Word: heath
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Britain. January 1972. Prime Minister Edward Heath declares that he will not give in to a 25% wage hike demanded by British coal miners because it is far beyond his 8% national wage guidelines. The miners strike for seven weeks, causing power blackouts, layoffs of tens of thousands of other workers and widespread industrial chaos. Finally, Heath appoints a special commission to arbitrate the miners' demands. The commission recommends a 21% wage increase. Both sides accept. The crisis is settled...
...Heath must find a resolution soon. Politicians, economists and businessmen warned last week that time is running out for Britain's beleaguered economy. As the country wound up its third three-day work week, the costs in lost production soared to nearly $1 billion. Critics were quick to point out that the annual wage settlement sought by the miners totaled only $200 million. On the international money markets, the pound fell to $2.16, its lowest value ever against the American dollar. Nearly a million Britons had lined up for the dole. Said Lord Stokes, chairman of British Leyland...
Late last week that message seemed to be getting through. Amid alarming reports that steel shortages would have a crippling effect on industry, Lord Carrington, Heath's new energy czar, said that full electrical power would be restored to the steel industry. At the same time, Carrington announced that the government was considering extending the work week to four days. Union lead ers promptly charged that the emergen cy measures had been a "gigantic bluff'; others questioned whether the ease-up was a ploy before calling an election. Carrington denied...
...Heath's actions have already caused hardship among Britain's working class, which averages the longest hours per week (44.1) and the shortest vacation per year (twelve days) of any nation in the European Community. Reduced paychecks simply would not stretch to meet mortgage, food and time payments. "One minute we was a normal person," said Birmingham Shop Steward John Joynson. "Now the whole world is turned upside down." The number of emigration applications of Britons asking to leave the country has soared...
...predicted that all would be rosy when Britain's North Sea oil fields gush in, Gordon Richardson, recently named governor of the Bank of England, warned that the country still faces "years of relative austerity." Reason: Britain had been living beyond its means and importing too much under Heath's failed gamble for growth. As it happened, that was just what Harold Wilson was saying. Sharpening up his campaign strategy, the Labor leader charged that it was not the miners who had brought on the crisis but the government's economic mis management...