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.
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