BRITISH SHIPPING STRIKE

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31081, 9 June 1966, Page 17

BRITISH SHIPPING STRIKE

Possible Extension To N.Z. Ports (N.Z P.A. Reuter —Copyright) LONDON, June 8. The British Government will meet shipowners and union leaders today in a new bid to end the 23-day-old seamen’s strike. The seamen’s leaders will be shown terms of compromise proposals made by an independent court of inquiry for ending the walk«out, which is crippling British trade. The Labour Minister, Mr Ray Gunter, called union officials and shipowners for separate talks on the four-man court’s recommendations.

The court is expected to recommend that the shipowners step up their offer of a 13 per cent pay increase over three years, which the men have turned down. But it will not back the men’s demand for an immediate 40-hour week. The reaction of the nation’s 62,000 seamen will decide whether the strike, which has already laid up more than 700 ships at British ports, drags on through the summer. The strike has already cost Britain millions of pounds worth of foreign trade. There was little optimism that today’s meetings would lead to an early return to work. The seamen are taking a tough line and decided yesterday to spread the strike beyond Britain. Seamen Angered They are angered because tanker owners are beating the strike by using foreign vessels to bring in oil usually carried by British ships. The union will retaliate by trying to stop all ships which carry the British flag, in all parts of the world. Yesterday’s report said that Australian and New Zealand waterside workers would be

asked to "black” British ships in their ports. The seamen also decided to ask British dockers not to handle foreign-flag ships trading along the British coast. This would affect Dutch, German, Belgian and Scandinavian vessels. The two moves by the seamen make a head-on clash between the union and the government almost inevitable. Since the seamen called their strike at midnight on May 15 there has been a slow run-down of British shipping around the world. As the British ships arrive

in a British port they are tied up in the strike, but foreign ships continue unimpeded except for the growing problem of finding docking in some ports.

In Wellington the Prime Minister (Mr Holyoake) said at a press conference today that if New Zealand waterside workers agreed to blacklist British ships in their ports, there could be serious consequences for New Zealand.

“I would naturally hope the request will not be agreed to,” he said.