Strikes Ahead
No doubt the executive of the National Union of Railway- men imagines that it is impressing the rank and file by refusing to call off the threatened strike pending the court of inquiry's decision. To everybody else this attitude looks like bluff and bluster. So does the announcement that it will listen to the court only if the court finds in its favour. To 'accept' con- ciliation in this heads-we-win, tails-you-lose manner is not the best way to ensure public good will. As for the other threats to industrial peace, it is less easy to be definite. On the evidence It certainly looks as if British European Airways were right to act as they did in refusing to countenance mob rule.' It is difficult to feel sympathy with Mr. Peters; shop stewards who exceed their functions must be taught their place. But does not the manner of the teaching leave something to be desired ? Mr. Peter Masefield sounds like a headmaster threatening the whole school with detention because some of the boys have been difficult. They have—but why Can it be that BEA's much praised labour relations system does not create good will in the company, but instead serves Only to mask the lacic of it ? The case of the Standard Motor Co. workers has similar features. The employers evidently received gross provocation, but is it possible that the shop stewards' attitude may have been a symptom, as well as a cause, of the prevalent ill-will ? However that may be, the management has had no alternative but to insist on its right to manage, to establish the principle that it has the right to manage its own factories and that when management decisions are made they must be observed.' To yield to factory-floor lawyers would be to invite industrial anarchy.
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