10 SEPTEMBER 1977, Page 4

Political Commentary

Ward politics

John Grigg

When the Scarman 'court of inquiry' was set up, responsible politicians on all sides hoped that it would lead to a settlement. Unfortunately it has done nothing of the kind. Grunwick is now right back in the headlines and the Scarman report, so far from bringing peace, has itself become the subject of acrid controversy.

George Ward, owner and managing director of Grunwick, has rejected the Scarman recommendations out of hand, describing the whole inquiry as a 'con-trick'. Since he did not commit himself in advance to accept the findings, and since they call for a fundamental change of attitude on his part, it is hardly surprising that his response has been negative. If he were the sort of man who could adapt himself to circumstances and face the necessity for compromise, the dispute would have been over long ago.

But he is not that sort of man, and he is determined that his rather trifling quarrel should be raised to the level of a major constitutional issue. Never, he says, will he 'submit to force and blackmail, which disgraces everything for which Britain has always stood'. And he quotes Bagehot for good measure.

In fact, Britain has stood for flexibility, for give-and-take, and for the acceptance of reality, however distasteful. In that sense the country has made quite a point of submitting to what Mr Ward would call 'force and blackmail', and has thus avoided far worse calamities (such as social revolution, or Vietnam-type colonial wars since 1945). Uncompromising defiance has been reserved for really big occasions and for life-and-death issues.

But Mr Ward is entitled to his view of British history, and if he waints to ruin his firm by taking on the trade union movement nobody has any right to stop him. He is acting, as Scarman readily acknowledged, in accordance with the letter (if not the 'spirit' or 'policy') of the law, and should receive the law's protection to the utmost practical limit. At the same time he should be left in no doubt that there is a limit to what the law on its own can achieve, in a country where the shooting or mass incarceration of trouble-makers is ruled out.

In any case, what may (or may not) be good for Grunwick is not necessarily good for Britain, and still less for the Tory Party.

At the beginning of July I ventured to suggest that it would be disastrous for the Tories to get involved, as a party, in the Grunwick dispute, ostensibly as Mr Ward's champions against APEX and the TUC. If that was true before the Scarman report, it is ten times more so today — because back ing Mr Ward now means not only attacking the trade unions, but also attacking an independent body of a type that Tory governments have often set up in the past and will need to set up again.

It is a fair criticism of the Scarman inquiry that the industrialist on it was from the public sector (British Leyland) rather than from the private sector, and it is absurd for trade union spokesmen to refer to the 'court' as though it were a judicial body—all the more so as trade unionists have not, by and large, been conspicuous lately in their reverence for the law. Nevertheless, Lord Justice Scarman was a chairman whose credentials could hardly be faulted, and the latest report to bear his name is not unworthy of him.

James Prior, shadow employment minister, immediately welcomed its recommendation that the question of reinstatement or compensation for the Grunwick strikers should be settled by a mediator; and he expressed the hope that politicians would meanwhile keep out of the dispute. This sage advice was lost on his colleague, Sir Keith Joseph, who on 1 September delivered a sweeping attack on the Scarman report.

Sir Keith described the report as in various ways `flawed' and 'naive', and in gen eral aligned himself very closely with Mr Ward's comments on it. He ridiculed the idea that any of the strikers might be rein stated — without, apparently, mentioning the alternative suggestion of ex gratia payments based on length of service — and he made much of the loyal workers' hostility to the strikers. The story of Grunwick, in his view, was 'at least as much a struggle between the union and workers who do not want to join a union as it is between a union and an employer'.

It would be hard to oversimplify the issue more grossly. Sir Keith has fallen into the trap which too many critics of unionisation fall into — that of failing to perceive that those 'who do not want to join a union' are, as a rule, willing enough to accept the benefits of union activity. One of many important facts clearly brought to light in the Scarman report (which, apart from its other merits, is both lucid and stylish in its presentation of the facts) concerns rates of pay in the factory before and after the walk-out.

'Prior to the strike' (according to Scarman) 'pay was at the lower end of the rates of pay found in the by no means highly paid industry of photo-finishing', and it was not surprising that since 1974 the work-force had become `increasingly immigrant in character'. But in November 1976 — a few months after the strike began — the company granted a general wage increase of 15 per cent, and in April of this year a further 10 per cent increase was granted. There have also been 'some improvements in holiday and sickness benefits.'

Mr Ward claims that these concessions had nothing whatever to do with the strikers' action, but were made simply to take account of inflation, higher productivity and the non-strikers' loyalty to the firm. Yet Scarman regards them as 'significant' and most fair-minded observers will, surely, be inclined to feel that Mr Ward is deceiving himself. An analogous claim might be that the decision of the Cornhill Insurance Company to put a lot of money into English cricket was in no way influenced by the defection of some of our first-class cricketers to the Kerry Packer circus. And where does common sense point in that instance?

It is naive of Sir Keith to ignore a possible, not to say probable, connection between the strike and the present contentment of those who are employed at Grunwick. And it is even more naive of him to imply, as he does, that Scarman should have recommended that the strikers be neither reinstated nor compensated. Can he seriously believe that such a recommendation would have been more likely to produce a settlement? Besides, whatever the specific merits of the Grunwick affair (which, as Scarman shows, are confused, with right and wrong on both sides), it was essential for Tory leaders not to allow themselves to be dragged into a comprehensive battle with the unions, but rather, on the contrary, to emphasise the local and unrepresentative character of the dispute. Above all, they should have been most careful not to give the unions any pretext for accusing them of sabotaging a settlement by appearing to endorse Mr Ward's rejection of Scarman.

Yet Sir Keith has given them just such a pretext, and his speech must therefore be regarded as a godsend to Labour. If all leading Tories had kept their mouths shut at this stage — or, better still, had followed Mr Prior's intelligent line — the post-Scarman situation woud have developed very much to the Tories' advantage and Labour's embarrassment. There would have been (as there will be) excesses on the union side for which the Tory Party could not have been held remotely responsible, but which it would have been free to condemn from a position of unimpeachable virtue.

If ever a politician was his own worst enemy, it is Sir Keith. Since 1974 he has been caricaturing himself as the hard man of the Tory Party, fanatically devoted to 'principle'. He has thus acquired a reputation which his record in office totally belies, and which to any friend of his must seem ludicrously false. In fact, he is neither a hard man nor an ideologue, but just about the 000site — exceptionally kind-hearted and open-minded — and it would be very sad if his vagaries in opposition were to damage his future prospects. All the same, the interests of the Tory Party demand that his Scarman speec? should be tacitly disowned, and it Is encouraging that none of his shad0W. cabinet colleagues has given it any public support. Above all, it is a great relief that Mrs Thatcher has so far reacted to it and to Scarman — with a reverberating silence.