THE PRESS THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1980. Fuel supply crisis

Press, 27 November 1980, Page 20

THE PRESS THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1980. Fuel supply crisis

The purpose of industrial action is to bring pressure to bear so that a dispute or disagreement is settled to the advantage of the group taking that action. The pressures which the unions and employers who are parties to the oil industry dispute are using in an attempt to sway the other are now, however, being felt less by the opposing parties than by the public and others, notably service station owners, who are in fact helpless to resolve the industrial questions which are at issue in the dispute.

For many caught in the middle of this dispute, the situation is fast becoming critical. Many service station owners are facing crippling losses: for the public, inconvenience is fast giving way to real hardship and loss as an inability to get to work, no milk, no taxis and possibly, before long, lay-offs and suspensions become more and more likely. Some essential health services are close to being in jeopardy. The Government may have been hesitant to step in so far in part from a fear that a heavy Government hand could provoke a more serious showdown and spread the disruption to other sectors of the economy. It may also have been hesitating because the effects of the dispute have not been felt everywhere.

It now seems hopeful that the dispute will be swiftly resolved without

the Government’s having to step in. The city is certainly close enough to the brink that if these hopes are dashed this morning, the Government should hesitate no longer. The mood of the public appears strongly to favour some action to bring the parties to the dispute to a solution. The unions, in particular. should be thinking very carefully about how best to put pressure on the employers rather than use the crude weapon of hurting the public. Public reaction is likely to play, eventually, into the employers’ hands, even if the employers have been in part responsible for the turn of certain events. Taking action little likely’ to sway the employers before the public is badly hurt does the individual unions concerned, and the union movement as a whole, serious harm. Creating public hostility towards the unions will, in the long run, far outweigh any temporary advantage to be gained from holding the public to ransom.

The best outcome to the dispute would certainly be for both parties concerned to recognise that their militancy is, by and large, self-defeating and to moderate their conduct so that the dispute can be resolved through normal industrial channels. Failing this, the Government must intervene and use whichever one of the several options open to it seems most likely to bring this disruption to a swift end.