STAY-IN STRIKES

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 45, 9 March 1937, Page 14

STAY-IN STRIKES

The Trouble in France ADDRESS TO ROTARIANS Antagonism between the Socialisij and Communist sections of the party in power was the cause of the serious labour strikes in Erance last year, a> cording to M. Louis Brandt, of Switzer* land, the speaker at yesterday 's lunch* eon of the Napier Botary Club. H«f came into close contact with the un« rest while working at an alarm-cloclc factory on the outskirts of Paris. It was a peculiar fact, he said, that thtf trouble should have occurred after the large majority of the people of Pranca had elected a Labour Government for the first time in the history of tha country, At the end of May last a few strikes occurred in the suburbs of Paris, and just before the Whitsuntide holidaj; there were rumours of the trouble spreading to the ^larm-clock factory where M. Brandt was working. At the end of the previous strikes, workmen had been replaced by others, with the result that the decision was reached on the second occasion to make the strike a stay-in one. The foreman, employees, managers and departmental heads were locked behind closed doors for 10 days, but the directors were «allowed absolute freedom. Por the most part, moreover, the demands of the men were impossible^ "I was involved in one of the fighta on the ,rst day," he added. "I tried to help an accountant when he endeavoured to climb over one of the factory, gates, but he was roughly pulled down. The men were very careful indeed about the machinery and plant and would not allow visitors- to enter the machine rooms. In the end the direc* tors had to grant them practically, everything they asked for." Happily there was no bloodshed durn ing the strike so far as M. Brandt 's factory was concerned; and the manner in which the men took complete charga of the plant was an amusing feature.