Work to Misrule
THERE are three good reasons why the de- 1 cision of the post office workers to work to rule was unfortunate. It extends a form of in- dustrial action to a branch of the Civil Service, with all the risks of creating precedents that this implies. It is directed against what, in theory at least, is one of the most sensible of the Govern- ment's policies—the fight against inflation. And if it is successful, it will cause irritation and inconvenience to the general public—only marginally to the Government itself.
Yet before anger with missing letters and fury over delayed telephone connections make us lose all sympathy with the post office workers, let us ruefully admit that the Government had asked for it. The Postmaster-General had made it clear before the dispute began (and has reaffirmed since) that the post office workers' 'wage claims could not be considered except in the abstract. The union might have been able to secure some promise from him of what he would like to award after the pause ended; but even this could not have been a firm offer.
If the pay pause had been ruthlessly but evenly applied, so that all wage-earners throughout the country were in the same boat, the union would almost certainly have accepted this argu- ment. But postmen, trudging their frozen round, can hardly be unaware that in private firms wage increases have been freely granted, wherever an employer has felt able to grant them, since last July. They have presumably also read of the attempts of Equity to secure a higher fee for a poor player doing ohe line in a soap-opera than they can hope to earn in a month. They have seen firms with Conservative MPs on the board announce increased profits, and increased divi- dends to shareholders, in spite of the Chancel- lor's homilies. And—.most important of all— they have seen that electricians in the public service have been able to get a wage increase for no better reason than that they were able to exert pressure where it could hurt most. If electricians, why not telephone operatOrs, or sorters?
The Chancellor, faced with this question, re- plies that for the Government to give orders, and expect them to be obeyed, over the whole range of industry and services in this country, would be a step on the road to Socialism. Agreed; but if no action is taken to prevent wage claims being settled on the basis of expediency, the country's economy will soon be headed down the hardly preferable alternative road to chaos. In any case, nothing could be more likely to lead , to the return of a Socialist Government than the growth of cynicism about the Conservatives' intentions over the pay pause. As it has been ad- ministered so far, the pause gives the outward appearance of being designed to depress the in- comes of State employees (except those with tough bargaining powers), leaving workers in private enterprise to collect the surplus, if any, through the ordinary bargaining processes. This is no way to check inflation; its only result will be to create the kind of resentment that State employees feel in France—something that we have been fortunate to avoid in Britain, so far.
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