Industrial Battlefield
Now that the brief break for goodwill is over (and the spend- ing spree which made the Labour assertion that the cost of living is away ahead of wages look rather silly), the engineering dispute is moving swiftly into crisis. It remains to be seen, whether the Minister of Labour can by his intervention avert an all-out industrial battle which would certainly have the most disastrous consequences for the British economy. The decision which the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions reached on December 23rd was that unless the employers capitulated and granted the fifteen per cent. increase demanded, a ban on overtime and a strict limitation of piece- work should begin on January 18th. It looks as, if the employers, in their discussions with the Minister, are standing firm. They say simply, and rightly, that in the face of harden- ing foreign competition the industry cannot afford increased costs. They deny the unions' argument that employees have not had a fair share of the benefits resulting from higher productivity. The unions' other argument certainly does not stand up to examination. They say that wages have failed to keep pace with the cost of living; but for several months now the cost of living has been stable, and this, as Professor Paish has convincingly argued, together with the fact that the engineering workers have received one of the largest averaggi rises in real earnings since 1949, niakes the demand for a fifteen per cent. increase, or even a much smaller one, difficult to justify. Productivity is the key, and it is to increases in this that wage increases must be geared. And the job of increasing productivity is one for the employees as well as the employers. What is being demanded at the moment is more money (much more) for the same work, and in the circum- stances the impossibility of giving way is clear—unless the. .question is looked at from the point of view of the Communist, World Federation of Trade Unions. The engineers' campaign fits perfectly into the wrecking programme announced by the WFTU some months ago.
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