1 614 We are reproducing below an editorial from the Financial Timos of the 26th May, concerning the recent docisions of various Trade Union loadors to oall off scheduled strikes. We do this as a contribution to discussions secking to analyse the reasons for this. "Or g¢anised labour is passing uneasily through a period of change, It scems unlikely that the annnal trade union conferences, which are in full swing at present, will succeed this yoar in defining attitude s or even expressing a common mood, Tako as an obvious striking example of what is happening, the motor industry, On one hand, practically overy firm in the country is boing troubled or has boon troubled by unofficial strikes, On the other, the members of the Transport and General Workers Umion employed at Fords have just refused to strike over the 17 dismissed trouble meakors whom the manage~ment is unwilling to re-instate. Which of these attitudes, a readiness to strike on trivial protexts, or a rejection of militancy, is more reprosconit~ ativs 7 "The behaviour of the Ford workers is probably more representative and is 6ertginly moro significant, Tho 7,9.”.U. hase led the other unions from the beginning in an opposition on pranciple to sne Nord managemont's attitudes if it had come out wholeheartedly now in favour of a strike, some of the other 21 would have been regdy to follow, But a majority of the Ford workers in favour of 2 strike could not be found, even among the 206 of T,G.WUe workers who attended Sunday's meeting, It is not difficult to suggest. reasons for this failyura -— boredom with a long record of sterile disputes, the approach of the summer holidays, a wish to make the most out of the motor boom while it lasts, EIut it as public and i,portant aTrcmdiation of conventional militancy by ordinary members of T.C.W.U. as members of the engine ,ring unions showed las} year in refusing to strike for a substantial increase in pay. "Tt may well be Mr, Frank Cousins and Mr. William Carron were both secretly relieved at the result’of their votes: it is not pleasant for a union leader to call a strike which, he suspects, will only be given half-hearted support by his ‘members, Official strikes seem definitely .to be out of fashion for the moment. iiven the exceptional case of the rai-woy'nen fits into a general leaders to drop their threat of a strike, and they did so with an obvious relief as soon as concessions were offered, The roluctance to strike may be due to the effect of recent unemploynomt, tut it is also partly due, without mich doubt to the approach of a general election, "The unions have always said that they could work more easily with Labour, The possibllity that this declaration may soon be tosted makes for a subdued mood, Trare seems little point at the moment in making rude noises about Conservatiyo attempts to introduce an incomes policy, The presant tendency to call tur long-term contracts, better redundanot treatment ani shorter working hours instead of immediate and substantial wage increases is one symptom of a chinmge in the industrial climate, A more important symptom is the T,U.C. decision to reviow the purposes and structure of the union movment in the 60! se "The practical nosult of this reviow will be pain‘tils: the idea of having one union per industry has already been rejected, and there is not much enthusiasm about the idea for mergers between unions anf the transfer of gre-cter power over members to the TU Ce The question raised by the spate ef unofficial stikes in the motor industry is how far union leadera will be able, whatever the colour of governtont , to reconcile an incomes policy with control of their members," a
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