The Times
Saturday July 30 1932
Weavers'Wages
Indecisive Joint Conference
Effect of Burnley Strike
From Our Own Correspondent
Manchester July 29
The joint negotiations on wages in the manufacturing section of the cotton industry have survivied another long day of exchanges and discussions between the represntative bodies on each side, and are now adjourned till Tuesday afternoon.
The employers last Monday first asked for 30 per cent. off the 82 1/2 per cent. Then they abated this to 25 per cent. The operatives' representatives replied that they wer prepared to recommend "a reduction of the percentage on to 70 above standard." As to-day's conversations have failed to produce any variation in these figures, matters remain now, and will continue at least until Tuesday, exactly at the point reached soon after the present series of joint talks opened. The only positive advance is represented by the fact that the parties are still in contact, and will continue so for some days yet, and that the employers have thrown out a tentative hint that a concession by the operatives would be met with a corresponding concession by them.
Hopes of Resistance
There has, however, been a change for the worse in the situation outside the joint conference room. One of the events recorded in previous messages in The Times this week, the success of the unions in Burnley in stopping the mills in that town and the immediately surrounding district because the employers have generally sought to impose a reduction of 12 1/2 per cent., has revived over the whole of Lancashire the hopes of those operatives' representatives who all along have advocated resistance to wage reduction. Until events in Burnley showed the possibility of this resistance being effective the employers' battle for reduction appeared to be nearly won. Particularly in Blackburn and the neighbouring towns, weavers had continued to work at the new terms imposed by their employers, against the advice of their unions, and there had been no serious attempt by the union officials to prevent the operatives working.
It was on the outskirts of Burnley that it was first found by the unions that they could successfully intimidate workers who wished to accept the lower rates proposed by their employers as the condition of continuing their work at all. Then, when firms in Burnley itself began to post notices of departure from the wage rates formally abandoned after June 11, the principal unions in the Burnley Textile Trades Federation determined on their own repsonsibility to call out all their members from mills where the employers were seeking to impose the new rates. The strike call was very widely obeyed in the town, and in three days of this week the unions succeeded in bringing every mill to a standstill.
Emboldened by this success, the extremists of resistance in other parts of the county have again made themselves heard, this time renewing their original demand for a general stoppage of cotton-weaving establishments thoughtout the county.
The Burnley strike is a strike against a cut of about 12 1/2 per cent. in real wages, which is what the combined employers are asking for in the present negotiations. 25 per cent. off list being equivalent to about 12 1/2 per cent. off earnings. The operatives' representatives have themselves offered and recommend a cut of about 6 1/2 per cent. in actual earnings, so that the difference to the individual operative is the difference between about 1s.3d in the pound off present weekly drawings and 2s.6d. in the pound off. What accounts for the stiffness of the opposition to reduction is the already low and precarious earnings of the weavers, and the conviction, universal with the operatives and barely disguised by the employers, that wage reduction of itself will not enable the employers to recover the trade they have lost. At the best, it can only check the rate of further loss of trade.
A Joint Statement
The following are the terms of the joint official communique issued this afternoon jointly by Mr. J.H.Grey, for the employers, and Mr. E.Duxbury, for the operatives:-
"Negotiations on the wages question have continued during the day between the representatives of employers and the Central Board of the Northern Counties Textile Trades Federation. During these discussions the operatives placed the following suggestions before employers:-'Having consulted our executives and received their opinions we now desire to place the following before you. In the hope that our offer to recommend 70 per cent. on list prices, in place of the present 82 1/2 per cent., will end the chaos now existing, restore collective bargaining and agreements to the industry, and end the unfair and foolish competition now going on between employer and employer, we ask you to accept our offer. We do not feel justified in going beyond this offer.'
"In the afternoon a sub-committee representing both sides got together and discussed the whole position informally. During these conversations the employers asked, If they were to improve further their application for 57 1/2 per cent. on list prices to some higher figure, would the operatives be able so to amend their figure that there was a possibility of agreement being reached? The operatives' reply was that they were not able to go beyond the offer of 70 per cent. on list that they had been willing to recommend. After further discussion between the two sides it was agreed that the joint conference should be adjourned until Tuesday afternoon at 2.30 o'clock.
_________________ Mel
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Last edited by Mel on Thu Oct 18, 2007 4:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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