Word: slowdowns
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Dates: during 1970-1970
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Capitulating to growing public anger and to popular support for the Conservative government's hard-line stand against inflationary wage increases, the 125,000 Electrical Trades Union (E.T.U.) workers abandoned their crippling power slowdown. While the E.T.U. power men did not give up their demands (a $13.92 increase over current average weekly earnings of $57.60), they submitted to adjudication of their wage claims by a Special Court of Inquiry charged with formally taking the national interest into account...
...success in preserving his hard line has for the moment given pause to imminent inflationary wage claims by other nationalized public workers, including employees of Britain's railway, post office and waterworks. It has also increased his personal popularity. A Gallup poll taken during the E.T.U. slowdown indicated that 45% of the populace approved of Heath's performance as Prime Minister, while 42% were dissatisfied-a dramatic reversal of the 39% v. 45% showing last month...
Spasm of Cost Cutting. When 1970 began, few corporate chiefs foresaw a slowdown as great as the one that occurred. They reacted with a spasm of cost cutting, which Federal Reserve Chairman Arthur Burns calls "more widespread and more intense" than at any time since World War II. Unprofitable products were dropped, inefficient factories closed, research projects curtailed, advertising budgets pruned. It was the year of the layoff. Labor hoarding gave way to payroll paring at every level. Liaison men, coordinators and other functionaries with fuzzily defined duties proved to be particularly vulnerable. Layers of superfluous executives, built up over...
...first there was some sympathy for the normally reasonable, well-led electrical workers, who were using the slowdown to try to gain a wage increase of $13.92 over their current average weekly earnings of $57.60. The E.T.U. workers felt that their markedly increased productivity had not been amply rewarded. Moreover, they knew−and resented−the Tory government's desire to make them a test case of an election pledge to fight inflation by curbing wage increases in nationalized industries. Heeding Prime Minister Edward Heath's feelings, the Electricity Council held fast to an offer...
Solid Bone. The angry populace soon retaliated. Dentists and doctors turned away electrical workers who tried to take advantage of the slowdown by scheduling appointments. Stores, bars and gas stations refused to serve them. A bus conductor told one power man: "Your lot have put me to a stack of inconvenience. Get off and walk." One of the few signs of support came from unionized workers at London's Evening Standard who walked out and halted late editions in protest against a drawing they considered objectionable. The cartoon pictured the E.T.U. worker as "Homo-electrical-sapiens Britannicus, circa...