Mr. Feather please stand up?
1970Martin ZarropTrade union leaders and the TUC Read the scan at ETOL (PDF) →Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: headlines and words can be misread, and a caption or advert can run into the text. For anything you quote, read the scan.
IT IS exactly one year to the day since the Trade Union Congress made its 'solemn and binding agreement' with the Labour government to police the trade unions.
This fact was somehow lost amongst the welter of statistics rolled out by TUC secretary Vic Feather during his speech in support of Mitcham's Labour candidate.
'In industry, just as in life generally in Britain, we are very peaceful people, he said.
'Canada's losses through strikes are four times as bad as ours. But they also have a lot of law. India's three times. Ireland's four-and-half times.' Feather's argument for the return of a Labour government was support for voluntary wage restraint.
Minefield
The Tories do not 'understand the sensitive human and economic problems that crop up as soon as you step into the field of industrial relations. It's like walking through a minefield', he said.
"The unions are doing more reform, voluntarily, by do-ityourself methods in Britain. other institution •.. In the engineering industry [it is] the employers who are resisting being dragged away from the 1920s.
Yes, it was the same Vic Feather who told the Manchester Institute of Directors last October :
'Merseyside is getting an unwelcome reputation for unnecessary stoppages of work ... this atmosphere is making an impact on the minds of manufacturers who otherwise would be glad to start and develop in the North-West.' Will the réal Mr Vic Feather please stand up?