Stubbornness in Durham
The chairman of the Durham County Council, speaking about the Council's dispute with the National Union of 'teachers on the closed shop issue, is reported as saying: " I do not think County Durham will ever climb down." It is becom- ing clearer all the time that that statement is the key to the whole situation. Right and wrong are secondary considera- tions. The N.U.T. and other associations of professional workers have pointed out repeatedly that they do not wish to have a closed shop policy forced upon them by the Durham County Council. Their right to take this reasonable line can- not be questioned. Neither can their decision to hand in the resignations of some 4,000 of their members, in protest against the despicable trick of the County Council of requiring that applications for extended sick pay should be made through a trade union. Far from being unreasonable, the teachers have offered to compromise on this question, and to agree to the sponsoring of such applications by employees of the same pro- fession as the applicant, though the sponsor need no necessarily be a member of a union. The Council's emergency committee, set up to consider closed shop questions, actually recommended the acceptance of this compromise. But the ful Labour group on the Council turned it down. The Couno must know that it is in the wrong. But it will not " dint down." It is time the Durham Councillors realised that I -they stopped interfering with their .employees' freedom the would be climbing not down but up in the public's estimation
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