Wages too high-Carr

NO MENTION was made at yesterday's meeting between Tory ministers and Confederation of British Industry leaders of the £48-a-week wage increases announced for nationalized industry chairmen—or, for that matter, of the massive rises recently granted to some of their counterparts in the private sector.

Emphasis was all on the "serious economic difficulties' that would result from what Employment and Productivity Minister Robert Carr described as the continuing high level of factory-floor settlements.

'The paramount need of the time', ', said CBI president John Partridge at a press conference later, 'is for some cooling off of this fever of pay settlements. • and we've all got to see this is done.' The CBI will be: issuing a letter to all its members next week reporting the gist of its discussions with Carr, placing wages high on the agenda of next month's meeting of its governing council and organizing _a further meeting between the Minister and leading industrialists, probably in early September.

All these moves, said Partridge, would be directed towards implementing the policy agreed at the DEP.

The CBI, it was made clear yesterday, wants 'to ensure that as much emphasis as possible is laid on productivity in pay settlements'.

Sharp reactions to airport inquiry expected THE SECOND report of the munication and consultation'. for acting wrongly in engovernment-backed Committee Responsibility for the couraging industrial action of Inquiry into industrial rela- arousal of these 'groundless' against GAS and pursuing tions at London's Heathrow fears is laid on the BAA. policies of its own outside the Airport, published yesterday, British European Airways and constitutional channels'. comes down heavily in favour British Overseas Airways man- With de - nationalization of the British Airport agement and to 'a lesser fears heightened by the BUA Authority's grant of a ground- extent' on the trade unions. affair, a sharp reaction to the handling contract to the US- And the report slams the inquiry findings can be excontrolled agency General airport's unofficial shop pected from airport workers Aviation Services.

Following up Its Endings on the Heathrow firemen's disnute. published at the end of June, "the inquiry team sub- HUALUIINA HE LAIN VAILA mits the following findings on the GAS issue:

• The BAA's decision to encourage the establishment of an independent groundhandling service at Heathrow was 'reasonable and wellfounded'.

• There was 'nothing improper' about the Authority's choosing of the company.

• Fears of a threat to jobs, vages and conditions aroused amongst airport workers by the contract the Committee attributes to 'a failure in comstewards' liaison committee and their stewards. EMPLOYERS' and union representatives on the London docks modernization committee met yesterday and held what employers' chairman Walter Lewis later called 'a very constructive' discussion.

No definite date was fixed for the introduction of the second stage of Devlin in London, but the issue is to be discussed after the T&GWU's No 1 docks group and the NAS&D executive Special Powers pressure on Ulster premier MAJOR James Chichester-Clark, the N Ireland prime minister, returns from holiday in Spain at the weekend to face yet another government crisis. Right-wing Unionist backbenchers—-including Joseph Burns, chairman of the powerful 1966 committee-are demanding the rearming of the police and the activation of the Special Powers Act to allow internment of Republicans indefinitely and without trial.

on the issues of law difference of emphasis'.

return. mentalist co-thinkers there.

have met. of 'IRA men'.

Increases in holiday pay —to £33 10s—and sick pay —to £15 7s a week for the first two weeks and £8 7s for the next 12 weeks— were agreed at yesterday's meeting.

The review date for the of this government'.

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Dockers' scepticism will also be hardened by what modernization has done to the miners who were, in the early days of nationalization at least, one of the best-paid sectors of the working class.

Today the miners, despite a massive increase in productivity (9 per cent in 1968) and efficiency, do not eniov an eight-hour day and have to threaten a national strike to realize a £20 minimum wage for surface workers and £30 a week on the coal-face.

This is the price the miners have to pay for 20 years of Stalinist and centrist leadership and a Labour government which systematically uprooted thousands of miners by shutting down 600 pits.

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