Management and Workers
The Minister of Fuel and Power, Mr. Hugh Gaitskell, addressing a not conspicuously friendly audience at the annual conference of the Electrical Trades Union on Tuesday, laid down a principle which it is of the highest importance to observe in all the nationalised indus- tries. There could, he said, be no direct representation of the workers on boards of management. That does not mean, it is essential to realise, that no man can be promoted from manual work to management. It is to be hoped that many can. But managers have to do a managerial job; and in that capacity they may often have to resist demands from the workers. They must be prepared to do that, workers though they have been themselves. The fact of their experience of manual work, and the understanding it gives them of the workers' difficulties and needs, will make them all the better managers. But the soundness of Mr. Gaitskell's main thesis- is incontestable, and it is well that it should be stated so unequivocally.
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