The strikers there resumed work on June 13 but came out again two days later; because of the stoppage a further 200 men have been laid off at the gearbox plant.