The strike by 100,000 workers at the government-owned British Steel Corporation (BSC), which produces more than 85 percent of the country’s output, is the first national strike by steelworkers since the 1926 general strike by all workers in Britain.

Key issues in the strike are jobs and wages.

The workers, organized mainly by the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation, are demanding a wage raise of 20 percent to keep up with the 17.5 percent rate of inflation. The maximum that the BSC has offered is 8 percent (originally only 2 percent!), with an additional 4 percent linked to productivity increases.

The issue of jobs, however, is even more crucial for the steelworkers. The BSC is pressing to eliminate 52,000 jobs, a third of the total work force. With only 152,000 jobs now existing in steel, a decline from the 1965 total of 317,000, this looms as a stunning blow.  
 
March 7, 1955
DETROIT—Every 48 seconds a new car rolls off the assembly line here at Ford’s giant Rouge plant in the current production race between the Big Three in auto. Total weekly production for the industry rose above 190,000 last week, coming within 6,000 of the all-time high set in 1950.

At the present production rate the total 1955 output forecast by the auto corporations will be completed rather early in the year. The lay-offs that can then be expected bring into view the possibility of yet another new record for Detroit: a rise in 1955 unemployment above the 200,000 peak reached last year.

Existing unemployment in the city is due in part to an expanding labor force. Young people graduating from school and veterans who have finished their hitch in the armed forces enter the labor market looking for jobs. Workers drift into Detroit from other regions, especially the south, seeking employment in auto.

To get rid of those who drift into the city the Welfare Department last year offered applicants for public relief one-way tickets back to wherever they came from.  
 
 
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