Word: slowdown
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...afternoon tea, by candlelight. Millions of homes were without heat, electricity or hot water for long periods, and whole areas of London resembled the capital during the wartime blitz. Darkness and gloom had descended on Britain because 125,000 Electrical Trades Union (E.T.U.) workers had decided to stage a slowdown. It was so effective that at any given moment during the week a quarter of Britain was without electricity...
...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...
...April 1969, when the Administration was just setting out to fight inflation, the consumer price index was rising at an alarming rate of 7.2% a year. As a result of purposeful policies of slowdown since then, the nation's factories have been forced to pare production 5½%, and stock and bond markets have shuddered through their worst crisis in three decades. The jobless rate, which was 3.5% then, jumped last week to 5.8% as the November figures were issued?the highest monthly level since 1963. All together, 4,600,000 Americans are out of work, and 21% of the people...
...growing economic importance of the service trades. Wages in the services tend to keep pace with manufacturing wages, but service productivity does not. It is much harder to increase the output of a fireman or hospital attendant than of a steelworker. In addition, it takes a severe slowdown in the economy to reduce demand for services. A family...