TNAG-0125-FCO40-161-Labour-force-working-conditions-1969 — Page 172

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ECONOMIST

Cutting dated

15 FEB 1988

1969

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The unions: farce unbounded

If it weren't so sad it would be funny; Britain's steel industry is facing crippling strikes because two groups of unions, white-collar and manual workers', are competing for the right to organise men, most of whom are not in any union and have no intention of joining one. The major union involved, the 100,000- .member Iron and Steel Trades' Confed- eration, has not had a strike for 50 years -the general strike excepted--and what could otherwise be projected as a classic power struggle between white and blue- collar unions begins to fray at the edges.

Even Mrs Barbara Castle is not pre- pared to take sides. While Lord Pearson, the judge selected by her predecessor, Mr Ray Gunter, to assess the rivals' claims, found for the two white-collar unions, Mr George Woodcock and the TUC's other worthies have come out in favour of the six manual unions. And back at the steel mills, the British Steel Corpora- tion, which cannot make up its mind which side to support, lugubriously estimates that less than half the 9,000 foreman-level employees involved are in any union or want to join one. It is thought, however, that since the dispute began, 18 months ago, the principal champion of the white-collar unions, Mr Clive Jenkins of the Association of Scientific, Technical, and Managerial Staffs, has increased his steel mills membership threefold.

Mrs Castle has got out from under by saying that she has no statutory right to decide such a dispute, although she had exhausted every method of concilia- tion between the two sides. But no such

escape is possible for the BSC chairman, Lord Melchett, or his £16,000 a year labour relations boss, Mr Ron Smith, who until his appointment was himself leader of the Post Office Workers' Union and a member of the TUC's general council.

Then on Tuesday the 1,600 women i workers in the Ford car factories were offered the same wage rates as men and another joke was born. Twenty unions negotiating for Ford's 46,750 men and women workers claimed it a victory for women's rights. But equal pay will not be given until the women work the same overtime and night shifts as the nien. And

this means that the equal pay cannot be given, because the Factories Act imposes a series of restrictions on the use of women workers, such as their being unable to work after 8 p.m. on weekdays or I p.m. on Saturdays.

Two years ago, a sub-committee of the National Joint Advisory Council was asked by the then Minister of Labour to investigate how these regulations could be changed. But the NJAC has not yet reported. Out of a total of 2,667,000 women workers employed in productive industries, only 4.4 per cent (117,286) are covered by the special exemption orders

which the Factories Act makes necessary if a woman is to be allowed to work during The the men-only times in factories. Ford ladies may have gained a principle but they certainly haven't gained any more money-at least not until Mrs Castle's two-year long investigation presents a suitable report and it is acted

on.

For the connoisseur of the well-matured industrial dispute, there is the Vickers shipyard who-does-what-dispute. After a seven-month quarrel about whether members of the plumbers' or the engineers' union should test pipes on nuclear submarines, Mrs Castle is appoint- ing an official court of inquiry to adjudi- cate which union should plumb the pipes. But if the steel dispute is any guide, there would seem to be precious little hope that the 12,000 workers at the Barrow-in- Furness yard of Vickers need accept the court's findings, if it goes against what they are prepared to accept.

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