Chapple's 'act of faith'

Workers Press no. 328, 15 December 1970 · scan pages 2, 5

Title, by-line and extent checked against the scan: front page col. 2, 'By a political reporter', continued on printed page 4 col. 9; it had been welded into the editorial beside it and the lead. Re-read by machine OCR on the column alone and corrected against the scan, 20 October 2026. The text is still machine-read, in the order the machine read the columns; for anything you quote, read the scan.

UNION LEADERS called off the power industry work-to-rule yesterday 'as an act of faith to the nation'.

Despite their opposition to government's insistence that terms of reference for the Court of Inquiry into their £5 16s claim should include consideration of the national economy, chief union negotiator Frank Chapple said that the unions were not prepared to be 'doctrinaire over two or three words'.

They later 'reluctantly' agreed to the words.

Members in the power stations would be told to start normal working forthwith and the unions said that they expected normal working throughout the country by yesterday evening.

Chances of a wage settlement any more than shillings above the existing £2 offer by the Electricity Council must now be very remote.

In a statement issued after their three-hour meeting at the Electricity Council's headquarters yesterday, the unions said that they had unanimously agreed to withdraw the work-to-rule and overtime ban.

Carr later told the House of Commons that the inquiry would also take into account the industry's productivity record. Some 25,000 jobs have been sold by the union leaders in the last three years alone.

As a contemptuous sop to the union chiefs, the government is understood to have substituted the phrase 'national economy' in the Court's proposed brief for an earlier formulation about the need to combat inflation.

Economy

'It is felt that these words show the continuation of the government's intervention in this dispute in the pursuit of a reactionary and repressive economic policy,' said the unions' statement.

'We have not got justice,' commented Chapple, 'but we want to give the nation a fair shake.

'We are not going to argue about words for doctrinaire reasons, which is the position of the government', he added.

After their meeting at the Electricity Council, Chapple led a four-man union delegation to the Department of Employment where they met Employment Secretary Robert Carr to finalize arrangements for the Court of Inquiry.

Speaking in the Commons, shadow Minister Mrs Castle welcomed the 'statesmanship' of the unions in calling off the work-to-rule and 'the wisdom of the government in setting up this Court of Inquiry.'