Posts Tagged With : State of Emergency
New moves on power
New peace moves will made today to end the miners’ and power engineers’ pay rows as Britain enters Day Two of a State of Emergency. Coal Board chiefs will put a three-point offer to union leaders of 270,000 miners this morning .
1. Output bonuses of up to 3 1/3% on work now pay later basis.
2. A threshold agree ment linked to the retail prices index.
3. A reshuffle of the current £44 million offer to give a bigger benefit to the lower paid.
Leaders of 18,000 power engineers who are banning out-of-hours repairs to back their demand for higher payments, are talking with the Electricity Council to explore ways of securing a vetoed agreement giving higher overtime pay inside the rules of Stage Three. The outcome of the talks will be considered at a formal meeting between the two sides next Tuesday.
Crisis plea by Heath
Daily Mail Reporter
The Prime Minister has decided to make a major TV appearance tonight on the ITV programme This Week, to explain the Government’s crisis policies.
Mr Heath is responding to suggestions — like the one in the Daily Mail yesterday—that there is now a vital need for him to speak frankly to the people.
He will also be making a key speech to the Commons next week when he faces a labour motion of no confidence.
It could be that the Government has more shocks in mind after the credit clamp and power emergency. Ministers face pressure to tighten the squeeze even more.
Senior back-benchers were openly predicting yesterday a stiff increase in petrol tax, both as a fuel economy measure and to take more spending out of the public pocket.
Mr Heath feels that he should be seen by the public answering the questions the country wants dealt with both on the State Of Emergency and the shape of the Cabinet’s economic strategy after the shocks of the 13% Bank of England’s minimum lending rate, the squeeze on borrowing and the record trade deficit revealed yesterday.
His aim will be to stress that the basic policy of expansion still lives, however battered by events.
And he will press the Governments case for taking a firm line with the miners after their rejection of a pay offer which could be worth 16.5%.
Clubs, restaurants and cinemas have become early casualties of the Emergency Powers Act, rushed through to combat the fuel and power crisis.
All electric heating and non-essential lighting was switched off at midnight in every shop, office, and entertainment centre.
So far none of the essential services has been hit. Railways, buses, hospitals, fire services and other amenities were operating normally. But every Government building has answered a Ministry demand for a 10% cutback in fuel consumption.
Football League secretary Alan Hardacre also announced that all League games in the country would be brought forward by three- quarters of an hour next Saturday.
