The N.U.R. versus the People
The only redeeming feature of the national go-slow strike which has been threatened by the National Union of Railwaymen for midnight on Sunday is that it will confront the strikers with the British public, against whom they are striking. It is useless for the officials of the N.U.R. to pretend that their real opponents are a few men at the headquarters of the Railway Executive. The official policy of the Government is to keep down wage demands in the interest of the economy as a whole. This policy is accepted as just by the vast majority of the people and it is respected, however unwillingly, by most of the trade unions, including the railwaymen's unions other than the N.U.R. The particular claim for tos. a week extra and payment at overtime rates for Saturday afternoon work would cost, if granted, £26,000,000 a year and be beyond the resources of the Railway Executive. That is NI say it. would have to be paid by the taxpayers, for a further rise in rail charges would almost certainly lead to a fall in total railway income. What is more, the claim ignores the fact that the relief of a perfectly real hardship—that at present borne by the lowest-paid grades of railwaymen—is being prevented by the insistence of the N.U.R. that all must be treated alike. Justice, government, economic reality and railway solvency are all defied in the interest of an ignorant minority. The N.U.R. has dropped even the pretence that nationalisation entails duties as well as rights for its members, and uses it only as an excuse for ministering to Mg
megalomania of its officials, who are apparently never to be content until they have dragged the Prime Minister into their miserable dispute. The bars excuse that " working-to-rule " is not a strike will not last long if next Monday railway passengers arc faced with the spectacle of railwaymen methodically subjecting them to incon- venience and wasteful delay. That would be a strike of the most blatant kind. If it attained its object it will be a short-lived success for the N.U.R. and the beginning of a long-drawn-out disaster for the country as a whole.
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