Growing Support for D.a.t.a.,

A donation of £200 towards the D.A,T.A. shipbuilding dispute fund has been received from the National Union of Sheet Metal Workers and Coppersmiths,. This follows a donation of £500 from A.S.S.E.T. Full support for the North-East draughtsmen who are affected by a nationwide lock-out of D.A.T.A, members employed in British Shipyards was expressed at the meeting in Newcastle of the emergency committee of the Tyne and Blyth area of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions, Mr, Don Edwards, the Secretary, said:"We expressed our contempt for the shipbuilders! association for their attack on a fully constituted trade union, We are advising our members in the shipbuilding industry not to do any work which involved drawings completed by draughtsmen who are not members of D.A.T.A. in the yards or completed outside the industry." The annual conference of the Clerical and Administrative Workers' Union, meeting during the Easter holiday, decided to donate £250 to the dispute fund of D.A.T.A, This donation follows donations, reported in earlier issues of DATA News, from A.S.S.E.T. and the National Union of Sheet Metal Workers and Coppersmiths, A resolution passed by Coventry Trades Council says industrial relations are being disputed by the locking-out of members of D.A.T.A. - the Draughtsmen's and Allied Technicians' Association-Throughout the shipbuilding industry. It asks for a public enquiry into this and wants Coventry M.P.s to ask the appropriate Ministers what action is being taken “about: shipbuilding firms reported to have made non-membership of a union a condition of employmentcombined with the breaking of employees' contracts of service," Financial support has been given by other unions to the Scottish district of the Draughtsmen's and Allied Technicians' Association in the dispute that has heard of messages of support from the National Union of Railwaymen, A..U. shop stewards in the Glasgow area, the Scottish Commercial Motormen's Union, and the National Union of Mineworkers, The situation over the lock-out of draughtsmen by member firms of the Shipbuilding employers' Federation is an "extremely grave" one. This warning was given in a statement by the Aberdeen. District emergency committee of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Emgineers Unions. The Committee have been given a report on the lock-out by representatives of the Draughtsmen's and Allied Technicians' Association, Eighteen shipyard draughtsmen employed by two Aberdeen firms are affected by the lock-out, The statement also said that the committee felt that the employers - by their action - had widened a local dispute into one affecting every shipbuilding firm in the country. It added that arrangements were heing made for the position to be reported to the shop stewards committee in the Aberdeen shipyards. There has also been a big demand for collection sheets from the Association Thousands of sheets have been issued and collections are being taken in many factories, shipyards, pits and offices, Collecting sheets can be obtained from: D.A.T.A., ONSLOW HALL, LITTLE GREEN, RICHMOND, SURREY,