The Oxygen Strike

Wembley September 30 Tue representatives of ten Transport and General Workers’ Union branches met today in a public house just outside the British Oxygen Company factory at Wembley. Brother E. Green, chairman of the strike committee, said that he would answer five questions from the Press. The first was the amount of support they were receiving. Bro. Green said there were ten branches present and they had 100 per cent. support from all members.

He said that contrary to Press reports the claim for a 6d. an hour increase on the basic wage of £10 14s. for a 44-hour week had been made in October 1958. Bro. Green said that the men had reached the end of their patience because the claim was made so long ago and they were not prepared to wait any longer. They had gone through all the machinery for wage negotiations.

He went on to say that the dispute had nothing to do with ; ; the general election announcement and the men had handed in their strike notices on September 17.

One of the strikers, a mechanical worker at Wembley gave this interview to The Newsletter.

‘First of all the strike is not a wildcat one. We gave in our strike notices 11 days before the strike began.

‘The strike began in Wolverhampton where the men said -Continued on page 280, col. 2

186 Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4 Telephone Macaulay 7029 SATURDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1959 NEWS has begun to trickle through from the VolksFar from the BOC strikers menacing Labour’s chances they have placed on the agenda of the election the whole future of the working class, because what they fight for is an improvement in their conditions at a time when the employers are on the offensive.

This is the reason for the united front between the TUC, the Tory Party and Fleet Street. They don’t like