British Leyland toolmakers end strike

By R. W. Shakespeare

The unofficial strike by British Leyland toolmakers, which has cost the company about £15m worth of lost production during the past month and led to the cancellation of a valuable overseas contract, is to end on Monday. A majority of the 600 strikers decided at a mass meeting at the Castle Bromwich plant to accept the recommendation of both union officials and shop stewards for a return to work.

Toolroom workers have now accepted the precise terms that British Leyland proposed at the outset of the strike. About 15,000 other British Leyland workers have been laid off for varying periods during the past month and production of both Mini and Jaguar cars has been stopped. A contract worth £300,000 from the new South Korean motor industry for machine tools which would have been made at the Castle Bromwich plant has been lost.

Last night a British Leyland spokesman said there would have to be a phased return to work from Monday of the 4,200 workers laid off from the Castle Bromwich body plant and the 4,700 laid off from the Mini assembly lines at Longbridge, Birmingham.