Sparks march over pay hold-up

Workers Press no. 970, 13 January 1973 · scan page 13

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FROM PHILIP WADE ABOUT 500 London contracting electricians working on building sites in the central area went on strike yesterday in protest against the government order stopping their wage rise.

After a meeting in Blackfriars they marched several miles through London to Highbury to lobby the area office of the Electrical and Plumbing Trades Union.

A resolution was handed in demanding support for any action the electricians might take against the Tory order.

Rises of between £2.80 and £3.20 for 70,000 contracting electricians due on January 3 as the final part of a long-term Joint Industry Board agreement were stopped by Maurice Macmillan, Tory Employment Secretary.

Said a St Thomas's hospital worker: 'Labourers are getting £40 for a 40-hour week. Yet the electricians are working over 60 hours to get £30.

'Now we're not only fighting the JIB but the government as well. We want both of them out,' he added.

BRIEFLY • BRIEFLY COMMUNIQUE released after the Pompidou-Brezhnev meeting (p. 11) said they were deeply concerned about the continuing war in Vietnam, foreign intervention in the conflict and the delay in making a political settlement. It called for a resumption of efforts by the United Nations special envoy, Dr Gunnar Jarring, to solve the Arab-Israeli crisis. Brezhnev is to visit Paris.

TUG company Cory Lighterage, London, yesterday sued the Transport and General Workers' Union in the High Court because strike action has been threatened if it allows a man who has resigned from the union to work.

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