BRITAIN 'NOT STRIKE-PRONE’

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32029, 2 July 1969, Page 5

BRITAIN 'NOT STRIKE-PRONE’

Is Britain strike-prone? Not particularly, according to a leading academic authority on industrial relations, Professor H. A. Turner, of Cambridge University.

In a piper, based partly on research carried out by the Department of Applied Economics at Cambridge University, Professor Turner throws a new light on the trend of strikes in Britain and their comparative significance. Among points he makes are: That Britain loses fewer working days through strikes, proportionate to her labour force, than any other major industrialised non-communist country except West Germany. That, contrary to general belief, Britain actually has fewer and not more frequent strikes than other major countries, apart from West Germany. That industrial works managers in Britain are not likely to have to cope with a strike more than once every 20 years on average.

That Britain loses fewer working days proportionately through strikes than her major competitors, except West Germany, emerges from comparative figures published by the International Labour Office. These figures show that Britain lost 190 days per 1000 employees between 1964 and 1966, compared, for instance, with 240 days for Japan and 870 days for the United States. Professor Turner makes the point that the British figures include “a large but unknown figure for lost working time on the part of employees who are laid off at establishments involved in strikes, though they are not themselves strikers.” It is uncertain, adds Professor Turner, to what extent “secondary” working losses of this kind are included in the strike statistics Qf several other countries. Frequency of Strikes On the frequency of strikes, Professor Turner shows that the International Labour Office’s comparative figures, which give Britain

16.8 stoppages per 100,000 employees, compared with 7.6 for Japan and 13.2 for the United States, are to some extent misleading, owing to differences in the way strikes are defined by different countries.

For instance the United States excludes stoppages lasting less than one day, whereas, according to Professor Turner, such stoppages accounted for nearly 40 per cent of officially recorded strikes in Britain during the latest year for which data is available. On the American definition of a strike the United Kingdom would, he estimates, have a strike incidence of 11 stoppages per 100,000 employees between 1964 and 1966—2.2 less than the United States.

Analysing the British figures further, Professor Turner makes the point that the British returns probably include some double counting of stoppages, for instance among dockers, arising from recent changes in reporting machinery. He also points to the probability of there being some under-reporting of strikes in countries where strikes carry legal penalties.

Professor Turner devotes particular attention to the more strike-prone British industries, which “employ one quarter of the British labour force and account for one-third of Britain’s export earnings.” Even among these, he concludes, the loss of working days amounts to less than 1 per cent of normal working time. (British Information Services.)