Provided by Les Howard

An award by the Trawler Fishing Industry Joint Industrial Council last week gave the country’s fishermen a wage increase of 1/- a day and three extra days holiday. Mr J P O’Donnell, Fleetwood secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union, which represents the port’s 1200 fishermen, welcomed the awards as a “step in the right direction.”

“Not as much as we expected but pretty fair all round,” was how he summed it up.

The awards came after deadlock had been reached between the trawler owners and the union. The application for more pay and longer holidays had been lodged in June. A month later the trawler owners had offered 9d a day more but no offer on holidays.

The men will now get 24 days annual holiday including seven as compensation for Bank Holidays which crews at sea have to work.
The last award was just over 12 months ago when the men got an extra 1/6 a day plus an extra 6d in the £100 on a vessel’s gross earnings.