London Transport Strike

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25084, 16 January 1947, Page 6

London Transport Strike

As an unofficial strike, which has already spread dangerously far, it is true that the London drivers’ strike has “ disturbing implications ” for the Government and the Transport and General Workers’ Union and represents a challenge to national order and union discipline, as a London message said yesterday; but it should be made clear that these implications and this challenge are disturbing, not because they are new or even unusual, but because the unofficial strike has so frequently presented them since the end of the war. Before the October Trades Union Congress at Brighton, Sir Arthur Pugh, a veteran unionist, chairman of the congress in 1925 and general secretary of the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation from 1917 to 1936, had something to say about the damaging increase and effect of unofficial strikes—damaging, of course, to production, but his emphasis was on their danger to the trade union movement. “ Indefensible ” where adequate machinery exists to deal with legitimate grievances, unofficial strikes for higher pay or greater privilege are “ anti-social, “ tend to undermine the trade union “machinery of collective bargain- “ ing, and bring discredit upon the “ trade union movement lii trades or services upon which the community depends from day to day, Sir Arthur assigned to workers a special responsibility, and deplored a disregard for it which has tended to increase as employment has become more secure. He did not soften his conclusion: “Either “ the unions must secure order and “ discipline in their ranks or face “ the risk of disintegration ”, But he had something more to contribute than a warning. He traced the mischief, in part, to the between-wars tendency in union organisation. During the first world war, as its official historian wrote, “ Whenever the Government sought “ to consult an industry, instead of “ one organisation speaking with a “ single voice, a dozen organisations I “spoke with a dozen voices”. The 1 result was the movement, officially

approved at the 1924 congress, which has since greatly reduced the number of unions and greatly increased their size, not without loss, Sir Arthur believes: The idea that there is virtue in numbers, irrespective of the structure of the organisation and the sphere of its activity, is a fallacy. The smaller well-knit organisation, properly related to and representative of the industry or service concerned, can be more efficient and effective in understanding and dealing with labour questions in the industry than that which claims a roving commission over the whole industrial field. The point is illustrated in the present drivers’ strike, which arose, according to the N.Z.P.A.’s London correspondent, over issues put before the executive of the huge Transport and General Workers’ Union (Mr Ernest Bevin’s creation) three years ago but never taken up. And the point, generally, was considered at Brighton. Three years, before, the T.U.C. Council had been instructed to “examine trade union “structure and report”; and an interim report had indicated the council’s view that trade unionism alone, in a changing world, could not “ retain its pre-war ideas of “ organisation ”, But the report presented and adopted at Brighton left big-union structure intact, without demur from any but delegates of some small unions. Though the power-builders of unionism are tempted to measure power in the size of the card votes they control, the early sequel suggests that Sir Arthur Pugh’s is the wiser belief, and that some devolution in union structure will not disable unionism but restore its organic cohesion.