IN one sense the Timex dispute, which rumbles on despite brief hopes

of a settlement, seems a throwback to the strife of the 1970s. It is a

long and bitter dispute which turns back the clock to the days

of violence between police and pickets. But it is also a sign of the

times, a story

of trade union weakness rather than strength, and evidence that the

labour legislation of the 1980s solved some problems only to raise other

ones. Tebbit laws have not provided the perfect ''In Place of Strife''

formula. Fortunately the majority of managements have had the sense not

to try to exercise their new powers to the full. The Timex management

has shown no such restraint. It is true that the Dundee dispute was not

caused directly by the legislation of the 1980s. The right to fire

striking workers, and then to re-engage them selectively, already

existed. But the attrition of the trade union movement, to which the

industrial relations laws significantly contributed, has created a

vacuum into which aggressive managements can move.

Reform, of course, was necessary. The ''winter of discontent'' brought

to a head the public's annoyance with the excessive powers of the

unions, and countless individual union members agreed that the movement

should be made more democratic. But the pendulum has swung too far in

the other direction, with the results that we can now see so plainly in

Dundee. The dispute is a mirror image, rather than a replica, of the

classic conflicts of two decades ago. Scottish Militant has latched on

to the dispute and Mr Scargill addressed the workers last month; but in

essence this is a dispute between a moderate workforce and a militant

management, who unreasonably escalated the conflict by sacking workers

who were demanding only that the proposed lay-offs should be rotated

among them so that the burden could be more fairly spread. As in the

1970s, bad publicity is being created for British industry, but this

time it is the management that is to blame. No-one could cast the AEU

president, Mr Bill Jordan, as a militant, and characteristically he

disapproved of Mr Scargill's visit to Dundee, comparing him to the

captain of the Titanic. The union leadership has also been attempting to

negotiate a peace settlement in talks with company executives and

management, but they can hardly have been expected to recommend the

mean-spirited package offered by Timex and accepted by its alternative

workforce of hourly-paid employees.

The Timex dispute may be exceptional, but it does demonstrate that

opportunities exist for the worst type of American management, and it

demonstrates the enfeebled state of workers' rights -- not just because

of the new laws but also because of the recession, unemployment, and the

growth of part-time jobs. The assumption that union militancy was the

cause of unemployment has been shown to be false. It is poignant that

the Timex dispute has been running parallel with the Maastricht debate.

The Social Chapter would not be sufficient to remedy the ills exposed by

the dispute, some of which point in the direction of a low-wage economy,

but it has a symbolic force. The Government's rejection of it sends an

undesirable message about its attitude to industrial relations. The

priorities will have to change.